Fifth Sunday in Lent

Hebrews 5:5-10 - So Christ also did not take upon himself the glory of becoming a high priest. But God said to him, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.” And he says in another place, “You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek.” 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.

So Jesus as High Priest isn’t one of the motifs we typically go to in the modern American church

Not a lot of worship songs about it

It’s hard to rhyme with Melchizedek

But I think we can find some comfort in the idea this morning that Jesus is the ultimate High Priest

bridging the human and divine

offering himself as sacrifice for us

always interceding for us

and doing so with empathy

because he is in that role we are able to approach God with confidence and find mercy

Let’s briefly look at the context of the passage

We do not know who wrote the book of Hebrews

But it’s utterly brilliant and incredibly layered

All theology is contextual in that whenever we are trying to make sense of LOFTY theological truths we’re always using the language and reference points that make sense to us at the time

What that author of Hebrews does is take the common understanding of the Jewish law and show how it all points to what Jesus ultimately came to do

Hebrews 10:1 - The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming—not the realities themselves.

The Temple sacrifices, the role of the priest, all of it was a shadow of the real thing, a metaphor of sorts

Jesus is the real thing that it was all preparing us for

Among the OT truths the author uses as a metaphor is this guy Melchizedek

He is a super mysterious figure that comes out of no where in Genesis 14.

His name means King of Righteousness

And we’re told he was the King of Salem, which means King of Peace

And we’re told that HE was a High Priest of God

He blesses Abraham and Abraham gives him a tenth of all he has

You can see how the author of Hebrews would take this imagery to show who Jesus is

Jesus is the real King of Righteousness

Jesus is the real King of Peace

and Jesus is the ultimate expression of a High Priest

In Jesus we are blessed and offer him sacrifice and praise

NOW

As dense as the book of Hebrews is, it’s not a theological treatise.

It’s pastoral, meant to be an encouragement to a group of people, connecting some dots and bolstering their faith

The image of Jesus as High Priest might offer encouragement to second century Jews but maybe it’s a little opaque to us

It’s not an obvious reference point like Father

Even King makes little more sense to us

But the high priest was a key figure in the life and worship of the Jewish people

He was a human being who stood at the connection point between the divine and human realms

He was the one who acted as mediator of the covenant between God and his people, bringing the sacrifices of the people to God

He was the one who facilitated worship in the Temple

In the Temple there were successive courts and rooms that culminated in what is called the Holy of Holies

In the original Temple this is where the ark of the covenant was and thus is was the place where God dwelt with his people

It was separated by a thick curtain or veil and no one went in there except for the priest, once a year, on the day of atonement, where he would offer the blood of a bull sacrifice for the sins of the people

So it was the High Priest who was permitted to approach God’s presence and make offerings to reconcile the people to God

You making those connections in your mind?

Enter Jesus, the true High Priest

But it’s not just that Jesus has taken the baton of the role to keep the tradition alive

It’s that Jesus fulfills that role in a unique and complete way that is GOOD NEWS for everyone

As High Priest, Jesus is the perfect human mediator because he is also fully God

He is the ULTIMATE connection point between the human the divine

He literally embodies it

That curtain that separates the holy of holies gets torn down when Jesus dies on the cross

Jesus bridges what separates us from God and removes every barrier

As High Priest, Jesus is the last one that’s ever needed

At the beginning of Chapter 7 the author talks about Melchizedek not having a origin story or end story and flips that to talk about Jesus being a priest that is without beginning and end.

Hebrews 7:23-25 - Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.

You don’t have to schedule office hours or wait for holidays to draw near to God.

Jesus is always on duty

With Jesus as High Priest, sacrifices are no longer needed

Jesus doesn’t live forever so that he can offer a conveyor belt of bull sacrifices to cover sin for eternity

He offered himself

Hebrews 7:26-27 - Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.

It was always impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sin anyway, the author says

It was always pointing to Jesus

You don’t have to do anything special or bring anything special. Just come.

Still, even with all this we might actually think it would be MORE comfortable to approach God through a human being who ISN’T the Word Made Flesh

Like maybe Jesus seems a but un-relatable we feel like we need someone who REALLY understands what it means to be human.

Lest we feel intimidated by Jesus, the author of Hebrews (as with other authors) go out of their way to remind us over and over that, with all of the transcendent aspects of Jesus, he is also a real human being with real human experiences in solidarity with human kind

Note what the author of Hebrews chooses to highlight about Jesus’s duties and activities as High Priest in this passage: prayers and petitions with loud cries and tears

One might have an image of a stately, cold High Priest

One might have an image of a distant, even stern, Jesus

The image we have here is Jesus, the High Priest, weeping and screaming taking on not just the guilt of the world, but also the suffering and grief and anguish and isolation and rage of humankind, bringing it to the Father with tears in solidarity, even as he experiences it all

THIS is our perfect High Priest, our mediator

He offers the sacrifice, himself

He intercedes for us in solidarity and empathy

And he never stops

And he invites us to come a find mercy and grace and be reconciled to God

Hebrews 4:14-16 - Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has ascended into heaven, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold firmly to the faith we profess. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are—yet he did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.