Reading: Hebrews 1:1-14
Speaker: Paul McCabe
This Week’s Thoughts
They were doomed the moment their oxygen tanks exploded. Apollo 13 just didn’t know it yet…
Some of us remember watching the story unfold on the news back in 1970. I expect most of us have seen the movie. Either way, Apollo 13 gave good credence to unlucky numbers and almost saw 3 brave NASA astronauts fail their mission and die in space.
56 hours into their mission to the Moon, Apollo 13’s oxygen tanks had exploded. All hope seemed lost for a safe return. Then a plan was hatched. Why not use the Moon’s gravity to bend the crippled spacecraft’s path into a figure-8 loop? This would give the necessary velocity to return the crew to Earth under limited power.
The slingshot manoeuvre worked! The crew fired the Lunar Module’s engine just enough to adjust their trajectory and the Moon’s gravity did the rest, increasing their speed and ensuring they crash-landed safely in the Pacific Ocean. Funnily enough, I was reminded of this famous slingshot manoeuvre as I read Hebrews 2. I was seeing the many reasons why Jesus is greater than angels, then the author said:
“Jesus, who for a little while was given a position ‘a little lower than the angels’; and because He suffered death for us, He is now ‘crowned with glory and honour.’ Yes, by God’s grace, Jesus tasted death for everyone” (2:9). Is this not the most wonderful account of Christ’s incarnation and atonement? It is not light reading, so the author helps clarify himself, saying: “God, for whom and through whom everything was made, chose to bring many children into glory. And it was only right that He should make Jesus, through His suffering, a perfect leader, fit to bring them into their salvation” (2:10).
Can you see why this reminded me of Apollo 13’s slingshot? Just as their little Lunar Module left Earth and swung around the Moon to return home, crowned as heroes, so Christ left heaven, dwelled and suffered on Earth, then rocketed back to heaven, the ultimate hero and redeemer. Jesus’ salvation mission stands out among many reasons why He is superior to angels. For angels can’t fathom God’s plan of redemption. This is why, when prophets saw the sufferings of Messiah and the glory to come, angels actually longed to look into these things (1 Peter 10-12).
It is Christ’s descent to live among His creation that marks Him out as unique. It was His humbling life and humiliating death that tricked Satan into thinking he had won, when in fact it was Christ who was already exalted as He bled and died for all. Jesus is King; angels are sent as servants. There is only one King; there are many servant angels. Christ is King over the church; angels do His bidding for the church. See the difference?
Jesus is in another league; another dimension to angels. He left heaven, did a slingshot manoeuvre to get back, and in the process He saved us all. As Hebrews says: “Because God’s children are human beings – made of flesh and blood – the Son also became flesh and blood. For only as a human being could He die, and only by dying could He break the power of the devil, who had the power of death. Only in this way could He set free all who have lived their lives as slaves to the fear of dying” (Hebrews 2:14-15).