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The Fifth Sunday In Lent
O Almighty God, who alone canst order the unruly wills and affections of sinful men: Grant unto thy people that they may love the thing which thou commandest, and desire that which thou dost promise; that so, among the sundry and manifold changes of the world, our hearts may surely there be fixed where true joys are to be found; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.
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Scripture citation(s): John 12:20-33; Hebrews 5:1-10
A Sermon by
Fr. Mead
on
John 12:20-33; Hebrews 5:1-10
✛
Jesus Our Priest
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Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; 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.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
A misguided clergyman recently misled his flock in a pastoral letter which said that Jesus knew he was forgiven for his sins and his gift to us is the knowledge that we are forgiven along with him. This erroneous statement is an example of the fairly common “misery loves company” heresy which reduces Jesus to a sinner like the rest of us, trading away redemption for cold comfort. A lifeguard who swims out to help a swimmer in trouble but who himself drowns on the way may have meant well. His courage and good intentions are admirable, but both he and the person he tried to help wind up on the bottom.
We require a true Savior, not a fellow sinner, to save us from our sins and from the consequence of death. A true Savior is just what Jesus is, and his qualifications to redeem us in this fallen and infirm flesh are twofold. We can see them both on display in today’s Gospel. The first is Jesus’ divine Sonship, his unique relationship with and mission from the Father. The second is Jesus’ complete Humanity, unmarred by the various lapses and disorders that constitute sin. “Which of you,” Jesus challenged his critics, “convicts me of sin?” (Jn 8:46) So when Jesus calls himself (as he constantly did) the Son of man, we may take that as the sign that Jesus is the one true Man.
Jesus’ unfailing ability to be our Savior consists of the perfectly divine and human natures of his Person. We will shortly confess this in the creed. To receive the truly heart-warming (as opposed to cold) comfort of salvation is to participate in the Person of Christ, as we do every Sunday in the Eucharist. Jesus invited his first disciples, as he invites us, to eat his flesh and to drink his blood, because in it he gives us the gift of his full life, his perfect Humanity. “Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood,” said Jesus, “you have no life in you. My flesh is food indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood dwells in me and I in him.” This is drastic language. It sounds like we need surgery and a transfusion; and from the spiritual point of view, we do.
Jesus, however, not only was the Son of God and Son of man in his Person; he had to live this out in concrete earthly life. “In the days of his flesh,” said the Epistle to the Hebrews today, “Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to him who was able to save him from death, and he was heard for his godly fear.” We saw this today in Saint John’s Gospel, where Jesus said, “Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say, ‘Father save me from this hour’? No; for this purpose I came to this hour. Father, glorify thy name.”
The Epistle stresses that, unlike the priests of the Old Covenant who offered sacrifices for their sins as well as for those of the flock, Jesus is truly a high priest “after the order of Melchizedek” who makes a once-for-all offering of his entirely virtuous life. He is tempted in every way as we are. He suffers contradiction from sinners. Yet he does not sin but remains faithful to the end; in the words of the Epistle, he learned perfect obedience in his sufferings and he came to perfection on the altar of his cross, where he truly could cry out “It is finished!”
Jesus suffered unimaginable physical, mental and spiritual pain. He died in public shame and scandal. Worst of all for him he experienced God-forsakenness and said so. The Beat poet Ferlinghetti, looking at a crucifix and speaking for every generation of unbelief from Caiaphas to our contemporary misguided clergyman, once said, “Looks pretty dead to me.”
There is another perspective, and it is the Gospel. But before we finish with that, let us ask who that person with the strange name, Melchizedek, was. He was the priest-king of God Most High at Jerusalem who came to bless Father Abraham and offered him bread and wine and to whom Abraham in turn gave a tithe of the spoils of battle in which he had been victorious. Melchizedek comes as it were out of nowhere and then disappears; there is no record of birth or death. Many centuries later, after King David conquered Jerusalem and made it his capital, his messianic heir was called “a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek,” even though neither David nor his heirs were priests under the Law. Jesus was not a priest under the Law; he was of the house and lineage of David. His priesthood involves not legal ritual offerings but the offering of a blameless life which reaches back before birth and forward beyond death. It includes the offering of bread and wine to the spiritual children of Abraham in a meal where they participate in the power of his life-saving Person and Work.¹
It seems that Melchizedek has brought us to the Gospel, for it is the Gospel which sheds light on why that mysterious priest-king matters even today. Listen to Jesus now in today’s Gospel, speaking of the way his priesthood works. “I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all men to myself.” He meant the lifting up of his body on the altar of the cross as our atonement. Terrible as the cross is as a judgment upon human sin, it is also life and health, the medicine of the world. It draws everyone who seeks inner healing, peace with God, and reconciliation with fellow human beings. The cross is not just an historic death, an image in the mind’s eye, an impression in the heart; it is also a present reality under the forms of bread and wine in the Eucharist and in the common life of the Body of Christ, the Church.
Dearly beloved, we are now entering “Deep Lent” and are about to begin Holy Week, when we contemplate the mystery of the cross, looking at its manifold aspects and their impact upon our lives. I invite you to join me in taking the fullest possible measure of participation in these sacred liturgies which are designed to make us contemporaneous with Christ; that is, not only to take us to the foot of the cross, but bring the life and healing of the cross into our lives here and now. When we do that, we can truly stand and shout for joy on Easter that Christ is risen, knowing that his sacrifice has removed every possible obstacle between us and his grace.
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen.
__________
¹See Hebrews 7:1-28; also Genesis 14:17-20 and Psalm 110:4.
