Uniform Lesson for October 16, 2016
Scripture passage and lesson focus: Hebrews 4:14-5:10
The book of Hebrews is a challenge for many Christian readers today. It was written anonymously nearly 2,000 years ago by a writer who assumed that his readers (or hearers) were familiar with a Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, with Jewish methods of interpreting Scripture and with Jewish worship practices in the Jerusalem temple. However, the intended recipients of this letter are not specifically identified. The author’s reliance on Jewish traditions could point to Jewish Christians and possibly to gentile “God-fearers” attracted to Judaism.
For Christian readers whose knowledge of the Old Testament is sketchy at best and who have seldom (if ever) experienced Jewish worship, the letter that was given the title “To the Hebrews” sometime in the second century can be enigmatic. Moreover, it makes use of little known Jewish and early Christian traditions (such as Melchizedek) to develop a distinctive theology.
Our passage for this study focuses on one of the most important religious leaders in first-century Judaism: the high priest who served in the temple in Jerusalem. The role of the Jewish high priest had changed over the years. After the Jewish people returned from exile and the temple was rebuilt, the high priest served a primarily religious role. By the first century, however, in addition to his religious role, the high priest was a significant factor in the political and economic struggles of the Jewish people under Greek and Roman rule.
Hebrews 4:14-16 — A sinless high priest
Like a skillful preacher, the author of Hebrews develops a topic he had introduced earlier in 2:17-18. There, he declared that Jesus is “a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people.” Alluding to the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) rituals described in Leviticus 16, which were familiar to Jewish-Christians and gentile God-fearers who remembered synagogue worship, the homilist lifts up the role of the high priest to describe Jesus.
Jesus as our high priest was tested by his suffering, the homilist says, and therefore he can be sympathetic toward believers who are also suffering. Therefore, he urges his hearers to do two things: to keep on believing (“hold fast to our confession”) and to pray (“approach the throne of grace”) boldly so that God’s mercy and grace will sustain them in their time of need.
Hebrews 5:1-6 — The high priest’s job description
The author points out three functions of the Jewish high priest. First, he offers sacrifices on behalf of the people for their sins as well as his own. Here there is both a clear parallel and also a difference between the high priest and Jesus. Jesus offered himself as a sacrifice, and Jesus was without sin.
Second, the high priest “deals gently with the ignorant and wayward.” The high priest has a pastoral role. Jesus also functions as a pastor who “has been tested in every respect as we are.”
Third, the high priest and Jesus were both called by God. Human high priests died, but Jesus is called to be “a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” The only other biblical references to Melchizedek are in Genesis 14, where it is part of the Abraham saga, and Psalm 110:4. More will be said about this mysterious order of Melchizedek in Hebrews 7.
Hebrews 5:7-10 — Jesus learned obedience
The preacher reminds his audience that a very human Jesus prayed “with loud cries and tears.” The reference to death suggests that the preacher may have had in mind Jesus’ agony in the Garden of Gethsemane or the crucified Jesus’ use of Psalm 22:1 when he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
The homilist’s radical point is that the suffering human Jesus, who learned obedience through what he suffered, was at the same time God’s Son. This “reverent submission” of God’s Son culminated in the Son’s “having been made perfect.” This means that Jesus completed his high priestly mission and became “the source of eternal salvation for all who obey” and was designated by God as ”a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.”
For discussion
Do you think it is necessary to suffer in order to learn obedience as Jesus did? Would it be helpful for Presbyterians to focus more than they do on the death of Jesus as a sacrifice? Can you describe a time when you were comforted by knowing that Jesus is our sympathetic high priest?
