More so than at any other time of the year, we Churches who follow the Byzantine tradition are now immersed in the Old Testament. On the weekdays of the Great Fast, we are reading Genesis and Proverbs and Isaiah. If you’re looking for some good Lenten reading, consider reading these.
It’s well known that – on the weekdays of the Great Fast – we fast from the anaphora – that is, from the Eucharistic prayer, which is why we call these “aliturgical days,” but our lectionary also fasts on these weekdays – from the gospel and the apostolic readings.
While all scripture is God-breathed, not all scripture is equal, and it’s very clear how we feel about the gospel (2 Tim 3:16). That golden book on the holy table contains only the gospels and no other scripture – because the gospel of Jesus Christ is the preeminent revelation and the lens through which we as Christians must interpret all of scripture. So, spending some days without its proclamation is kind of a shock to our system –a true deprivation. Sometimes the absence of a person serves to remind us of how much we love them and need them. That’s what this is like.
Yet, each Sabbath and Lord’s Day – each Saturday and Sunday – are like oases in the desert. They are moments of refreshment for us in the midst of a great labor – that is if we are really doing the work of the fast. We resume the celebration of the anaphora and even our fasting is relaxed a bit on these days, which traditionally permit wine and oil and allow us to end our total fast in the morning with the Divine Liturgy rather than in the evening with Vespers or the Presanctified Divine Liturgy. Also on Saturdays and Sundays, we joyfully resume the proclamation of the gospel and the reading of the apostolic writings. Specifically, we read the Gospel of Mark and the Letter to the Hebrews.
Given our focus on the Old Testament and especially on Genesis at this time, it is quite fitting that the epistle from which we read on Saturdays and Sundays of the Great Fast is the Letter to the Hebrews – because this treatise is particularly good at showing what the Old Covenant means for us as Christians and describing for us how it is all fulfilled in Jesus Christ. It particularly focuses on priesthood and shows for us how the priesthood of the Old Covenant is fulfilled in the great high priesthood of Jesus Christ in which all believers share through their baptism into Christ.
A priest is one who offers sacrifice. We often think of a priest as a presbyter, which is an ordained elder or father of the church – and, indeed, etymologically the word “priest” circuitously derives from the word “presbyter.” These two ideas have been combined in our minds for a long time – and there are good reasons for that – the ordained presbyter has one of the essential roles in the eucharistic sacrifice – but sometimes we lose sight of important distinctions. A priest (an ἱερεύς as opposed to a πρεσβύτερος) is not just an old man (which is my favorite translation of presbyter) but is one who offers sacrifice. And it is about this priesthood that the Letter to the Hebrews is primarily concerned.
Remember that in the Old Covenant there was a complex sacrificial system. Priests were the descendants of Levi and Aaron. They sacrificed lambs and birds and various animals upon the altar in the temple and before that in the tabernacle in the wilderness. And they made offerings of grain and incense. They made different kinds of offerings for guilt, for peace, for thanksgiving, for healing, and for purity. They did all this according to the prescriptions of the law revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai at the establishment of the Lord's covenant with his people Israel.
Well, what are we as Christians to make of all of this? What does it all mean for us? Who are our priests and what is our sacrifice?
Remember that we read the Old Testament with the eyes of the gospel.
For us, there is really only one priest – Jesus Christ, the great high priest – and there is only one sacrifice – Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God – offered upon the altar of the cross, which we especially venerate today. It is Jesus who offers and is offered. Upon the altar of the Cross, our priest Jesus Christ offers for us our thank-offering – our Eucharist, which is for the remission of our sins and the cleansing of our guilt, and which heals our infirmity and raises us from our mortality. This priesthood and this sacrifice is the fulfillment of all sacrifices offered by all priests.
Yet, how can Jesus be a priest? It is clear that Jesus is not a descendant of Aaron or of the tribe of Levi. He is, as the gospels often note and as the Messiah was prophesied to be, a descendant of David and therefore of the tribe of Judah, not Levi. A king, yes, but how can Hebrews claim that he is a priest – and not only a priest but the great high priest?
Well, he is not a priest according to the order of Levi but a priest according to the order of Melchizedek. "Christ… was appointed by him who said to him..., 'You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek'" (Heb 5:5-6). This is what the Lord said of David – or of the Davidic and Messianic Priest-King in the Psalms (Ps 109/110:4). This connects the royal lineage of Jesus with a priestly lineage after all – but it is an altogether different kind of priesthood.
Melchizedek is a rather mysterious figure in the Book of Genesis, which, again, makes for good Lenten reading. Long before there is any Levitical priesthood – indeed, long before Levi was even born, Melchizedek appears. He is named only once in Genesis. And he is a priest! He’s a priest of God Most High and King of Salem. Salem means peace, so he is king of peace. Melek means "king" and ṣedeq means "righteousness,” so Melchizedek means the King of Righteousness. These are high titles!
He, like Jesus – and unlike the ordering of things in the Mosaic Covenant, which was yet to come – is both priest and king. So here is an order, which precedes the other order, which is both royal and priestly, and which makes a sacrificial offering, as all priests do. But Melchizedek does not offer the blood of goats or calves. He offers bread and wine. So, a priest of the order of Melchizedek will offer bread and wine.
This is the offering that the Lord Jesus makes on the night he was betrayed, but he transcends it and transfigures it, showing the bread and wine to be his own body, which he offers, and the wine to be his own blood, which is poured out for the forgiveness of sins (Matt 26:28). This offering is one with the one sacrifice of the cross, offered by the Davidic Messianic King and the Priest of the Order of Melchizedek – Jesus Christ.
Jesus is the only priest and the cross is the only sacrifice offered once for all. Yet, listen to what Jesus says today about the cross: "If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me" (Mark 8:34). Self-denial and losing our life for the sake of Jesus and his gospel is the cross our Lord calls us to embrace. This season of the Great Fast especially calls us to self-denial and away from self-indulgence.
There is only one saving sacrificial death upon the cross. To be saved by it we must participate in it. To rise with Christ, we must also die with him.
How? First, we must believe and be baptized into Christ. Then, if we love him, we will keep his commandments, even when it hurts. Confess our own sins to one another and not the sins of others. Pray for each other so that we may be healed (James 5:16). Fast. Pray. Show kindness and mercy and forgiveness to our neighbors, especially those we dislike. This will feel like hanging on the cross. His sacrifice must become also our sacrifice. His priesthood must become our priesthood.
His one sacrifice is re-presented also among us as often as we come together in remembrance of him and proclaim his death until he comes by eating the bread which is his body and drinking the chalice which is the new covenant in his blood (cf. 1 Cor 11:25-26). Just as Melchizedek offered bread and wine, so now does Jesus offer bread and wine become himself, our sacrificial and Paschal Lamb – in and through us who become his body by our faith, our baptism, and our communion with him.
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