CHRIST OUR HIGH PRIEST & PRAYER
Hebrews 5:1-10; Mark 10:35-45
22nd Sunday after Pentecost, October 20, 2024
Rev. Dr. Ritva H. Williams
Last Sunday’s reading from the letter to the Hebrews concluded with the good news that Jesus is a high priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses because he has been tested in every respect just as we are (4:14-15). The compassionate Christ stands in solidarity with us when we go through tough stuff.
This morning I will focus on the idea of Christ as our great high priest. Hebrews is the only scripture to bestow this title on Christ. The first century Greek-speaking Jewish Christian author and his audience would have been familiar with two different kinds of high priests.
The Jewish high priesthood was a hereditary office assigned to the tribe of Levi through Aaron (Moses’ brother). The high priest’s primary duty was tending the people’s relationship with God through daily offerings of gifts and sacrifices of grain, oil, wine, and animals in the temple. At Yom Kippur the high priest entered the Holy of Holies alone to sprinkle the altar with the blood of a sacrificed animal to atone for his personal sins and the sins of the people.
By the time of Jesus, Judean high priests were political appointees of local Roman governors, caught between the demands of foreign overlords and their own people. The destruction of the Temple in 70 CE brought this system to an end. Hebrews was written for a community that included traumatized and grieving refugees from that catastrophe.
Living in the city of Rome they struggled to avoid coming under the eye of Rome’s high priest, the pontifex maximus which is Latin for “great bridge-maker” between the gods and humanity. The pontifex maximus was responsible for maintaining the “peace of the gods” through various rituals offerings, gifts and sacrifices of grain, oil, wine and animals. Originally an elected office, the Roman high priesthood was folded into the responsibilities of the emperor by Augustus Caesar. As pontifex maximus, Augustus controlled Rome’s state religion, temples and sacred sites, liturgical calendars and rituals, cemeteries and worship of ancestors, elite marriages and adoptions, and public morals. Augustus and his successors were not only high priests, but as sons of God, addressed as “dominus et deus” — lord and god.”
Did you know that the earliest Christian confession of faith was the statement, “Jesus is Lord” (1 Corinthians 12:3; Romans 10:9)? When our Christian forebears insisted Jesus is Lord, they were adamant that Caesar, the Pontifex Maximus of Rome was not.
Hebrews asserts that Jesus is qualitatively different than the Judean and Roman high priests. Their primary role was keeping humans in right relations with the God/gods through gifts and sacrifices of grain, oil, wine and animals for human sin. Ideally they were to deal gently with ignorant and wayward people. The writer takes a stand against persons who arrogantly claim the office of high priest unlike Christ who did not seek to glorify himself by becoming a high priest.
Christ did not seek to glorify himself in any way at any time. This point is driven home in our gospel reading. Responding to disciples who want places of honor and glory, Jesus proclaims:
You know that among the Gentiles those whom they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. But it is not so among you; but whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many. (Mark 10:42-45).
Jesus never claimed any titles or offices, refused to be called good, and consistently referred to himself as the Son of Man, a humble human being. Jesus made it clear that following him means committing oneself to serve and lay down one’s life for others.
Jesus is our great high priest because he faithfully carried out this mission. Christ is the pontifex maximus, the eternal bridge-maker between us and God. A bridge built through prayers and supplications, loud cries and tears, reverent submission, and obedience learned through necessary suffering. Christ was made perfect and complete by experiencing everything human beings go through including death and the grave in order to lead all of us into the light of the resurrection. Christ is the great high priest who stands with us, walks with us, and even carries us when necessary to God.
Christ models for us what serving and laying down one’s life for others looks like — feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, visiting the imprisoned, lifting up the lowly and marginalized. Christ shows us how to stay true to this mission by grounding our lives in prayer.
Prayer includes supplications, i.e. asking God for stuff. Certainly there are times when it is appropriate and necessary to ask God for stuff, but we must always remember that God is not a cosmic gum ball machine that will drop goodies into our hands if we just insert the right coin and turn the knob correctly.
Prayer is much more than just supplications. Prayer is talking with God, sharing what is in our hearts and minds and listening for how God is calling us.
As April Casperson, writes in Living Gratitude:
How often do we treat prayer as a transaction? We give God our request and expect a clear-cut, simplistic answer. When churches are exploring new pathways to increased giving, we can fall into the trap of simply asking for additional funding from congregation members, making a holy opportunity for stewardship a transaction. But what would happen if we trend our hopes for additional resources into prayers to God — and we entered those prayer sessions with an expectation for dialogue rather than transaction? This season, consider who God may be prepared to respond to your prayer dialogue with unexpected pathways to abundance … offer your requests to God as a form of holy dialogue, and be open to the unexpected opportunities God may lay in front of you.
Prayer is much more than just supplications. Prayer is talking with God, sharing what is in our hearts and minds and listening for how God is calling us.
Bolz Weber beautifully describe what sharing our hearts and minds with God looks like:
I pray because I have fears and longings and concerns and gratitudes and complaints that are best not left unexpressed. And so I hold these up to God, I repeat them in my mind and ponder them on my walks; I whisper them into my pillow, and press them into the soil; I write them on ribbons; I say them in the single, choppy syllables managed between sobs.
What does it mean to listen to God? How do we listen to God? The first step is to stop talking. Authentic listening to God in prayer is similar to authentic listening to another person. If we stop talking, take a moment to focus be present and open to the other person, we are poised to listen. Listening might look like meditation, contemplation, or quiet reflection. We might hear God in the silence. God might speak through another person, a song, or a scripture. Listening to God takes practice and patience.
This year’s annual stewardship drive invites us to “Listen God is calling. God is about to do a new thing. Do you not perceive it?”
Please pray with me:
Loving God, open the windows of our hearts, that the light of your love may flow in. Open our ears, that we may hear your Word. Open our arms, to embrace your way. Open our hands, that we may serve you with strength and joy. Speak to us; we are listening. Amen. (Steve Garnaas-Holmes, unfoldinglight.org)
