THE LAMB OF GOD AND HIS PRIESTLY PEOPLE
THE LAMB OF GOD
AND HIS PRIESTLY PEOPLE
The
Gospels
teach that the sacrifice of Christ on Calvary was willed by the Father for the
salvation of the world in fulfillment of Old Testament prophecies. The Baptist proclaims, “Behold the Lamb of
God, who takes away the sins of the world!” (Jn 1:29). They see him as the Lamb and the suffering
servant of Isaiah: “But he was pierced for our offenses, crushed for our sins,
upon him was the chastisement that makes us whole, by his stripes we are healed...the
Lord laid upon him the guilt of us all” (Is 53:5-6). Jesus applied this passage to himself (cf.
Mat 20:28, Lk 24:25-24 & 44-45). Christ
is revealed as the sacrificed Lamb magnificently in the Book of Revelation, where
the twenty-four elders, representing the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve
apostles, worship “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain.” It concludes with the marriage feast of the
Lamb and his Bride, the Church (cf. Rev 5 & 19).
The
Last Supper of Jesus was a Passover meal.
Passover was and is one of the most important feasts of Judaism. It commemorates the Jews’ liberation from
slavery in Egypt, when the Angel of Death slew all the first-born sons of the
Egyptians because Pharaoh refused to set God’s people free. The Hebrew boys were spared by the smearing
of the blood of a year-old lamb on the doorpost of their homes, as Moses
directed. In panic the Egyptians pled
for the Hebrews to leave, initiating their journey to the Promised Land. From that night, the Jewish law required all
Jews to celebrate the annual Passover meal in their homes as a commemoration of
the Flight and of their liberation, with the pascal lamb as the main
course. In Jesus’ day crowds would flock
to Jerusalem for Passover to present lambs for themselves and their families at
the Temple, where the priests would ritually slaughter them and spill their
blood on the altar. Eyewitnesses speak
of rivers of blood flowing in the Temple on the day of slaughter, which was the
14th of Nissan on the Jewish calendar (usually in March or April).
The
New Testament reveals Jesus as the pascal Lamb, and the Last Supper as a Passover
meal. This is why the redemption
effected by Christ is referred to as the
“Paschal Mystery,” from the Hebrew word pāsah, meaning “pass over.” In the celebration with his apostles Jesus is both the Lamb which is
offered as sacrifice, and the Priest who makes the sacrifice. He says, “Take, eat; this is my body…Drink of
it, all of you, for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many
for the forgiveness of sins” (Mat 26:26-28).
In his person he fulfills all sacrifice, and yet his
priesthood remains since he lives forever to make intercession for his
followers (cf. Heb 7:25). The one
sacrifice of Christ is efficacious for all time and does not require
repetition, as did the Law, which was “but a shadow of the good things to come
instead of the true form of these realities” (Heb 10:1). Jesus presents his sacrifice to God in the heavenly
Temple, and so fulfills the reality of what the Jewish rituals anticipated (cf.
Heb 9:11-12).
As
Christ’s priesthood continues in heaven, so it continues on earth within the
Church. He had said to the apostles at
the Last Supper, “Do this in remembrance of me,” giving them the power to
perpetuate his sacrifice (Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24). In union with Christ they became priests of
the order of Melchizedek, who had no beginning or end (cf. Heb 7:3). They were tasked with building the baptized “into
a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood” (1 Pet 2:5). “For the sake of this universal priesthood of
the new covenant Jesus gathered disciples during his earthly ministry” and gave
them “entirely special powers” by which they would form a new community of
God’s people. This community needs to
ever be formed on earth, and so the Catholic tradition teaches that the same
powers to form it were passed on by the apostles to other men. “The ministry of the priest is entirely on
behalf of the Church; it aims at promoting the exercise of the common
priesthood of the entire people of God” (Pope St. John Paul II, On Priestly
Formation #16). The priestly service
of the faithful is enabled by the ministry of those who through the sacrament
of ordination are joined to the priesthood of Christ as Head and Shepherd of
the Church.
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