The Priesthood of All Believers
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You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.
-Hebrews 5:5
The writer of Hebrews mentions more than once that Jesus is our great high priest. He was standing right at the threshhold - the gateway - between this world and heaven. But unlike the earthly priests of his day, he did not offer unblemished doves or rams at the altar on behalf of the worshippers. Instead, he offered himself. He put himself at the center of the suffering of this world in order to come close to us in our most vulnerable moments and show us the way.
This is a mystical idea, really - that God’s presence with us in our suffering, vulnerability and pain shows us the way to new life - not just as individuals, but as a whole world.
As followers of Jesus, we too are called to offer ourselves. The Rite I Eucharistic Prayer has a very beautiful section that says:
And here we offer and present unto thee, O Lord, our selves,
our souls and bodies, to be a reasonable, holy, and living
sacrifice unto thee; humbly beseeching thee that we, and all
others who shall be partakers of this Holy Communion, may
worthily receive the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son
Jesus Christ, be filled with thy grace and heavenly benediction,
and made one body with him, that he may dwell in us, and
we in him.
This prayer makes it hard to think it’s ok to just sit back and let Jesus do all the saving work of love in this world. If we are made one body in Christ, and fed at his table, then it is our hands, minds, voices and hearts that are called to also go right into the heart of this world’s suffering, vulnerabilty and pain in order to bear Christ’s love and compassion there. To offer ourselves to God as living sacrifices.
In these days of violence, when we know (but don’t quite know what to do with that knowledge), that there are people suffering deeply in many parts of this world right now. There are many people suffering right in our own city and neighborhoods right now. How are we being called to stand at that gateway between earth and heaven and offer ourselves? To be ambassadors of Christ in blessing and healing this world?
It’s a mystical question, but also a practical one. For while it seems that we cannot just make up our minds to fix this world’s considerable and ever repeating pain from the comfort of our own home, we can, in fact, make up our minds to follow in the footsteps of our great high priest and allow ourselves to be led into the places where Christ calls us to share the love of God.
