Lent 5B:A Priest after the Order of Melchizedek

Lent 5B: A Priest after the Order of Melchizedek

In John 12:21 we are told that “among those who went up to worship at the Passover Festival were some Greeks. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus.’” As soon as I read this, I recall a time just after I had been ordained a priest in December 1983. I was at Christ Church in Winnetka, IL and part of an active Ecumenical Clergy Group. Bob Hudnut, the local Presbyterian pastor had invited me to lunch and we met at his church. As he was showing me the sanctuary, Bob was called away for a phone call and left me to explore on my own. Eventually, I found myself standing in the pulpit gazing out at the rows of empty pews imagining what it would be like on a Sunday morning, when my eyes glanced down to where one might place notes or a manuscript and suddenly, I froze. Carved into the wood where every time one would look down at one’s notes were the words, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus!” It was a moment of transcendent realization as to what my task is to be every time I preach: that whatever I say or do is meant to help people like these Greeks in our text to see Jesus in new and transformative ways. I caught my breath and was still standing there pondering these words as Bob returned to take me to lunch.

 

To help us see Jesus happens also to be the primary concern of whoever wrote the little treatise we call Hebrews. It used to be called the Letter to the Hebrews, but it is neither a letter, nor is it necessarily addressed to “Hebrews,” but rather seems likely to have been addressed to early first or second century Christians in Rome, which very likely may have included some Jews who resided there as well. Throughout this theological treatise, the primary argument is that Jesus is a new kind of High Priest, which immediately ought to strike one as ironic since in John’s gospel it is the High Priest Caiaphas who suggests that Jesus needs to be killed to save the community from destruction by Rome. Which of course did happen anyway some 40 years after Jesus.

 

Caiaphas makes this suggestion because just before coming to Jerusalem for the Passover festival, Jesus had stopped to see his friends in Bethany, a suburb or Jerusalem, only to find his close friend Lazarus dead and in a tomb for four days. Jesus drew a larger crowd of believers after raising Lazarus from the dead. Caiaphas sees that if Jesus were to go on ‘performing signs’ like this, “everyone will believe in him.” [John 11:48] It is this that drives him to have Jesus arrested, and Lazarus as well since he is part of the reason why, as the Pharisees proclaim in the verse just before our story, “Look, the whole world has gone after him!” Which is confirmed by the arrival of “some Greeks” who wish to see Jesus. We do too. That’s why we’re here.

 

The author of Hebrews in chapter 5, and indeed throughout the treatise, makes an astonishing and curious claim: Jesus is a new kind of High Priest “after the order of Melchizedek.” Melchizedek is mentioned only twice in the Hebrew Bible: in Genesis 14 and again in Psalm 110. Melchizedek, the king of Salem, translates as “king of righteousness, the king of peace.” His singular appearance in Genesis is to Abraham, at the time still Abram, who had just successfully defeated King Chedorlaomer of Elam and others to rescue his nephew Lot, is visited by this King of Righteousness, King of Peace, who brings Abram an offering of ‘bread and wine.’ Abram offers him a tithe. Melchizedek, “a priest most high,” blesses Abram saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, maker of heaven and earth; and blessed be God Most High; who has delivered your enemies into your hand!” And that’s the last he is ever seen until Hebrews invokes him as the very kind of “priest most high” that is Jesus.

 

Curiously, in a book called “beginnings,” i.e., Genesis, there is no indication where Melchizedek comes from or where he goes. So, Jesus is like a high priest who has no beginning, and becomes a high priest who has no end. And of whom it is said, the whole world is going after him, and who declares he will draw the whole world to himself. This he says after he asks his “Abba, Father” to glorify God’s own name, and a voice from heaven replies, “I have glorified it, and will glorify it again.” Some in the crowd who heard it, which includes people from all over the ancient world like our Greeks, thought perhaps it was thunder, while others think that it was an angel. But Jesus assures them the voice was for their sake, saying, “Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.” [John 12:28-33] All people. The community of Christ is to welcome all people.

 

Those like the authors of John and Hebrews see Jesus as a “king of righteousness, the king of Peace,’ who comes not to condemn us, but to draw us closer to himself and to his Father, Abba, YHWH, in an effort to redeem all humankind and the world itself. On our better days, we too see Jesus in a similar light – one who welcomes all people and goes so far as to instruct us to pray for our enemies and those who persecute us. All people really means all people.

 

As I write this, and indeed over the last year of the Covid-19 Pandemic, violence against Asian-Americans, and in fact Southeast Asians and Pacific Islanders worldwide, has increased, in part because of the constant referring to the virus as the “China Virus.” The majority of documented cases are against women. The recent mass shooting of South Koreans and others in the Atlanta, GA, area has only been the most recent and most attention-grabbing example of a kind of racism that has existed for decades if not longer, even in regions as isolated as Australia and New Zealand, as well as in Great Britain and Canada. As a member of an Asian-American family, all of this is of great personal concern. Many of you know, our oldest daughter is from South Korea. This makes our grandson Asian-American as well. The kinds of yelling, spitting in the face and violence going on here and around the world must stop.

 

As someone who realized long ago that all that I say and do in the pulpit must help others to see Jesus, I can’t help but feel as if there has been a colossal failure among all of us who are proclaimers of the faith with the kinds of racism and violence against “others” that persists against those who do not look just like us – despite the indisputable fact that we all share fundamentally the same genetic code, the same DNA, and the same biological beginnings as Jesus, Melchizedek, Abram and all the people of faith we read and hear about week-in and week-out. Surely it grieves the King of Righteousness, the King of Peace, the Most High Priest who gives us his body and his blood, and who calls us to be a people of welcome and prayer for all people. Not some. Not most, but all people. No matter what.

 

Next week is Palm Sunday and the beginning of the most Holy Week of the year. As we become increasingly aware of the tragic results of racism that infect us more deeply than any Pandemic ever can, our prayers in this Holy Season must call us to be witnesses not only to the One we know as King of Righteousness and King of Peace, but to vow, covenant, promise never to remain silent as all the various kinds of racism and anti-Semitism persist all around us. We must be those people who pray, but who also speak out against all that goes against our Lord’s desire to draw all people, the whole world, together as One, just as we and Christ are One. Amen.