Hebrews 5:7-10 (NIV): During the days of Jesus’ life on earth, he offered up prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears to the one who could save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a son, he learned obedience from what he suffered and, once made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him and was designated by God to be high priest in the order of Melchizedek.
Most people never think of Jesus as having to learn anything. They figure that He was 100% God, so He came from the womb fully educated. But when Jesus came from the womb, He also came fully human. He had to learn everything – how to eat, how to talk, how to do arithmetic (the Creator of the universe had to learn that 2+2=4!). He had to learn and memorize Scripture. And He had to learn to obey His Father every moment of every day. He was an apt student who applied Himself vigorously to His studies, and who never sinned, never willfully disobeyed any command. But He had to learn submission and obedience to God’s will just like everyone else. Otherwise, He could never be a model for “normal” people, just an ideal that could be thought about but never approached. Jesus, though fully God, was also 100% human from the beginning. And because He had to learn, just like all of us, because He had to grow, just like all of us, because He had to be obedient, just like all of us, He was the perfect representative for all of us on the cross.
Father, I praise You for sending such a Savior as Jesus – not some high and mighty king, too exalted and too busy to bother with a poor sinner like me. But someone who has lived a real human life, and can live His real, sinless, human life in us, so that we can live His real, sinless, human life among others. Amen.