IMPORTANT NOTICE REGARDING CONFESSION

 

CHRIST THE HIGH PRIEST

            My topic for the next few Sundays will be inspired by the second reading for today’s Mass, from the Letter to the Hebrews: “Since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.”  A short selection from Hebrews has been the second reading on Sunday since the beginning of October and will continue for the next three Sundays.  Hebrews is not the easiest book in the New Testament to understand; it requires familiarity with the specifics of the worship of Israel.  As the only book in the Bible that refers to Jesus by name as High Priest, it explains how his priestly sacrifice brought salvation to humanity.    

In the Old Testament, the high priest was a direct descendant of Aaron, brother of Moses.  The high priest presided over the worship of Israel in the Tent of Meeting and, after it was built, in the Temple in Jerusalem.  He was assisted by many other priests and their helpers, who were of the tribe of Levi.  According to the Law of Moses, only priests could offer ritual sacrifices, and they had to be made at the consecrated altar in the Temple.  The purpose of the sacrifices, also known as holocausts, which on high holy days would number thousands of animals, was to obtain the remission of sins for individuals, for families and for the nation. 

It was permitted only once a year for the high priest to enter into the innermost sanctuary of the Temple, known as the Holy of Holies, on the feast of Yom Kippur, where he would offer incense and sprinkle the blood of holocausts.  The sacred author of Hebrews notes that the high priest had to offer sacrifice for his own sins as well as the sins of the people.  In contrast, Christ, the new high priest, did not have to offer sacrifice for himself: “It was fitting that we should have such a high priest; holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens” (Heb 7:26).  Christ was a priest according to the order of Melchizedek, not of Aaron.  Melchizedek was a mysterious figure in the Book of Genesis, ruler of the city of Salem (which later became Jerusalem) and “priest of the Most High God.”  Hebrews notes that he had no family lineage and was “without beginning of days or end of life” (Heb 7:3).  He was greater even than Abraham, for the father of the Jews offered him a tithe of all that he had.  Melchizedek was a figure of the Christ who was to come, who himself is eternal, and so his priesthood is also eternal, received not by inheritance but by the fact of his being the son of God.   

Since there is a change in priesthood, argues our sacred writer, the old laws of worship are changed, for “they worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary” (Heb 8:5).  Whereas the high priests on earth offered sacrifices in sanctuaries built by men, according to the pattern given by revelation to Moses, Christ the high priest offered his sacrifice – his own body – in the one true sanctuary, which is heaven: “But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that have come to be, passing through the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made by hands, that is, not belonging to this creation, he entered once and for all into the sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption” (Heb 9:11-12).

The sacrifice which Jesus offered was his own body.  Hebrews attributes passages from the Psalms to Christ himself: “First he says, ‘Sacrifices and offerings, holocausts and sin offerings, you neither desired nor delighted in.’  These are offered according to the law.  Then he says, ‘Behold, I come to do your will.’  He takes away the first to establish the second.  By this ‘will,’ we have been consecrated through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb 10:8-10).  The worship of Israel was a foreshadowing of what was to come.  It was fulfilled by the sacrifice of Christ, the Son of God and High Priest in the order of Melchizedek, a one-time sacrifice made on the Cross, after which our High Priest entered into the true sanctuary of heaven to present himself to the Father.  “Therefore, he is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them” (Heb 7:25).