Kansas City, Missouri, United States - Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - "His Crown of Glory, Death’s Defeat" Thursday, 8 January 2015 - Scripture: Hebrews 2:1-9

Kansas City, Missouri, United States - Reflecting God – Embrace Holy Living - "His Crown of Glory, Death’s Defeat" Thursday, 8 January 2015 - Scripture: Hebrews 2:1-4 It’s crucial that we keep a firm grip on what we’ve heard so that we don’t drift off. If the old message delivered by the angels was valid and nobody got away with anything, do you think we can risk neglecting this latest message, this magnificent salvation? First of all, it was delivered in person by the Master, then accurately passed on to us by those who heard it from him. All the while God was validating it with gifts through the Holy Spirit, all sorts of signs and miracles, as he saw fit.
The Salvation Pioneer
5-9 God didn’t put angels in charge of this business of salvation that we’re dealing with here. It says in Scripture,
What is man and woman that you bother with them;
    why take a second look their way?
You made them not quite as high as angels,
    bright with Eden’s dawn light;
Then you put them in charge
    of your entire handcrafted world.
When God put them in charge of everything, nothing was excluded. But we don’t see it yet, don’t see everything under human jurisdiction. What we do see is Jesus, made “not quite as high as angels,” and then, through the experience of death, crowned so much higher than any angel, with a glory “bright with Eden’s dawn light.” In that death, by God’s grace, he fully experienced death in every person’s place.
"His Crown of Glory, Death’s Defeat" by Stephen Mayes
John Mason Neale translated the hymn “The Day of Resurrection” by St. John of Damascus, an early Greek poet. Dr. Neale shared how the hymn is used by Greek Christians. As midnight draws near the archbishop and dignitaries take their places on the platform. The atmosphere is electric with anticipation. The priests continue chanting in low, melancholy half whispers. Suddenly, there is a cannon blast: Twelve o’clock. The celebrated “Day of Resurrection” has begun! The elderly archbishop lifts the cross with a loud triumphant cry, “Christos anesti!” Every person gathered takes up the cry, the mournful silence was broken: “Christ is risen!” The darkness that once laid like a shroud breaks with “a blaze of light from thousands of tapers which, communicating to one from another, seemed to send streams of fire in all directions.” Then the priests chant “forth the glorious old hymn of victory, . . . loud and clear to tell the world how ‘Christ is risen from the dead,’ having trampled death beneath His feet.”*
*Amos R. Wells, A Treasury of Hymn Stories: Brief Biographies of 120 Hymnwriters with Their Best Hymns, Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1992, 172-175.
Hymn for Today:
“The Day of Resurrection” by John of Damascus; translated by John Mason Neale
1. The day of resurrection! 
Earth, tell it out abroad; 
the passover of gladness, 
the passover of God. 
From death to life eternal, 
from earth unto the sky, 
our Christ hath brought us over, 
with hymns of victory. 
2. Our hearts be pure from evil, 
that we may see aright 
the Lord in rays eternal 
of resurrection light; 
and listening to his accents, 
may hear, so calm and plain, 
his own "All hail!" and, hearing, 
may raise the victor strain. 
3. Now let the heavens be joyful! 
Let earth the song begin! 
Let the round world keep triumph, 
and all that is therein! 
Let all things seen and unseen 
their notes in gladness blend, 
for Christ the Lord hath risen, 

our joy that hath no end. 
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