Third Sunday in Lent – March 27, 2011

Genesis 14:14-20 - ¹⁴ When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan. ¹⁵ During the night Abram divided his men to attack them and he routed them, pursuing them as far as Hobah, north of Damascus. ¹⁶ He recovered all the goods and brought back his relative Lot and his possessions, together with the women and the other people. ¹⁷ After Abram returned from defeating Kedorlaomer and the kings allied with him, the king of Sodom came out to meet him in the Valley of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). ¹⁸ Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, ¹⁹ and he blessed Abram, saying, “Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. ²⁰And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.”

JESUS - THE HIGH PRIEST WE NEEDED

Melchizedek! Who is this strange fellow with this strange name who appears so briefly on the pages of Scripture? For one brief moment he appears out of nowhere and then vanishes just as quickly. His whole story, told in just three short verses of this chapter in the book of Genesis. And so it would be easy to simply dismiss this brief encounter as having little significance for God's people.

And yet the Bible makes much of him. In Psalm 110 the Lord, speaking through David, compares the coming Savior to him and says, "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind; You are a priest forever, in the order of Melchizedek" (Psalm 110:4). And the writer to the Hebrews in the New Testament devotes the better part of three chapters to a discussion of the relationship of Jesus to this priest and king of Salem. Obviously, then, we cannot simply dismiss the mention of him as insignificant. God considers him an important figure; we might say a picture of the Savior. And what is that picture? That Jesus is the High Priest we needed.

The name Melchizedek itself is significant – it means "King of Righteousness." So also are his other titles. "King of Salem" or Jerusalem means “King of Peace.” And perhaps most notably, he is called "priest of God Most High." He comes into view when Abram and his household army had routed an invading army that had defeated and ransacked the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah and carried off Abram's nephew, Lot, and all his possessions. Through God's power Abram had not only rescued Lot and the other prisoners of war, but had also brought back all their possessions.

At this point, when the king of Sodom had come out to welcome the returning hero, Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God, appeared. And Melchizedek had a message for Abram, a very special blessing from God. He said: "Blessed be Abram by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And blessed be God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand." With these words Abram was reminded of his special relationship with God. Remember, Abram had left his homeland at the word and promise of God and God had promised to make him a mighty nation, to settle him in his own land, and bless all people through his descendants. Now, this blessing from Melchizedek is another reminder of that great promise. So Abram responded with a very appropriate act of worship and devotion - he gave Melchizedek a tenth of all he had. In so doing, he recognized him as priest of the true God.

And that is significant! For at this time the nation of Israel as God’s chosen people had not yet come into being. As a result, no one yet had been commissioned to be priests. Yet God still had his appointed spokesman, Melchizedek, priest of the Most High God. And as priest, Melchizedek foreshadowed the Old Testament priesthood.

It was after the exodus from Egypt at the time of Moses that God appointed Aaron and his sons as priests. Through them God would express his feelings toward his people and outline what he expected of them, and the priest would in turn bring the people's wants and needs to God and their requests for forgiveness through their sacrifices. Very carefully God outlined the duties of the priests and told them exactly what they should do, including a system of sacrifices through which fellowship could be restored and sins forgiven.

The description of these sacrifices may sound a little strange to our ears. But every part of it was important and displayed a clear picture of the way sin was to be handled. In all of it, God was teaching his people just how serious their sin really was. We can only imagine what the people must have thought when they saw the priest catch the blood of the sacrificial animals, carry it to the altar, and splash the blood against the altar and smear it against the horns. We can only imagine what the people thought when the smell of burning flesh from the sacrificial animal filled their nostrils.

Time and again these acts were repeated, blood being shed every time they sinned. But in order for us to fully understand what it all meant, we have to examine what happened on the great Day of Atonement. On that one day, the High Priest, and only the High Priest, could enter the Holy of Holies and into the very presence of God himself. It was his job alone to make atonement for the sins of the people. Alone he would sacrifice a bull for his own sins and carry the blood into the Holy of Holies to sprinkle it on the mercy seat of God. Then taking a goat, he would sacrifice him for the sins of the people, and carry the blood back into the Most Holy Place to sprinkle the mercy seat of God again. Coming out he would then lay his hands on another goat, known as the scapegoat, and confess over it all the sins that God’s people were guilty of - figuratively transferring the sins of the people to the animal. Then the goat was to be led out into the wilderness, far enough away that it would never find its way back.

And so it went for centuries: sin offerings to cover sin; blood to wash away guilt; the High Priest to serve as mediator and go-between; each done in anticipation of the One who would come, the One to whom all this pointed. Finally the shadow gave way to reality. “God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under law, ⁵ to redeem those under law, that we might receive the full rights of sons” (Galatians 4:4). God gave us a new High Priest, a perfect High Priest. He gave us his Son. He gave us a High Priest who has gone through the heavens, who entered the true Holy of Holies of God's perfect Temple in heaven, who "by one sacrifice [he] has made perfect forever those who are being made holy" (Hebrews 10:14).

God built into the Day of Atonement the key to understanding it all. All this blood was a symbol. These sacrifices were shadows of Christ. The Day of Atonement couldn’t really make atonement; it couldn’t really get rid of God’s anger. The Day of Atonement, the work of the High Priest, was a shadow of another day – the day Jesus went to the cross…the day when heaven and hell, sin and grace, God’s anger and mercy. At the cross, Jesus did what no animal sacrifice could ever do.

Jesus came as the one High Priest who could make the perfect sacrifice we needed. And he came not just as Priest, but as the sacrifice as well. John was right when he called him "the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). But I wonder if we fully understand those words. So often we think only of a cute wooly creature children love to pet. God's Old Testament people would have understood John in a completely different way. They would have seen a sacrificial lamb, bleeding and dying, his wool stained red with blood. They would have seen a scapegoat, piled with the sins of the people, taken into the desert with those sins, never to return. They would have seen a priest smearing the altar red in atonement for sin. Whether they knew it or not, they were seeing a picture of the cross. And that picture is the picture we need to see. Like God’s Old Testament people, we too are sinners. In so many ways, we have committed the very same sins they were guilty of. We might like to think we haven’t, but we have. We’ve grumbled and complained about the way God has taken care of us. We’ve withheld the appropriate offerings we are to return to our Lord in worship. We’ve even, at times, ignore what he says to us in his Word and live in active rebellion. Even the most faithful, committed Christian is still a sinner. Yes, that includes even you who plant your body in that pew each week. Our hearts are corrupt. Our sins stain everything we do, everything we touch, and everything that we are. If God treated us justly, there’s only one thing that could happen: we would die and go to hell. It's not a pretty picture. It's not intended to be.

For those Old Testament people, those bloody sacrifices were a constant reminder of sin. They showed them the seriousness of sin and its ugly nature which demanded such satisfaction. The same is true of Christ. His bloodied and beaten figure described on the pages of Scripture is a strong reminder of our sin. The fact that he had to be executed on the cross, forsaken by his Father, and hung out to die shows us the seriousness of sin and its ugly nature which demanded the sacrifice of the very Son of God himself. Yet at the same time, it shows us that the substituionary sacrifice has been made. There, humanly speaking, God did the most unfair thing in history. He did something no human court would ever allow. He let a completely innocent person step up and take our punishment for us. Jesus is the High Priest we needed and the Lamb of sacrifice all in one.

Can you imagine that happening in America? After the jury convicts a murderer, can you imagine any judge letting his lawyer volunteer to be executed for him? But that’s what God did. He transferred our guilt to Jesus. Then he rained all his anger and hatred over our sins and against sinners down on his beloved Son. He didn’t hold anything back. He piled all the hell of every sinner who has ever lived on top of him. Then he killed him. When he was done, our sin was paid for. When he was done, Jesus’ blood – the blood of God’s own Son, the blood of the High Priest we needed – had washed our guilt away. There he surrendered his life to make atonement for sin. There he made the perfect sacrifice and brought validity to the thousands of sacrifices that for so many years had pointed to him. When Jesus rose from the grave we were made certain that God no longer has anything to be angry with us about. And all of us who have been led to put our faith in Christ will live with him in joy forever.

It’s true; today we're far removed from the Old Testament world of high priests and bloody sacrifices. For us, such things seem strange and out of place. We enjoy the liberty of being children of God - full and complete forgiveness without any need for sacrifices. But we dare never forget how we became God's children. We dare never forget the greatest sacrifice our High Priest, Jesus, made on the cross of Calvary, the sacrifice he made for us.

Jesus is the High Priest we needed. He is the true “King of Righteousness.” He is the true King of Peace. He came to give us his righteousness, to exchange his perfection for our imperfections and sins. He came to give us peace through his blood, the forgiveness of sins. Today you and I don't need a priest to offer sacrifice for our sins. That's already been done! Once and for all! We need only to go in faith to our Lord Jesus Christ, our perfect High Priest. In him we find perfect healing. Amen.