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“The
High Priest”
a sermon by
Thomas L. Jenkins
Text: Hebrews 5:5-10
“You are a priest forever…”
In the gospels, one of the most foundational witnesses of the Lordship
of Jesus Christ given to us in order to lead us to faith in Christ is
the scene of Jesus walking out of the Jordan River after his baptism,
looking up into the heavens, seeing the Holy Spirit descend upon him in
the form of a dove and then hear God the Father speak to him, “You are
my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
This gives us faith in who Jesus Christ is.
In this faith we may turn our lives over to Him.
In the passage we just read from Hebrews, the author is making an
amazing parallel. Just as
Jesus heard God tell him who he is, Jesus heard God tell him what he is
to do to live out who he is. Here
is the word of God the Father to Jesus Christ in terms of Jesus’
ministry for God, i.e., his service for God: “You are a priest
forever...”
And here is the main point, “…we have such a high priest, who has
taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the
heavens, a minister in the sanctuary, and in the tabernacle, which the
Lord pitched, not man.”
Our Lord Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God.
We say that in our affirmation of faith every Sunday, “I
believe in God the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, and in
Jesus Christ his only Son our Lord,…”
Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of God and Jesus Christ is
our Lord. We believe this. What
we may hear from our passage this morning gives us some explanation of
how Jesus Christ is our Lord, what he does as our Lord.
His ministry as our Lord is to be our High Priest and the High
Priest of God.
This little beautiful sanctuary, built for the first time in 1877 does
not merely belong to us. It
belongs to Jesus Christ. This
is his sanctuary. This is
where He is the high priest of God in our lives.
Well what does this mean in words that we can understand?
It means that Jesus Christ is every bit as obedient to God today
as he was when he obeyed God all the way to the cross.
He is obeying His heavenly Father and our heavenly Father in
being the mediator between God the Father and you and me.
A priest has two functions. The
priest is to take to God what you have to give and to offer to God, and
the priest is to serve you with what God has for you.
And this is the place that Jesus Christ, as our Lord, has in our
lives. Because he is the
Son of God he knows God with his heart and he knows the heart of God
like no one else.
These are Christ’s words from Matthew:”…no one knows the Son,
except the Father; nor does anyone know the Father, except the Son, and
anyone to whom the Son wills to reveal him.”
Jesus Christ knows the heart of God the Father like no other being.
And because the Son of God became human in the person of Jesus
Christ, the Son of God knows what it is to suffer the life of a human
being in this world.
Hebrews tells us that Jesus Christ, in his days before the cross prayed
to God in pain, in fear; he cried with loud cries, he poured out tears
in his life, in his life of prayer.
He knows what we feel in our hearts and in our lives.
He knows what it is to live in painful and suffering human lives.
A few examples that come right to mind are one, the shortest verse in
the Bible which is “Jesus wept.”
This happened at the death of Lazarus, the brother of Mary and
Martha.
When Jesus was in the garden of Gethsemane, right before he was to be
arrested he prayed. “Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass away
from me.” He had drops of
blood coming out of his forehead because of the stress and aguish and
pain he was feelings. And
then on the cross, in his own death he cried out, “My God, my God why
hast thou forsaken me?”
Our Lord Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, our real High
Priest who is present with us right now has one ministry for you and
that is to know your heart, to know where you are in your struggles, to
know where you are in your pain, to know where you are in your faith and
in your doubts, to know you better than you know yourself and to take
your prayers, take your desires, take your offerings to God, even in the
midst of your trials.
Our passage reads that “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience
through what he suffered.” Jesus
Christ is the Son of God and no one knows the Father except the Son, and
in his suffering as a human, he learned how to live out and express his
Sonship within our humanity. He
knows us. And he knows how to take our prayers, our thoughts, our
desires to God the Father in a way that takes them to God on our behalf
and a way that communicates them to God as God wants them.
And in his priesthood, because our Lord is human, knows how to bring to
us the love of God the Father for us and communicate that to us in ways
that we can hear and receive and accept in the midst of all that we are
going through.
God the Father appointed Jesus Christ as the great High Priest in your
life because the highest desire of God for you is that you experience
and come to know through faith the love that God the Father has for you.
Jesus was “designated by God a high priest according to the order of
Melchizedek.” Melchizedek was the king of a country and he was called by
God to be a priest, and in his priesthood, after a battle, he went out
to Abraham and brought him bread and wine, and said, “Blessed by
Abraham by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth, and blessed be God
Most High.” The scriptures interpretation of this is “lesser is blessed
by the greater.”
This is what we may accept and believe and live in our lives.
Jesus Christ is the High Priest in our lives. He knows us at the deepest and truest levels and his ministry
in our lives is to bring the love of God the Father to us in ways that
we receive it. The lesser
is blessed by the greater.
Let us receive the bread and wine brought to us by the High Priest pf
God according to the order of Melchizedek.
Amen
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