The gift of insight!

Albert Bogle January 23, 2026 0 0

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Hebrews 2: 14-18 (NIV-UK)

14 Since the children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity so that by his death he might break the power of him who holds the power of death – that is, the devil – 15 and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death. 16 For surely it is not angels he helps, but Abraham’s descendants. 17 For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way, in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people. 18 Because he himself suffered when he was tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.

There is something deeply profound to be learned about the nature of God at the ‘Gift Table’. It is this, at the heart of God there is humanity. God was in Jesus Christ reconciling humankind to himself. God became one of us, in order to know our frailty and to restore our true knowledge of self. He did this by becoming one of us, and by defeating death the one great fear of humanity.

In today’s passage the writer of the Hebrews seeks to explore the spiritual battle that goes on transforming an individual into a person. You see at the heart of sin and the devil is the ‘I” of life, but individualism has no eternal future, it always leads to death. Evil seeks to distort the creation by making humanity believe we come first. The sin of Adam and Eve was the ‘I’ to be found in the centre of the word. The redemption of Adam and Eve was that and God was willing to become sin in order that the ‘I’  the sin of humanity might be crossed out through suffering  — and a community of persons be born into an eternal community of grace.

As we gather around the table we get insight into our need and also into God’s great love and compassion. In the words of Burns’ “o wad some pow’r the gift tie us, to see ourself as others see us” — that’s what happens at the gift table. But more because we are given the gift to see ourselves as God sees us, that changes everything. God who became one of us so that the many might be made one with him, brings about our atonement and redemption. All this means that God knows how to restore you to yourself because God knows what it is to be human. What an amazing gift insight brings for those who sit around the table to encounter.

A Prayer:

Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

You never cease to amaze us.

You turn the gift table into a mirror on the soul 

You give us insight into the destructive nature of our egos

What we once were: ‘wanna-be’ gods — 

Individuals living for our own pleasure

Worshipping ourselves in the mirror

Yet searching to be free from the slavery of our past

Held in bondage to death yet longing to be eternal

Your table, your Word is the mirror of transformation

You invite us to ‘Come and see’, see ourselves as we are

But to see ourselves transformed at the gift table