March 17, 2024 Hebrews 5:1-10 Series B Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God, our Father, and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, who loves you with his very life. Amen.
In the Bible, God reveals to us three offices. That’s the word, offices. When we talk about offices in scripture we don’t mean, like a corner room with a bunch of windows that you work in. Nope, instead when we talk about offices we mean, like, positions, or roles in God’s kingdom. And there are three big ones in the bible: Prophet, priest, and King. And when we read through the Bible, we see how each office has a different role to play and the three of them interact with each other all the time.
For example, prophets. A prophet is someone who delivers a message from God, from the LORD. In the Old Testament, when a prophet is giving such a message he will say something like, “declares the LORD” or “Thus says the LORD”, that way we know that the message is a quote from God, a word from God and not the dude. Famous prophets are people like, Isaiah, Elijah, Moses - and there’s a bunch more.
The second office i want to show is King - and that’s a bit easier. A faithful king rules on earth on God’s behalf. He protects his people, provides for them, cares for them, and trusts that God will do the same, protect, provide, and care. Often kings consult prophets on what steps to take in order to be better at king-ing or reigning. Think of King David, King Solomon, or King Josiah.
We don’t have those offices anymore. God has fulfilled them. Right? Hebrews 1 teaches us that God doesn’t use prophets anymore, it says, “In many and various ways God spoke to his people of Old by the prophets, but now in these last days, he has spoken to us by his Son.” We don’t need prophets to tell us what God wants us to know, Jesus is God and he did that. Jesus is the perfect prophet.
IN the same way, we don’t have a king anymore. Jesus is our king. He ascended and took his throne next to God the Father, and he will reign on that throne for literally ever - into the new creation and time unending.
And the third office is priest. And we kinda still have that one. That’s because priest has like, two levels to is. There is priest and high priest. And today’s text from hebrews 5, our second reading which was read not super long ago, that’s what it’s about. It’s about how Jesus is our great high priest, how he fills that role perfectly. And then we will talk a little about the priesthood of all believers.
So a priest takes the things of the people, the sacrifices, the tithes, the prayers, the repentance, the “whatever you want to give God,” and brings it before God. He takes it to the altar, to God. In the ancient world, people would bring a tithe and various offerings. There is a lot of very detailed instructions in the Old Testament about what kind of offerings to bring for which occasion. ONe of my favorites is the sacrifice of an unexpected blessings. This sacrifice was offered, I believe it was a small sacrifice, like a pigeon, to return thanks for God for one of those happy sudden moments in your life, like a gift, or a really good day. The sacrifice helped draw your focus to God.
But also sacrifices for other things, most famously for forgiveness of sins, such as on the day of atonement or on Passover. On Passover, which is the same day as good Friday, a lamb was sacrificed. On the first Passover, the blood of the lamb was posted on the doorway and then that night, the angel of death passed over the house. Passover became a holiday, where lambs were sacrificed so death, eternal death, would pass over us too.
And then the priest would take the things from God and give them to the people. There would be tangible things, like assistance for the poor and those in need, but also the spiritual things like comfort, assurance, and most importantly, forgiveness. Back in the days of the tabernacle, the family would gather outside the tent and watch. And when they saw the smoke of the offering rise up, they would rejoice, knowing that forgiveness was theirs. The priest would then pass that message on, how God accepted the sacrifice and their sins are forgiven. That’s one of the great blessings that I am blessed to share in, I get to speak God’s word of forgiveness to you. I don’t forgive your sins, God does, because of Jesus Christ. God accepted Jesus sacrifice and your sins are forgiven!
But the things about all of us pastors and priests is, well, we’re sinful too. From the first priest mentioned in the Bible, Melchizedek, to Aaron, the first High Priest of the tabernacle, to Nicodemus. Me too, I am a sinner. Every pastor I know is a sinner. Every priest I know is a sinner. And they need, and I need the same thing, that all of us do forgiveness. And I need a pastor to tell me of God’s forgiveness too. There was a system in place in the Old Testament for priests to be cleansed and forgiven, and that system is in place for pastors today, to hear about God’s forgiveness.
This passage today from Hebrews speaks about this system of forgiveness. A perfect sacrifice can only be offered by someone, a priest, who is also perfect. No matter how good the lamb, or the grain offering, or the whatever, the sin of the priest still taints, because the priest isn’t perfect.
There is only one priest who can truly offer a sacrifice and not need one for himself, and that’s Jesus Christ. Jesus is the only one who doesn’t need to repent, who doesn’t need a sacrifice of his own, to cover his own sins. He can purely and truly just serve others, serve those trusted to his care. Jesus is the only priest qualified to handle a perfect offering, to offer up a perfect sacrifice for others.
And us? We can’t even serve ourselves, or sacrifice ourselves good enough to earn a place at God’s side.. The fact that we need a priest shows how bad the situation is, because it shows us that we can’t do it ourselves. And we need to be honest about this. We can’t sacrifice ourselves as a price for our sinfulness. No amount of penance, no amount of trying to make things right will actually make us right. Even if I found a perfect sacrifice to offer, the perfect amount of time, the perfect amount of money, the perfect pigeon for that perfect good thing, I am still a sinner, still born under the curse of sin inherited from Adam and Eve. My sin taints even my best thoughts, words, and deeds.
That’s why Jesus being the Great High Priest is a big deal. That’s what this passage, and honestly, most of the book of Hebrews is about. Jesus is, as John the baptist declared, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. But he is also the priest who offers up the lamb. He is both sacrifice and sacrificer. And he is the one that ends the loop of needed forgiveness. Jesus is the high priest offering up only for others. Because Jesus can truly offer a sacrifice on behalf of others, or as our text says, “And being made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey him, being designated by God a high priest after the order of Melchizedek.”
Jesus is both the lamb of God, the sacrifice, and at the same time, he is the high priest who offers the sacrifice. Jesus goes to the cross, not forced, but willingly. He goes and freely offers up his blood, his life in place of yours. And his sinless death, his death as God himself, pays the price that our sins have occurred. Jesus' death covers us and protects us from the wrath of God, which is what our sins deserve. Jesus' death on the cross truly transforms us from sinner to saint, because he was perfect.
He takes the things of us, which is nothing but sin. He took it onto himself, placing it on himself as the priest and then he sacrifices, the perfect sacrifice, himself. Then, fulfilling his role as our Great High Priest, he turns and gives us the things of God, which is forgiveness, a true and lasting forgiveness that sticks with you into life everlasting.
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