All Saints’, Dorval
October 17, 2021
Twelve-year-old Jesus with his [human] parents
In the set of felt board figures that I use to tell stories at Messy Church, the very first bag is labeled “Trinity”. It contains the two hands and heart representing God the Father; two different sized versions of the Holy Spirit; an adult Jesus figure with a detachable robe; and … a figure of a twelve-year-old boy, for the story from Luke where Jesus gives his parents the slip after Passover and ends up sitting at the feet of the teachers in the Temple.
Every time I look through that bag, it feels just a bit incongruous that here, in the midst of representations of the eternal Godhead, is this kid (whom we only have occasion to depict because the one story preserved about him in Scripture involves him getting lost for three days and knocking several years off Mary’s and Joseph’s lives!). The innocent miracle baby in the manger is one thing, but a tween who probably rolled his eyes a lot, had to be nagged to make his bed, and needed the first-century equivalent of deodorant? It’s a bit much to get your head around sometimes.
But this is the mystery of the Incarnation. Every week, we stand together and affirm that we believe in a God who became human in a man named Jesus of Nazareth, just over two millennia ago. And I think sometimes by sheer repetition we forget how mind-bendingly weird that is.
The letter to the Hebrews (which is really a long sermon rather than a letter) returns again and again to this theme, of the mystery and paradox and weirdness of the Incarnation. Two weeks ago, we heard the opening of the letter, where the writer declares that “in these last days [God] has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being, and he sustains all things by his powerful word.” Last week, if we hadn’t done the special readings for Thanksgiving, we would have heard the passage the comes just before today’s reading, which says, “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weakness, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
Hebrews is unique in the New Testament in this extended meditation on the priesthood of Christ. In today’s passage, the writer first describes a typical high priest chosen from among ordinary humans, who can relate to the struggles of his [sic] people because he has gone through them himself, but whose sacrifices are offered in part for his own sins as well as everyone else’s. The author then connects that human priest and Christ by comparing their sense of call or appointment from God. She* then concludes the chapter by describing Jesus’ superior priesthood: “Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through what he suffered; and having been made perfect, he became the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek”, a mysterious figure from the book of Genesis who is described as “the priest of God Most High” and to whom Abraham offers tithes.
The superiority and perfection of this Jesus-priest is not a static thing, however. His humanity is still fundamental to his identity. He is “tempted in every way as we are,” “subject to weakness;” he prays and cries, submits reverently to his divine Father, and is “made perfect” rather than being eternally perfect. This Jesus, as the commentator Susan R. Andrews puts it, “acts out the literal meaning of the word ‘priest’ [Latin ‘pontifex’] that ‘bridge’ spanning the gap between God’s dream and humanity’s need.”
And because this Jesus is fully human, he invites us – challenges us – to take up the same call. Andrews continues, in her commentary: “Yes, as priest Jesus is called to be the reconciliation of God – and so too are those of us who bear his name. As baptized ‘priests’ we are given all the power, vision, and grace to be who we are called to be – not because we are perfect, but because God’s grace is made perfect in us.”
One of the foundations of the Protestant movement is the concept of the “priesthood of all believers”. By virtue of our baptism into Christ, we are all priests. As your ordained priest, there are some things I am called and set apart to do – but that doesn’t make me a better or more special human than anybody else. Every Christian has a unique calling from God; the concept of vocation is not reserved for people with collars around our necks. Each of us is called to “offer up” (a verb used three times in this passage) our selves, our talents and energies, on behalf of God and God’s work in the world.
I confess that sometimes I find this whole idea more daunting and challenging than reassuring and inspiring. I don’t necessarily want my humanity and Jesus’ to be all that similar. I want Jesus to be safely out of my reach, ethically and vocationally speaking: so perfect that I can’t possibly aspire to imitate him, and so I can remain in my comfortable mediocrity and not bother with anything loftier. Jesus sympathizing with my human sorrow and anxiety is all very well; Jesus challenging my human weakness and laziness, by showing how humanity can be mingled with the divine, is less comforting.
But just as Jesus is both human and divine, so the incarnate Christ, both God and man, is also both comforting and challenging.
Jesus was the innocent baby in the manger; the snarky twelve-year-old giving his parents extra grey hairs; the suffering victim on the cross; and Jesus was, and is, the eternal high priest, the source of eternal salvation for all who obey him. Jesus is the bridge between God and us, and in his humanity, each of us, subject to weakness and yet bearing a spark of the divine, baptized into his body, finds our goal, our model, and our destiny.
Amen.
*I use the feminine pronoun for the writer of Hebrews because there is a legitimate scholarly theory that it was written by Priscilla, the apostle of Corinth and Rome (Acts 18:2, 18, 16; Romans 16:3-4)
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