Daily Devotional • June 5
A Reading from Hebrews 7:18-28
18 There is, on the one hand, the abrogation of an earlier commandment because it was weak and ineffectual 19 (for the law made nothing perfect); there is, on the other hand, the introduction of a better hope through which we approach God.
20 This was confirmed with an oath, for others have become priests without an oath, 21 but this one became a priest with an oath because of the one who said to him,
“The Lord has sworn
and will not change his mind,
‘You are a priest forever’”
22 accordingly Jesus has also become the guarantor of a better covenant.
23 Furthermore, the former priests were many in number because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, 24 but he holds his priesthood permanently because he continues forever. 25 Consequently, he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.
26 For it was fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. 27 Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; this he did once for all when he offered himself. 28 For the law appoints as high priests humans, who are subject to weakness, but the word of the oath, which came later than the law, appoints a Son who has been made perfect forever.
Meditation
As we near Pentecost, our attention shifts from the prophetic office to the priestly one. Prophets proclaim the coming of God’s presence, but priests make that presence real to their petitioners. In the priesthood of Israel, this was done with great care and attention, recognizing that the holiness of God was itself a source of danger to both priest and the broader community. If proper precautions are not taken, the holiness of God might “escape containment,” and, like the scene in II Samuel where Uzzah reaches out and is struck down by God for touching the Ark, harm might come to the people of God.
It is absolutely essential that we do not intimate that God has in any manner changed between the scenes of God’s holiness in Exodus or II Samuel and today. The writer of Hebrews will later remind us, quoting Deuteronomy, that “our God is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:29). The economy of holiness, however, has transformed—or, more rightly, the logic of that economy has unfurled before us, like a flower emerging from its bud. The writer of Hebrews describes the former priesthood as a work that certainly did its job properly, that opened paths for encountering the presence of God’s holiness. Yet, by reasons of its mortal officiants, the priesthood could never mediate that presence to all of God’s people at all times. It was bound by mortal insufficiency.
This is why the revelation of Christ as our great High Priest is such a radical one: the Christian revelation is nothing less than that the holiness of God is made present to us within the confines of our mortality and without destroying us, as that same holiness did to Uzzah and so many others in the past. By always living to intercede for us, Christ becomes a permanent (and immediate!) access-point between humanity and God.
Ian Edward Caveny serves as pastor at First Presbyterian Church of Alton in south-central Illinois and as an occasional lecturer for the John Martinson Honors Program at Southern Illinois University Edwardsville.
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Daily Devotional Cycle of Prayer
Today we pray for:
The Episcopal Diocese of Southwest Florida
The Diocese of Mthatha – The Anglican Church of Southern Africa
