Tuesday of the First Week of Ordinary Time, January 10, 2022

Hebrews 2, 5-12

It was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. Instead, someone has testified somewhere: “What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels; you crowned him with glory and honor, subjecting all things under his feet.”  In “subjecting” all things to him, he left nothing not “subject to him.” Yet at present we do not see “all things subject to him,” but we do see Jesus “crowned with glory and honor” because he suffered death, he who “for a little while” was made “lower than the angels,” that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting that he, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering. He who consecrates and those who are being consecrated all have one origin. Therefore, he is not ashamed to call them “brothers” saying: “I will proclaim your name to my brethren, in the midst of the assembly I will praise you.”

For the next three weeks the Church will use excerpts from the Letter to the Hebrews for the First Readings at Mass.  The author of this Letter sets before us a marvelous, cohesive teaching on Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the eternal High Priest.  He also presents teaching on intercessory prayer, the nature of sacrifice, and the meaning of faith.  Unlike the other Apostolic Letters collected into the New Testament, this Letter takes the form of a short treatise or homily.  Less personable than St. Paul’s Letters, it contains no greeting and mentions no names and almost no personal references so that its author cannot be readily determined.  In the West, it has generally been thought of as a Letter by St. Paul, though modern scholarship challenges this idea.  Authors proposed instead include St. Barnabas, and St. Luke, the author of the Gospel, though no real evidence exists for these claims.  Clearly, the author is a staunch Christian, a former Jew and perhaps a Pharisee or Jewish priest due to his knowledge of the Scriptures and also his appreciation for the details of Temple worship.  This in turn allows us to consider the Jewish Christian community at Jerusalem as the author’s primary audience.  And because the author speaks of the worship at the Temple as ongoing, the date for the writing of the Letter must have been somewhat before the destruction of the Temple in 70 A.D.  This Letter was written in a very fine Greek style with a wide vocabulary, attesting to the learning possessed by the author.  The author has as his purpose demonstrating the superiority of the New Covenant, mediated by the Jesus Christ, to the Old, mediated by the angels.  This superiority is shown by the Sacrifice of the Son of God on the Cross, which inaugurates it, as opposed to the sacrifices of animals which attended the making of the Old Covenant.  Following this line of reasoning, it is clear that the author is explaining to his audience that it was no longer necessary or even fitting for them to attend the worship in the Temple, as the first generation of Judean Christians did (cf. Acts 3, 1).

“What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man that you care for him?”  Curiously, the author, otherwise quite secure with the Scriptures, does not recall that this well-known verse is found in Psalm 8.  His point remains valid, though: one would think that nothing could surpass a covenant mediated by the angels.  Who else could mediate a covenant with God?  Surely, not sinful  humans.  But it was the Son of God who assumed a human nature who could do this.  Through his human nature, he became lower than the angels, but his Godhood raised it up.

“We do not see “all things subject to him.”  All things indeed are made subject to him in that he rules all things, even the rebellious men, women, and angels who disturb the peace of those who would live in peace.  Their wills may never align with his, but they cannot escape his power, as the just will see at the Last Judgment.

“For it was fitting that he, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the leader to their salvation perfect through suffering.”  We might wonder what it means that Jesus was made “perfect through suffering”.  The Greek word translated here as “perfect” is an active infinitive complementing the verb “it is fitting”.  Here the phrase has the sense of “made him complete”.  The Lord entered every stage of human existence including death, in which he greatly suffered.  He experienced all that a man can experience except sin, and this he took on himself to such a degree that St. Paul could say “Him, who knew no sin, he [the Father] has made sin for us, that we might be made the justice of God in him. ” (2 Corinthians 5, 21).

We give thanks to Almighty God for the New Covenant in the Blood of Jesus through which all who belong to it are saved, and pray for the conversion of all.