“Who is it That is Born? Jesus as Priest, Church as Intercessor”
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, December 6, 2009
Text: Hebrews 3:1-6
In one of the fancier parts of the new part of the city of Prague, there are a number of upscale clubs. One evening this summer I saw a long line-up of people along the street and, actually, around the corner, trying to get in to one of those fancy clubs. They were mainly young people, definitely fashionistas by their attire. They were waiting to go into the club. Standing at the door was an extremely large man in a black T-shirt and black trousers, and even though it was night, wearing dark glasses - a formidable looking dude! As I watched, there were people being let into the club by this gentlemen, but there were others who were clearly being turned away and looking most disappointed.
I went back to my hotel and I asked the concierge about precisely what I had seen. “Ah,” he said, “I know exactly where you were. You were right outside THE nightclub in the city of Prague, probably the most elite nightclub in Central Europe. It is THE place to be seen! ”
I said that I noticed that only some people were getting in and others were being shown away. How does one know? Does one buy a ticket or something?
He said, “Oh no, no! The only way that you get into this nightclub is if you belong to the A-list and are a somebody. If you are not, you have to be good looking and wear nice clothes. Every now and again they will let in just anybody to keep the balance between male and female, between those who are from within the city and without.”
I said, “So, in other words, I wouldn't be able to get in!”
He looked at me and didn't know what to say, but he continued, “Probably not.”
I said, “You mean to tell me that as clergy I couldn't get in under the balance segment, you know, just to give some balance to the evening?”
He said, “No, I don't think clergy actually belong in that club, Reverend, to be honest with you.”
I was depressed.
Now, I want you to tuck that away for a moment and think about something that I was talking about last week. For those of you who weren't here, I have been looking at the great banquet feast of heaven that was established by Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, and called into being by the host, the Messiah. The faithful would be with the Messiah in the home of God at this great banquet feast.
Last week the people who were there were the prophets, gathered around a table talking about all the things they experienced. This week there is another table, again with a sign on it, and it simply reads “The Priests.” I can imagine what the priests of Israel would be like if they got together at a banquet feast. Can you imagine the conversation? One of them would be saying, “You have no idea how unholy the people of Israel are.”
Another one would say, “Oh, that's nothing! I have to shave my whole body to become a priest. Look what I gave up for the riff-raff of the nation!”
Another one would have said, “That's nothing! I had to clean out all the vessels when we made blood sacrifices in the Temple, and I had to use the dishwasher.”
Another one would say, “Oh, that's nothing! I had to raise all the money to make sure that the Temple keeps going and that we guys get paid.”
Then, the High Priest would stride in, and there were many of them in Israel's history, but one of them would sit down and say, “I am afraid, you fellow Levites, that you have no idea what it is like to be the High Priest! I have to walk around wearing these robes and breast plates in purple and scarlet, and it is hot and it is heavy, and the only time I get to take it off is when I go into the Holy of Holies on the Day of the Atonement. You have no idea what it is like to be the go-between God and the people!”
Then, all of a sudden, having been meeting people at the door, Jesus, the host, comes over to the table. He has overheard the conversation of the priests, and the High Priest says, “You have no idea what we have gone through!”
Jesus would stretch out his hands and he would show the holes in them and he would say, “I think I have an idea.” You see, Jesus was THE High Priest.
In the New Testament, they would pick up on this great theme that we find running throughout the whole of the Old Testament that the priests were the mediators between the people and God. But, they had to be the mediators, because the people were sinful and corrupt and impure and unjust, where God was holy and righteous and pure and full of justice. And, because God was so holy and the people were so unholy, there was no way that the two could come together, and so the priests in the Old Testament were the means: the mediators of bringing God and the people together.
Every year, according to one of the great traditions, the High Priest of Israel would go into the Temple and make a sacrifice on behalf of all the people and all their sins. Once a year, he would take the burdens of all the people, and go into the Holy of Holies on the Day of Atonement and ask the Lord God Almighty to forgive the people of their sins, thus bringing the people and God together. The people now having made a sacrifice and forgiven, and God having received the sacrifice of the High Priest. Repeated annually, this was the great Day of Atonement, where God and the people would come together through the work of the High Priest.
In the New Testament, the idea is that Jesus of Nazareth is the High Priest. Unlike the priests of the Old Testament, who annually had to go and make atonement for the sins of the people, Jesus of Nazareth once and for all made that atonement: that God himself made the sacrifice for the people. Now, John Calvin, in his Institutes, makes a fascinating observation. He says, “Have you noticed that the term High Priest only applies to Jesus after his death and resurrection. It is only in the Book of Hebrews where Jesus is referred to as the High Priest, and in parts of the Pauline literature, where Jesus talked of having made an atoning sacrifice. It is only after the events of Jesus' life that he is seen as this.”
While Calvin is right, I would suggest to you that there were glimpses in the Gospel of Jesus talking about himself as if he were a High Priest. In Mark 10, he tells James and John that he would be a ransom for many, that he would make a sacrifice for many. At the Last Supper, in the Upper Room, one cannot help but see the signs of the High Priest in Jesus when he takes the cup, and he says, “This covenant is the covenant in my blood. Drink this for the forgiveness of sins.” And was there not a moment in the minds of the writers of the Gospel when they realized that Jesus was called Immanuel, “God with Us” when the sign of the High Priestly nature of Jesus was already being seen? I think there was.
In each system, it makes this great affirmation that Jesus now is the mediator between humanity and God. Not just between the people of Israel and God, but the whole of humanity. He is the one who brings the two together. Now, you are probably saying this all sounds very nice, We have atonement, sacrifices, sin, we have the High Priest, then along comes Jesus, who makes the sacrifice, we are forgiven, and round and round we go in a sort of theological circle that finds its own logic within.
My friends, if it is only that, we are deceiving ourselves, for indeed, in this very concept of Jesus, the mediator, we have the essence of our faith. In seeing Jesus as the great High Priest, we have this vision that sustained our life and our faith. Why? It is because when we believe that Jesus is the mediator between God and ourselves, we have the greatest sense of confidence and we have the greatest sense of assurance that we can come into the presence of God.
You see, when I think about that nightclub in Prague there is something very dark about all of that. There is somebody who is standing at the door letting some people in and keeping some people out. Somehow, you had to earn your way in: you either had to be on the A-list, you either had to have a number one handicap in golf, you had to look good and be wearing the latest fashion. You had to have some qualification to get in. But, with the feast in heaven in the house and the home of God, the qualification has already been paid for, the point of entry has already been made, the one who lets us in is the one who pays the price for us to come in: Jesus of Nazareth.
This transforms the whole way in which we live with God. When we feel that we are not worthy, as sinful and unholy humans, to actually request something from God, the mediator is there, between where we are and where God wants us to be. As one of my friends, Keith Humphries, wrote so poetically, “There stands Jesus Christ!” Between where we are and God wants us to be, there is Jesus.
In my former church in Ottawa I had a very, very unpleasant incident the week before Christmas. My administrative assistant in the church had become ill and couldn't come in to work, and the week before Christmas is when we run off all the orders of service, all the bulletins for all the great events of the Christmas season. So, it was left to me and a couple of other people to work the photocopier.
We were told it was very easy, put it in, punch in the numbers, and press “Send”. So, I did exactly that, which was great for the first hundred copies. Then, guess what happened? The photocopier broke down! So, there I was, having a look at this machine, and I didn't know what to do, so I phoned Xerox or Canon or whichever company, and I explained to them the problem I was having. I said, “You know, I have opened this tray and pressed this button and I have done this and I have flipped that, and I have powered that, and I have put new paper in this, and still nothing happens!”
The man on the other end of the line, who had no idea what I was talking about said, “Well, can you tell me what you think is wrong.”
And I said, “It doesn't work! That is what is wrong!”
So, finally, he said, “Do you want me to send over a technician?”
I said, “Please, Jesus, send one now!”
In about an hour, a technician came. He took one look at the machine and pressed a button and gave the machine a swift kick. He got on the phone and said that it needed a widget and a whachet and a screw, and the guy on the other ends said, “Well, I can have those to you in an hour.” Within an hour, he came, gave it to the technician, and three minutes later, I am printing bulletins as if they are going out of style! Why? It is because I didn't even know what to ask for. I didn't even know what was wrong. I just knew that something needed fixing.
When we look at our own lives and we look at our own hearts and our own souls, we often know that there is something wrong. When we look at the state of our lives and what is around us, we know that it is not perfect. Yet, to turn to a holy and righteous God, what language do we use, what point of reference do we make? What right do we have to come to the holy and the gracious and the wonderful God?
That is where the mediator comes in. That is where the High Priest comes in. That is where Jesus represents us before the Father. That is where Jesus takes all the concerns of our lives and presents them to God Almighty. So, it is no longer on our shoulders, no longer do we have to meet the qualifications, no longer do we have to be pure and pristine, someone is there for us where we cannot be ourselves: the Mediator.
When we make a request of that Mediator, we ourselves change.
There is an incredible moment in the movie Shadowlands, which is the story of C. S. Lewis, where he decides to marry a woman for convenience. Her name is Joy Gresham. The convenience is that now this woman can become a citizen of the United Kingdom because she is marrying him. If any of you have seen the movie of the moment, The Proposal, you will know exactly what I am talking about.
They fall in love, they fall deeply in love, and they get married, and no sooner do Lewis and Gresham get married than she is diagnosed with terminal cancer. He is wrecked in his being, he is destroyed in his soul, and he doesn't know what to do, so he prays. He goes to an Anglican priest, and in this incredible moment between the Anglican priest and him, there is so much power. This is how it went: The Priest says, “'I know how hard you have been praying for Joy, and how God is answering your prayers.”
Lewis responded, “That is not why I pray. I pray because I can't help myself. I pray because I am helpless. I pray because the need flows out of me all the time. Waking and sleeping, I pray. It doesn't change God; it changes me.”
That is the power of our encounter with the Mediator. No matter what the need might be, no matter what the challenge might be, when we are helpless, when all we can do is pray, it is at that very moment that we change: when we are encountered by the Mediator, by the High Priest.
There is one other dimension of this. It is something that so often gets overlooked. It is that the Church of Jesus Christ, the church that follows the Mediator, needs to now be the intercessor between the world and the God that we love. We take on an intercessory role as people who pray for the world. We all know how fragile the world is, we know how sin and violence and greed so often take over people's lives. We know how even the “A-list” can fall from grace so quickly, don't we, this week?
We know how easy it is for those who think they are worthy of entering into the greatest and the best feel inadequate at times, and in their brokenness, they need to come home. In their shattered lives, they need to return to God. It seems to me that the role of the Church is to be an intercessor, a mediator for those very people, to present them to the High Priest and say, “Here High Priest, here are broken people. Here is a city that is in need, it has gun shots in the night. Here is a world that is often going headlong into war and insurrection and environmental destruction. Here is a place that needs to be restored. Here, Mediator, take over from us for where you want the world to be and where God is, to where you are.”
No one put that more eloquently than the great Henri Nouwen, who left a great academic career as a theologian and went to work with the L'Arche handicapped and the poor in the community with Jean Vanier. He writes this, and this is a real gem. This is a quote that you really need to hear about the importance of people coming home to God, and us praying for them:
Jesus, in whom the fullness of God dwells, has become our home by making his home in us he allows us to make our home in him. By entering into the intimacy of our innermost self he offers us the opportunity to enter into his own intimacy with God. By choosing us as his preferred dwelling place, he invites us to choose him as our preferred dwelling place. This is the mystery of the incarnation. In this new home, where the world belongs, the distinction between distance and closeness no longer exists. God, who is furthest away comes closer by taking on our mortal humanity. Thus, God overcomes all distinctions between the distant and the close, and when Jesus says, “Make your home in me as I make mine in you,” he offers us an intimate place that can truly be called home. But, in this world there are millions of people who are homeless. Some are homeless because of their inner anguish, while others are homeless because they have been driven from their towns and their countries. In prisons and mental hospitals and refugee camps, in hidden away city apartments, in nursing homes, in hospitals, in overnight shelters, we get a glimpse of the hopelessness of the people of the twenty-first century.
If Nouwen is right, then the role of the Church is to be an intercessor for that world.
When I went to the shelter two weeks ago to help a homeless man return to his home, I realized that his homelessness was not a matter of place so much as it was a matter of relationships. What was broken in him was not that he was in a building where he did not belong, but that he needed to feel that he belonged to God. Between where he was and where God wanted him to be was the Messiah, the High Priest, the Mediator, who cries out to the world, “Let me take you home.” Amen.