Tag: Jesus our High Priest

In the Face of Death

Old Testament: Isaiah 3 & 4

Poetry: Psalm 60

*New Testament: Hebrews 5

      What makes a firefighter run into a burning building to save a human life?  What makes a police officer run towards gunfire rather than away from it?  What makes a nurse care for a patient with a contagious virus?  What makes a soldier live in constant danger in a far away land?  What makes a father or mother risk their own life in order to save their child?  These are common examples of bravery.  We often take these sorts of things for granted.  We often just assume that someone will be there to save us when we are in trouble.  However, these acts of bravery and self-sacrifice are counter intuitive.  Why would someone risk their own life to save another person, even a stranger?  Why would you run into a burning building or knowingly expose yourself to a deadly disease? Why would you count your own life as nothing for the sake of another?  We have here a special kind of love and a special kind of courage.  Normal human beings can do incredible things. 

      Hebrews chapter 5 teaches that Jesus is our High Priest by virtue of His sacrificial death upon the cross.  Hebrews portrays Jesus in a very human way.  Jesus was well acquainted with the human experience.  In fact, the experiences of Jesus made Him worthy to be our high priest.  Hebrews 4:15 reads of Jesus, “For we do not have a high priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but One who has been tempted in all things as we are, yet without sin.”  He was tempted just like we are.  Hebrews 5:2 writes of the high priest, “…he can deal with the ignorant and misguided, since he himself is beset with weakness…”  For this reason, according to Hebrews 4:16, “Therefore let us draw near with confidence to the throne of grace, so that we may receive mercy and find grace in the time of need.”  For Jesus knows the human experience.  He knows that it is not easy to choose right over wrong.  He knows that the right choice is not always the easy choice. 

    Hebrews 5:7 reads, “In the days of His flesh, He offered up both prayers and supplications with loud crying and tears to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety.”  This verse relives that most dramatic moment in Jesus’ life as He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane.  After observing the Passover with His disciples in the upper room, Jesus and company retired in the darkness to a garden located on the Mount of Olives.  Jesus knew what was about to happen.  He was about to be betrayed.  He was about to be judged by corrupt men.  He was about to be humiliated.  He was about to be nailed to the cross and killed.  Even knowing what was going to happen didn’t make it any easier for Jesus.  There Jesus prayed to His God, “Father, if You are willing, remove this cup from Me, yet not My will, but Yours be done.”(Luke 22:42)  As He labored in prayer and poured His heart out to His Father, great drops of sweat dropped from His brow like blood.  An angel strengthened Him as He prayed.  For the Father had asked Him to willingly give His life for the sake of the whole human race.  Jesus, we know made the choice to obey God when it would have been easier not to obey God.  God was asking Jesus to give everything, all that He had.  Was it courage?  Was it bravery?  Was it faith in His Father?

     Notice the content of Jesus’ fervent prayer in Hebrews 5:7: “He offered up….prayers….to the One able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His piety…”  That verse might make us pause for a moment.  For, Jesus in one sense was not saved from death.  He was crucified.  He died and was placed in a tomb.  However, “being saved from death” is a reference to the resurrection of Jesus.  His Father saved Him from being dead.  Jesus gave up everything and God restored it all…..and even more.  This act of obedience even in the face of death was a remarkable moment in human history.  It was not just facing death.  It was facing death with the expectation that life would be restored by God Himself.  Jesus trusted God, His Father, with His life.  Hebrews 5:9 says of Jesus, “Having been made perfect, He became to all those who obey Him the source of eternal salvation.”  Jesus is the model and example of what God created all human beings to be.  Namely, Jesus trusted God with His life.  He obeyed God even when it was dangerous.  He obeyed God even when it was easier not to obey.  God wants you to trust Him with your life.  God wants you to believe His promise of resurrection.  God wants you to put your life in His hands.  God is calling us normal human beings to do incredible things.

-Scott Deane

Reflection Questions

  1. How would you describe the relationship between God and Jesus described in Hebrews 5?
  2. What does eternal salvation mean to you? What does it mean to you that Jesus died for you to receive it?
  3. How did Jesus show us how to trust God? How did Jesus show us how to obey God? How are you doing following Jesus’ example?
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Better Days are Coming

Jeremiah 31 & 32 and Hebrews 7

Do you feel like many of us, and you want to hear some good news? I’m thinking that the Judeans may have been feeling this way. Can you remember times that were pure joy? I used to love summers, no school, visits with family, church camps, and family vacations. It was the best time of the year! Looking back we forget the bad times and just remember the good days. The chapters of Jeremiah 30-34 are referred to as the book of encouragement, it was the good news after all the doom and gloom. We get to read about the brighter days that are coming for Israel and Judah together again. There are better days ahead.

The Bible is a book about us having a relationship with God. Jeremiah is about a restored relationship with God. When we have a relationship with someone, we want to spend time with them, we talk to them, we ask them questions because we want to know everything about them. This is the kind of relationship God wants with His children. Jeremiah 31:1 “At that time,” declares the Lord, “I will be the God of all the families of Israel, and they shall be My people.”  And in verse 3 it says “The Lord appeared to him long ago, saying, “I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have drawn you out with kindness.” God loves us, with an everlasting love but he allows us to make the choice if we will return His love. Not only is He a God who loves, but He is also a God who judges. We have to decide if we will return His love, seek Him, and follow Him. Jeremiah 31:33 says, “For this is the covenant which I will make with the house of Israel after those days,” declares the Lord: “I will put My law within them and write it on their heart; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people.” That is His deepest desire, that we be His people. At this time the nation of Israel and Judah were separate, Israel had been in exile for years, and Judah was going to be captured by Babylon in the near future.

In Jeremiah 32 King Zedekiah has had Jeremiah shut up in the palace guard prison because the king wanted Jeremiah to quit prophesying that they would be captured by Babylon. But this is what God told Jeremiah to tell His people and it is exactly what will happen. God tells Jeremiah, the children of Israel and Judah have done evil for years, they have turned their back on me, they have followed other gods, and they have burned their children as sacrifices to Moloch. They have done evil things. But when they call out to God, He will bring them back to their land and verse 38 once again says “And they shall be My people, and I will be their God!” When we call out to God, He always accepts us back.

Hebrews 7 is about a new covenant, in the first covenant the Levites were the priests for Israel. Jesus was not a Levite he was from the line of Judah. He was made our high priest not because of his lineage but because he led a perfect life that made him worthy of being a priest. Hebrews 7: 26-28 “For it was fitting for us to have such a high priest, holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens; who has no daily need, like those high priests, to offer up sacrifices, first for His own sins and then for the sins of the people, because He did this once for all time when He offered up Himself.For the Law appoints men as high priests who are weak, but the word of the oath, which came after the Law, appoints a Son, who has been made perfect forever.” When Jesus, our High Priest, returns to set up the kingdom, our better days will be here to stay. What a glorious day that will be.

-Sherry Alcumbrack


Today’s Bible reading passages can be read or listened to here at BibleGateway.com – Jeremiah 31 & 32 and Hebrews 7

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