Fourth
Sunday of Lent, March 24, 2021
A Methodist pastor and two Baptist pastors, along with an
Episcopalian priest and a Catholic priest walk into a room. It’s not the start of a joke. It’s the people in the prayer group I
attended many years ago. The Catholic
priest and I became friends. Too often,
Catholic priests are associated with sexual exploitation scandals. That wasn’t Father Tuck, my friend. Sure, he wasn’t perfect. None of us are. But he was truly a gentle, humble servant of
God, who wouldn’t hurt anyone and did not fit media or movie stereotypes of
what priest is. He is someone I admire.
What is a priest?
What does a priest do? We’ll come
back to this.
Before we do, consider something churches did before
social distancing: the children’s sermon.
The pastor calls the children around him or her, very close. The pastor says, “I am going to describe
something. You tell me what it is. It is green and slimy. It hops around. It says, ‘Rib-it.’ What is it?”
He asks, smiling at the children.
A boy raises his hand and says enthusiastically says,
“Jesus!”
The puzzled pastor looks
at the boy and says, “Really? Are you
sure?”
The boy responds, “Well yeah. I mean, it sounds like a frog, but
we’re in church, so the answer has to be ‘Jesus,’ right?” That, by the way, was a joke! But isn’t it always the case? In church, the answer is always Jesus, right? Actually, this morning, I am going to propose
that, indeed, the answer is Jesus.
Inside and outside the church, from the writings of
theologians who are devoted believers, and from the works of theologians and
Bible scholars who aren’t believers at all, as well as in casual conversation
among church goers and church avoiders, the debate about who Jesus is seems to
never end. Who is Jesus in relation to
God? Who is Jesus in relation to us?
Thus, our invitation to explore our own faith through
wrestling these questions: What is a priest, and what does a priest do? And, who is Jesus? How do these questions come together, and do
they matter?
Hebrews 5:1 says, “Every high priest chosen from among
mortals is put in charge of things pertaining to God on their behalf, to offer
gifts and sacrifices for sins.” While
the priest in 1st century Judaism was not equivalent to Catholic,
Anglican, and Orthodox priests today, the priestly function is similar. Offerings had to be made to God because of
sin. Our willingness to disregard God’s
ways and try to be masters of our own fate leads to fatal consequences for
us. We need someone in a priestly role
to stand between God and our sins.
Sin is the refusal to live
the way God intends humans to live. Sin
is doing harm to others. Sin is seeking
one’s own gain at the expense of others.
Sin is seeing people in need and refusing to help, even when we are able
to help. Sin is greed, rage, gossip,
gluttony, and deception. Sin is living
as if God’s will doesn’t matter. Sin is
denying that God is Lord and master of our lives. Self-harm is sin because God has created us
for purpose and for relationship. When
we self-harm, we act as if the relationship with God doesn’t matter and as if
our lives have no purpose. God says they
do. Ignoring God is sin because God
won’t be ignored. Hedonism and excess
are sins. God wants us to experience delight,
pleasure and extravagance within the limits God sets, and with what God gives
as the source of our delight and pleasure.
The priest brings God’s
word to us and approaches God on our behalf.
In Genesis 18, when God is about to destroy two cities, Sodom and
Gomorrah, Abraham bargains with God in order to try to save those cities. In Exodus 32, God threatens to destroy the
Israelites in the wilderness because they have created a calf made out of Gold
and worshiped it instead of God. Moses
pleads with God on the people’s behalf and God changes God’s mind and does not
destroy the people. Abraham and Moses
function in priestly roles standing between a sinful people and a holy
God.
Hebrews 5 tells us this is
what the priest does. However, the priest
is no holier than the people Someone
says a priest “is a holy man,” or “a man of God.” Verses 2-3, however, clearly show that the
priest is as sinful and in need of mediation as anyone else. Hebrews 5 implies that priests and pastors
should be the most compassionate of all people, because they themselves are
sinners. God has no patience for pastors
and priests who thunder down in judgmental, condemning tones. We clergy must be patient, gentle, and
kind. We know how much people need God’s
grace because we see our own need for it.
So, we have the answer to
one of our earlier queries. What is a
priest and what does a priest do? A
priest, or a pastor carrying out a priestly function, stands in the gap between
an angry, holy God, and the sins of the people.
The priest prays for the people.
The priest comes before God on behalf of the people.
What about our second
question? Who is Jesus and what’s he got
to do with this conversation about priests?
The dual nature of Jesus –
fully human and at the same time fully God – defies understanding. Hebrews presents all aspects of the paradox. Hebrews chapter 1 describes Jesus as “the
reflection of God’s glory” (v.3) and the one worshiped by angels (v.6). Psalms 45 and 102 are quoted in Hebrews 1 to
explicitly state that the Son is God and Lord.
In other words, the second person of the trinity, Jesus, is fully
God.
At the same time, Hebrews
5 shows that God has become human.
Jesus’s humanity was no illusion which he could step out of at
time. Verse 7 describes his humanity as
“the days of his flesh.” He emptied
himself of divinity and lived as a human being (Philippians 2). Jesus, though, did not sin.
He never hated anyone, not
the religious leaders who challenged him, not Judas the disciple who betrayed
him, nor Peter the disciple who denied him.
He loved each one, each Pharisees and temple priest who, feeling
threatened by his wisdom, did everything they could to take him down. He loved all the disciples who abandoned
him. When Herod mocked him, Pilate
condemned him, and the Roman soldiers flogged and then crucified him, he asked
God the Father to forgive them all (Luke 23:34). He demonstrated complete obedience to God and
absolute love for all people. Jesus is
the only person who never needed a priest.
In this respect, he is not like any of us.
Jesus never felt the guilt
of hurting someone else with a lie, petty jealousy, neglect, greed, or
exploitation. He never coveted what
someone else had. He never acted out his
anger with abusive violence. He never
objectified anyone.
Yet when this sinless one
accepted his calling, to be the sacrifice that would atone for humanity’s sin,
he feared the abandonment, abuse, death, and separation from God as much as
anyone would. In fact, his grief and
fear exceeded what ours would be because he knew God the Father so
intimately. He knew what he was losing,
even knowing the resurrection would soon come.
To take all the loss sin brings on himself, even for a few days, was
devastating for Jesus. Hebrews 5:7 says
he prayed with “loud cries and tears to the one who was able to save him from
death.” God heard his prayer “because of
his reverent submission” (v.7). God the
Father heard Jesus’ plea, loved him, and then let him die.
Jesus asked to be let out
of death, but submitted himself to God’s plan.
We read that he “learned obedience through what he suffered; and having
been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey
him” (5:8). Did Jesus need to “learn
obedience?” Does God learn things? Hebrews says, yes, when that God becomes
human, he does learn. Suffering was
Jesus’ teacher. Isn’t God always
whatever it is we think God is? Through
the school of pain, Jesus learned the cost of our salvation. Knowing it, he willingly paid it.
This is why Jesus is the
perfect priest. With his sacrifice of
himself, made on our behalf, we never again need a sacrifice. Pastors and priests encourage us, pray for
us, pray with us, teach the Bible, and lead the faith community. Pastors and priests have a role in the
church. That role is in service of the
perfect priest, Jesus.
He covers sin and he
conquers death. Moreover, he knows our
struggles because he’s been through them.
God the Father appreciates our pain because in order to secure our
eternity, He had to accept the death of His beloved son in our place. God has walked in our shoes.
For this reason, we can
approach God with absolute confidence.
Whatever we carry that holds us down – guilt, loss, regret, broken
dreams, disappointment, fear; whatever it is, God in Jesus has overcome
it. We can receive salvation and believe
with confidence that we are sons and daughters of God, loved completely by
God. That’s the hope our priest secures
for us.
More than half way through
Lent, with Good Friday and Easter on the near horizon, we know the God we
worship. We know the Jesus we
follow. We can grow in our knowledge as
we debate finer points of theology, or we can rest easy in the salvation He has
secured. Either way our perfect priest
is for us, all the way. Because of Him,
we have life.
AMEN
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