The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.
We all have our favorite ways of thinking about and referring to Jesus. We often describe Jesus as the Son of Man. We use titles like Jesus is our Savior and our Redeemer. Jesus is Lord. Jesus is God. Jesus is Son of God and Son of Man. He’s our brother and our friend, the Great Physician and the Good Shepherd, the Prince of Peace and the King of kings. And by the way, there are nearly 100 more titles in the Old and New Testament that refer to and highlight a particular aspect of the person and the work of Jesus Christ.
But there’s one that’s rarely applied, although it’s a dominant theme in both the Old Testament and in part of the New, namely, it’s the one used in the Epistle lesson of the morning. There in all of its clarity, the writer to the Hebrew Christians makes sure that we know that in addition to all these other biblical titles given Jesus in the text of the Old and New Testament, Jesus is fundamentally our High Priest. And that’s the title that the readings today, in fact the book of Hebrews, focuses on. He wants to highlight that in fact Jesus is the ultimate High Priest in the order of Melchizedek. In fact, he mines this priestly motif for all of its worth. In the process he delivers comfort and peace and confidence in Christ, because he is our High Priest.
But you know, you don’t hear many hymns, especially among Protestants, Lutherans this time included, about what a High Priest we have in Jesus. We kind of like the new informality, that other one, much greater. It’s still a good hymn, “What a Friend We Have in Jesus.” But if you read especially the first stanza of “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” “what a High Priest we have in Jesus” is far more appropriate for the lyrics. Whether consciously or subconsciously, some Lutherans don’t care that much for the title priest. We don’t call our pastors priest. It’s the last thing you’re supposed to do, because for some reason it’s wrong, although that’s exactly what the biblical text does. That which is said of Jesus is said of his servants.
The book of Hebrews provides a small history lesson this morning concerning the office of priesthood, namely the order of Melchizedek. Priestly service was part and parcel of the Lord’s design for his Old Testament church, for his Old Testament people. It’s what they were to do. The Lord God instituted the office of priests. He specifically at first selected, conscripted Aaron to provide priestly services to the children of Israel while they wandered through the wilderness. The priests served on behalf of the people, on behalf of their fellow Israelites, regularly offering sacrifices and gifts to God, both for the sins of the people and for their own sins.
For the priesthood, well, that was reserved only for those chosen by God himself. Verses 1-4 give us a little bit of that history this morning: “Every high priest chosen from among men is appointed to act on behalf of men in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sin. He can deal gently with the ignorant and wayward, since he himself is beset with weaknesses. Because of this he is obligated to offer sacrifices not only for his own sins but for the sins of the people. And no one takes honor for himself, but only when called by God, just as Aaron was.” It’s a divinely appointed office by God, going all the way back there to Aaron, to the time of Moses. A man doesn’t appoint himself to the office of priest, and certainly not to the high priest position. God alone does that.
The priest acts on behalf of the people in their relationship to God. They are to act, these priests, graciously and kindly, because they, like the people they serve, are just as poor, miserable sinners as all the rest. That’s where the scribes and the Pharisees and the Sadducees and the religious leaders of Jesus’s day had gone terribly, terribly wrong. They saw themselves as fulfillers of the law and the oral tradition, holier, wiser, and stronger in faith than the people they were supposed to serve. They ruled over the people with crushing laws and rules, not with the Gospel of the promised Messiah.
Hebrews tells us that Jesus too was appointed to this priestly service. Jesus’s priestly appointment was made public in the waters of his Baptism and is implicit in the title Savior and Redeemer. In his Baptism the Lord appointed Jesus to that threefold office of prophet, priest, and king. God appointed Jesus as our great High Priest so that Jesus could serve and help us as our mediator and intercessor. Verse 5: “So Christ did not exalt himself to be made high priest, but he was appointed by him who said, ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you.’ And he says also in another place, ‘You are a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.'”
So what does it mean to be a priest forever after the order of Melchizedek? Who was this Melchizedek, and why is it he shows up all the way there in the book of Hebrews? So here’s a little Old Testament history compacted. Before Abram was Abraham, before Abram was a great patriarch named Abraham, before he was commanded to sacrifice his son Isaac, Abram was a great general of his own army, as small as it was. Abram’s nephew Lot, along with Lot’s household and all of his property, were captured during several wars in which kings in Mesopotamia waged war against one another. Mesopotamia is modern day Iraq and Kuwait. One of Lot’s men escaped once taken prisoner and brought word to Abram that his nephew and his household had been taken prisoner and all of his property had been confiscated. Abram then gathered together 318 of his own servants, armed them, trained them, and carried out a kind of special forces type military operation to rescue Lot and push back the invading Mesopotamian kings.
Now after the victory, the mysterious figure of Melchizedek shows up seemingly out of nowhere. In fact, there’s only three verses dedicated to him in the entire Old Testament, Genesis 14:18-20: “And Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High. And he blessed him and said, ‘Blessed be Abram by God Most High, possessor of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High, who has delivered your enemies into your hand!’ And Abram gave him one tenth of everything.”
Now the name Melchizedek is kind of interesting. It means king of righteousness. He was also, we’re told, the king of Salem, and the word Salem means peace. We know the city of Salem today by the name Jerusalem, the city of peace. Together, Melchizedek is the king of righteousness and the king of the city of peace. Those titles should put you in mind of a certain King of Righteousness and a Prince of Peace and a King of kings.
Not only is his name informative, Melchizedek’s actions are also a bit surprising for the normal protocol of the day. Normally a general is brought in to see the king. The king does not go out to see the general. But here, after Abraham’s victory over the Mesopotamians, Melchizedek goes out to Abraham. Second, the meeting between the two is a several days’ journey from the city of Salem, that is, Jerusalem, which means the king of righteousness and the king of the city of Salem goes on a long journey to meet this general and to bless him. Third, the high priest Melchizedek serves Abram and his men bread and wine for a victory celebration over their enemies. After Moses tells us that Melchizedek has served them bread and wine for a meal, Moses notes the official title: the priest of God Most High. That’s who Melchizedek is. After the priest of the God Most High serves Abraham and his warriors, Melchizedek then turns and blesses both God and Abram together. He sanctioned their relationship. That is all we know about this priest Melchizedek. That’s it. He’s an anomaly. He comes and he goes. There’s no indication that he belongs to the priesthood of Aaron or the priesthood of Levi, the Levitical order. He is vested with an order completely unto himself.
The Epistle to the Hebrews recognizes Melchizedek as a foreshadowing of Jesus Christ, who in the Epistle is called a priest after the order of Melchizedek. We’re given the identifying marks, by the way, of this ultimate priest after the order of Melchizedek in Hebrews 7:26-27. It’s a kind of sophisticated argument, but I’ll summarize it after I read it: “For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. He has no need, like those high priests, to offer sacrifices daily, first for his own sins and then for those of the people, since he did this once for all when he offered up himself.” There was only one person that fulfills this definition, this description of the ultimate true High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, and that is Jesus Christ the High Priest. What a friend we have in the High Priest!
As for Melchizedek himself, he appears suddenly and very briefly in the book of Genesis, never to be heard from again. Yet 1,000 years later the psalmist wrote the following concerning the coming of the Messiah: “The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind,” speaking of the Christ, “You are a priest forever in the order of Melchizedek.” Another thousand years passes and the writer of Hebrews references Melchizedek once more. Three times the writer of Hebrews has described the priesthood, the high priesthood of Jesus Christ, as of the order according to Melchizedek, in 5:6, 5:10, and 6:20. Why? What is this order of Melchizedek? Why does he get his own order, and why are there only two occupants in the order according to the church in Old Testament history? Well, it’s to establish the legitimacy of the royal office of a non-Levitical priesthood, a true priest apart from the Levitical priesthood, the rules, laws, and regulations thereof. With the coming of Melchizedek, God now establishes two orders, two different kinds of priesthood: the line of Aaron and then Levi, and a separate and higher order of Melchizedek, which points to the greatest High Priest, Jesus the Christ, the King of all creation.
Now Melchizedek isn’t a myth. He’s a real historical figure. Like John the Baptist, he points the way to the greater High Priest, to the greater Messiah, Jesus Christ. Hebrews explains it in this way: “For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah,” and that means not from Levi, “and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. This becomes even more evident when another priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent,” not based on the bloodline, he says, “but by the power of an indestructible life.” Sin can’t touch him. In other words, Jesus was a priest in a priesthood separate and greater than the Levitical priesthood. The priesthood we usually think about is the priesthood of Aaron and Levi. It’s a priesthood of law, of rules and regulations. The order of Melchizedek, and Jesus, is a priesthood of the Gospel, of an indestructible life, one that cannot die but who will always live.
Just as Jesus was no ordinary prophet and no ordinary king, he was no ordinary Old Testament priest. He had no earthly father. Jesus was born of a virgin. Melchizedek, unusual in the Old Testament to have such a figure without lineage: we do not know his bloodline, we do not know his fate. His birth and death are not recorded. He seems to not have a beginning or an end. Yet Melchizedek is a man of flesh and blood, a great king, a priest of the Most High God, fully man nonetheless. But Jesus, Jesus is no mere man. Jesus has no beginning and he has no end. He is the Alpha and the Omega, begotten from eternity from his heavenly Father, but also fully human and fully divine. Jesus was a greater king than David and wiser than King Solomon. God the Father sent a priest-king forever, a God named Jesus, the Son of God. He sent the God-man to serve, to die, to rise again. He sent the God-man to serve you with the body, bread, and the wine, blood, for the remission of your sins, not his.
Jesus is the author and perfecter of our faith. Jesus came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom, a sacrifice for many. In the person of Melchizedek there is an unmistakable glimpse, a type of the priesthood of Jesus Christ. Jesus is our prophet, priest, and king. By his atoning sacrifice he brought true righteousness and peace between God and man. Jesus accomplished this in Jerusalem, the so-called city of peace, and the very city in which Melchizedek, the king of Salem, the king of peace, presided. He was the priest of righteousness and the king in the city of peace.
Yet he knows our weaknesses and our failings, this Christ-priest of ours. In the passage immediately preceding today’s text we’re told: we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. He is our great High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Unlike Melchizedek, though, Jesus never disappears. Once he puts his name on you in the waters of Holy Baptism, dead in sin and separated from our Father in heaven, Jesus rescues us. As the High Priest, he is our sacrifice for our sins. He is the mediator between God and man. He is the only intercessor to whom we go in our time of need to petition our heavenly Father. It is true: what a High Priest we have in Jesus. All our sins and grief he bears. Amen.
May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.