....he is not ashamed to call them “brothers.”
Hebrews 2:11
Jesus, our Brother. Our Lord Jesus has many titles, but let’s consider the preciousness of this brotherly title... you and I get to be a brother or a sister of Jesus because God joined himself to humanity.
This Sunday, the author of the Epistle to the Hebrews dramatically reminds us that Jesus is the Son of God, him “for whom and through whom all things exist” (v. 10). And in God’s great plan to redeem us, Jesus had to become one of us. He saves us through this lowering of himself to share our human nature (while still being divine, of course). And by this great joining of his life to ours, Jesus brought us into his own family, making us sisters and brothers of the Father. And for that reason he is not ashamed of this joining to humanity, no, he is overjoyed that we are part of the family of God. His holy life, death and resurrection makes him the first Brother of many “children of glory” (v.10).
The Incarnation of Christ—the joining of God taking on human flesh— is key to understanding the beauty of God’s plan. We not only gain a Savior who conquers sin, death, and the devil for our sakes, we get a big Brother and an Almighty Father who draw us in as sharers of their divine life.
This Sunday’s Liturgy of the Word also reveals the origins of marriage in Genesis, and Jesus’ Gospel on the permanence of marriage (Mark 10:2:12). You might recognize Jesus’ teaching: “...what God has joined together, no human being must separate” (Mark 10:9). Let us take those same words of Jesus and see them through the lens of the Incarnation and God’s plan. What God has joined together—himself and human nature—is a most glorious thing and it will remain for eternity. Jesus’ Gospel message not only offers a call for marriages to strive for continual union, but a deeper call for each of us. Let us draw nearer to this loving Brother, and never be tempted to separate ourselves from communion with him.
Jesus, Good Brother, help me to have confidence in God’s good plan for my life. May it deepen my understanding and my connection to you and all you have done for me. Let me never be separated from you.
