“you are spiritually dull and you don’t listen…you act like a baby”. Where I come from we had a term for people who were rather slow to learn a lesson. We called them “knuckleheads”. It was a fond term, because we knew that we had all been “knuckleheads” at one time or another. The term doesn’t garner the same feelings of fondness when I use it with non-military personnel (I have discovered) but there are other expressions that reveal we often feel the same way. For instance:
“I wish God would just tell me what He wants me to do” or “I need the 2 x 4 over the head explanation, otherwise I just don’t seem to get it”. Okay, I understand both of those. You’re a knucklehead. Me too!
The good news for us is that God loves knuckleheads. He created us, He knows the effects that sin has had on our brain, He has the patience and understanding to put up with us as long as it takes until we finally get it right. In fact, there is a strong possibility that we won’t truly understand until we get to heaven….but that doesn’t mean we should give up trying while we are here on earth.
Anyway, let’s not leave this chapter without discussing what is most important:
The high priest was the only one who could enter into the holy of holies and offer the sacrifice for forgiveness of sins. No high priest, no forgiveness for the entire nation, so it was a serious responsibility. And since the high priest was just another priest who was determined by casting a lot, or some other means….He wasn’t perfect either. Since only a perfect person could enter into the holy of holies (God’s presence) the high priest had to be purified first. Occasionally a high priest wouldn’t do it correctly, and he would fall over dead when he went behind the curtain (holy of holies, where the ark of the covenant was kept). No one else could go in to get him or they would die…so they started tying a rope to each priest as he went in, and fastening bells to his clothes. If the bells quit jingling…pull him out with the rope. This high priest duty was no joke. By the way, do you remember John the Baptist? His father Zechariah was a high priest. It was while he was performing his duty behind the curtain that the angel appeared to him and told him that his wife would have a baby. He came out from behind the curtain unable to talk until John was born.
Jesus is the last and greatest high priest. He isn’t chosen by lot, but was appointed by God. Instead of following in the line of Aaron, whose descendants are known, and who all eventually die, he is assigned priesthood under the order of Melchizedek, who was a priest of Jerusalem (Salem at the time) when Abraham paid him a tithe of the plunder from battle. Nothing more is known of Melchizedek, therefore he has no ancestry and no successors. When Jesus is assigned to this line, it means that He is permanent, no one will follow. And no one ever needs to be high priest again, because Jesus now stands before the Father forever. We no longer need to present ourselves before a human “priest” who intercedes for us, we can go direct to Jesus, the one and only great high priest. He is the only one who can intercede for our sins.
One last quick thought on Melchizedek….there are some who imagine him to actually be Jesus before his incarnation, or at least a foreshadowing of Jesus. I would have to go with foreshadowing….Jesus ruling over a community before his incarnation would seem to be problematic. However, it is possible that God appeared in human form in different cultures temporarily prior to His appearance in the manger.
Musing,
PR