Meditation on Hebrews 5: 5-10

Have you ever met someone with the gift of praying? Someone who captures just what you want to say and relays it to God, or causes you to pause and think with their words? I met one such faithful pray-er a few months ago while at a seminar in New York City. This gentleman started off by offering up to Jesus a variety of the different names that he holds and thanking him for them. Son of God and Son of Man. Prince of Peace. Emmanuel. Savior. The Great I Am. The Word. The True Light. The Bread of Life. The Cup of Salvation. The Lamb of God. Our Lord. The Shepherd. The Way. The Root of Jesse. The Vine. The Rock of Ages. The list went on and on. It made me really stop and think about just who Jesus is in our lives, and how he is so much more then we can ever contain him to be in our minds.

One of the titles lifted up to Jesus in praise during that prayer was high priest, which is what the author of Hebrews is focusing on in today’s passage. Jesus is a unique type of priest - one appointed by God to a salvific mission. The one who will be priest forever and who offers up our prayers and supplications. This title may be one that we ascribe to Jesus, but do we really know what it means?

Sometimes we are prone to forget that the letters in the Bible were written to specific groups of people at distinct points of time in history. The Letter to the Hebrews was written to Christians with Jewish roots experiencing persecution. This group of people would have understood the idea of a high priest from the days of the temple, where the priests offered sacrifices on behalf of the people. But Jesus went beyond that by offering himself as a sacrifice, thus making him the perfect high priest.

Most of us, however, are unfamiliar in our daily lives with the image of a priest offering sacrifices on our behalf. What we are perhaps more familiar with is the idea of a pastor or priest - someone who is fully human, struggling like the rest of us, who is called to bear and lift up the needs of a community. Just as Jesus is the high priest because of his sacrifice, so is he the high priest because he bears us up to God. In fact, the text tells us that he offers up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears. Can you picture this image? Jesus is offering up to God tears on our behalf. He is bearing the pain and confusion and brokenness of humanity and presenting it to God.

When we think of Jesus on the cross, especially during the season of Lent, we focus on Jesus bearing the sins of the world. But he bore more then that that day. He bore all of our pain and struggles. All of our dashed hopes and shattered dreams. All of the times that someone has hurt us. All of our isolation and loneliness. All of the times we cried out to God because we didn’t understand what was going on. All of our suffering. He bore that too. Those things that weren’t sin that we committed. And in some cases weren’t even sins committed against us. Jesus came and bore all of the tears, groans to deep for words, and pain ridden silences. Jesus death was not just about bearing our guilt, but also our grief. And Jesus continues to bear those things for us after his death and resurrection - for he is our high priest forever.

Because Jesus was both son of God and son of man, he walked in our shoes and understands what is like to be human, because he was human. He can identify with all our of pain and longing, because he has been here, experiencing the pain of our flesh. He gets it. His death stands not as a path to necessary eradicate that pain, but one of compassion and coming along side us to lighten our load. He cries with us.

And that, brothers and sisters, is what we are called to do as well, as Christ’s church. Jesus, as our high priest, has modeled for us how to come along side the oppressed, the hurting, the lonely. The sick, the broken-hearted, the ones who feel like their lives are crumbling apart. The poor, the war-torn, the orphans, and stand with them and cry for them.

I don’t know about you but when I’m really hurting, the last thing I want is for someone to pontificate to me. The last thing I want is for someone to give me a trite bit of wisdom. I want someone I love to just sit and cry with me. And that is what Christ does. The one who loves us best, sits and cries for our brokenness. The one who loves us best, submitted himself as a sacrifice so he could understand better our brokenness.

Do you recall the story of Jesus at the tomb of Lazarus, where he wept for the death of his friend before he resurrected him? Do you recall the story of Gethsemane, where Jesus was deeply anguished and asked that this cup be taken from him? Do you recall the pain and separation that Christ felt on Calvary? At all of those places where Jesus was deeply distressed, he had passionate prayers lifted up to God, on his behalf, on the behalf of those whom he loved, for the world. Don’t our most sincere prayers also emerge sometimes during our times of deepest distress, either for ourselves or others? Times when we trust Christ to be our high priest and mediator? Times when we trust that Christ understands our pain because he has been there?

Our high priest is both the Son of Man and Son of God. He is both approachable and holy. And this is the week when we get to experience all of who Jesus is to us as we venture through holy week. We encounter the one who understands our human-ness, who has suffered through situations similar to ours, and the one who gave everything for us on the cross in order to save us. The one who is human like us, yet sacrificial and holy as God. We may never fully understand how Jesus is our high priest, or what this week truly means to us, but we do know that Jesus means something to us. I would encourage you to reflect on what exactly Jesus means to you this week and how Jesus is high priest in your life. Amen.