Saturday, February 28, 2015

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Hebrews 5:1-10

A priest is someone who stands with and represents people before God, who intercedes for them, bringing their sacrifices and offerings to God, who knows and sympathizes with the weakness of the people and deals gently with those who are ignorant or wayward.  Our reading today introduces the ministry of Christ as our great high priest, and the study of Christ’s priesthood in Hebrews then continues right through to chapter 10.

The author begins on familiar ground for his Hebrew readers by describing the ideal high priest who would be found serving in God’s Temple.  Such priests (v. 4) were successors to Aaron, whom God called as the first high priest of the Hebrew people.  Similarly, the author continues, Christ did not become high priest by his own volition, but was called and authorized by God.  How?

First, the author tells us in Heb. 5:5, Christ is the Son of God. His statement is a quotation directly from Psalm 2:7-9, where the Lord says:

“You are my son; today I have begotten you.  Ask of me, and I will make the nations your heritage, and the ends of the earth your possession.  You shall break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel.”

What a strange thing to tell us about Christ’s priesthood!  Psalm 2 is about the Messiah, the one appointed by God to be the eternal King of Israel, to exercise power and authority and judgement over all nations to the ends of the earth.  In Psalm 2, God commissions the Messiah, the Son of God, to exercise Kingly power, not the priestly weakness of which the author of Hebrews spoke in vv. 2 and 3.

Immediately (v. 6), the author provides a quotation from Psalm 110:4 that he expects will clear up the matter for his readers, and then, in vv. 11-14, he gently chides them for not catching on as he thinks they should. The author of Hebrews would have been an outstanding university professor: He knows his sources forwards and backwards; his many quotations drop lots of hints for his students; but he leaves his students to figure out a great deal on their own.  After this, he hopes, they may come to know the sources as well as he does.  Let’s give it a try.

The quotation from Psalm 110:4 does, at least, mention priesthood:

“You are a priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.”

But who is this Melchizedek?  And why is there any connection with the Messiah-King-Son of God from Psalm 2?  To answer the second question first, we need to read the whole of Psalm 110.  When we do so we will, the professor expects, immediately recall that 110:1 was used by Jesus himself to establish that he was the Messiah (see Luke 10:41-44) and by Peter as the forceful conclusion of his great Pentecost sermon (Acts 2:34-36).  The whole of Psalm 110, we will find, is talking about the Messiah’s great Kingly power, authority, and judgement.  It says nothing at all about priesthood except for the one strange statement (110:4) that the professor quotes.

To be fair, we should note that the first-century readers of Hebrews may have had more opportunity to think about Melchizedek than we usually do.  Melchizedek was perhaps discussed in some of the rabbinic writings of their time; indeed, one of the Dead Sea Scrolls (11QMelchizedek) expounds ideas about him.  But the Bible itself mentions Melchizedek in only three places:  here in Hebrews 5 and 7, in Psalm 110:4, and in the mysterious, ancient short story found in Genesis 14:17-20.  

It’s this last reference—which the professor doesn’t even mention here in ch. 5—that provides the key.  Gen. 14:18 tells us that Melchizedek was both King of Salem (that is, King of Peace) and Priest of God Most High.  Thus Melchizedek, in his own person, embodies King and Priest together.  Actually, the professor (after leaving us mystified for a further chapter and a half) helps us out greatly in Heb. 7, where he discusses these things, points out that Melchizedek was even greater than Patriarch Abraham, and asserts that he resembles the Son of God (7:3), continuing as a priest forever. In this, the professor hints at the unanswerable question:  Did Melchizedek reveal God’s Messiah as King-Priest in this very ancient time?

The conclusion is that Christ Jesus is both God’s all powerful Messiah-King of the world and an all gracious eternal Priest like Melchizedek.  Christ Jesus is merciful, sympathetic, compassionate to all in need, sorrow, ignorance, or error.  Although Jesus “was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him.” (Heb. 5:8-9)

This is the Gospel of Christ, which the unbelieving world can never understand.  The Gospel indeed brings glory, triumph, and reward, but these lie through and beyond the path of suffering, obedience, even death.

Lent has as prototype the suffering of Jesus during his forty days in the wilderness at the beginning of his public ministry, when he fasted and stood against the temptations of the devil.  Jesus’ suffering continued all through his ministry and culminated in his Passion and sacrificial death (a priestly act) on the cross for us.

Let us this Lent meditate both on the suffering our Lord Christ endured for us and on the great victory and joy that now are his.  Let us meditate too on the call that he extends to each of us to walk in his same path.  “For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you should follow in his steps.” (1 Peter 2:21)

“Let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely, and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

– Robert Kruse