One good priest

 This week's study is on Hebrews 4:14-16:

Therefore since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession. For we do not have a high priest incapable of sympathizing with our weaknesses, but one who has been tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. Therefore let us confidently approach the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace whenever we need help.

 Paul wrote these verses to his fellow Jews, hence the name "Hebrews."  In this part, he's comparing Jesus to the priest who would have acted on their behalf in the temple in order to atone for their sins. Priests served a useful function in the Old Testament, but they had their problems too.

One fairly obvious problem was that they were people. People can be bad at their job, indifferent, even corrupt. If there can be corrupt cops and inept civil servants, there can be corrupt and inept priests too, right? There are even some cases in the Old Testament of priests stealing from the treasury, asking for bribes in order to perform their duties, and even intimidating and raping the parishioners!

I make it sound like an old problem here, but it's still a problem we have today. How many people are put off religion based on all of the above issues with modern priests? Televangelist scandals. Clergy abusing children. Weird polygamist sex cults with physical intimidation and extortion. So Paul definitely has a point he's trying to make in bringing it up. A priest-based faith is only as good as the priest. And people don't always make great priests.

Another problem was that the priests were considered a separate group from the rest of the tribes of Israel. The Levites were set apart as special so that they could be priests. So in some ways they could look down on the people they served, or might not have enough in common to sympathize with them. 

Is someone who is supported comfortably by tithes (taxation, basically) really going to understand poverty, or the fear of losing everything? Are people who are looked up to as sacred really going to have to navigate the same abuses as someone who is nobody? It's easy to be snobbish if you are set apart as something special. But at the same time, for a job as important as that of a priest, who stands in the gap between fragile, flawed humans and the almighty God himself, you really want someone who has experience, and humility.

And we see this issue today with priests too. How much is someone whose only life experience is seminary, who lives in church-sponsored housing in a nice neighborhood with a nice salary going to have in common with the people they serve in a poor neighborhood? How is someone who lives in a missionary compound and hand-sanitizes everything in sight every time they come into contact with the natives going to convincingly demonstrate that the gospel can be lived out in that culture? It can be done, but often it isn't.

So Paul's point is, Jesus doesn't have those problems. So, we can finally trust in the system to work the way it is supposed to work, without the problems that come from a human priesthood. Jesus is the Son of God who has passed through the heavens. He's not some corrupt civil servant who just wants to punch the clock and do as little as possible while enriching himself. And he wasn't raised in pampered isolation where he could snobbishly dismiss our struggles. 

He suffered life as a human and managed to navigate things successfully without sinning. So not only can he understand how things can be hard, he can also help us find the right way through them. And because of who he is, we can trust that our sins are taken care of, that we are taken care of, because he knows what it's like, and he's got what it takes to make it right, and has already made it right on the cross.

There are two things we can take from this, other than the obvious fact that Jesus Christ is awesome. First, we can look at our experiences with clergy over the course of our lives and ask ourselves if that affects our view of Christianity. Did someone disappoint you? Hurt you? Fail to impress you? Remind yourself that Jesus is not that way. Do you think he can't possibly understand what it's like to suffer the way you do? He does know. He knows what life is about and he knows the way.

And second, if you're clergy, are you out of touch with the people you serve? Do you look down on them without realizing it, dispensing advice you don't have the experience to give? Do you dismiss your flaws and failures without considering that they could affect people's faith? If so, today is a great day to ask God for help in doing better.

We have access to the perfect priest. Not only do we not have to suffer with the failures of other human beings in our path to God, but the problems we have ourselves are well-understood by him and have solutions.