Jesus Our Great High Priest
Who is able to best sympathize with you in your struggles? Who sympathizes with you when you are at your lowest and weakest? Who is best able to serve you and help you in your time of need?
When we are struggling and are at our worst, and when we are tempted to sin and are weak, we need grace and mercy. We need help in our time of need. We need someone who understands. We need someone who has been where we are. We need someone who has experienced what we are experiencing and has come out the other side victorious. We need sympathy. We need empathy. We need help in our time of need. We need rescue.
The author of Hebrews teaches us, “Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” (Hebrews 4:14-16, ESV).
Jesus is our true and great high priest. Jesus has gone through all that we have gone through, yet he has not fallen into temptation and sin. Because Jesus is victorious, we can receive his victory in our lives. We can have the mercy and grace of God that we need, because Jesus has been tempted in all ways as we are, but has not fallen into temptation and sin.
We do not have an aloof or distant high priest. Jesus is our true high priest who has given his all in sacrificial love for us. Because of Jesus, we can come boldly “to throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”
May we see Jesus as our great high priest and come to him in our deficit and in our desperation for the mercy and grace that we so desperately need.
A Collect for the Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost, (Proper 24): “Set us free, loving Father, from the bondage of our sins, and in your goodness and mercy give us the liberty of that abundant life which you have made known to us in our Savior Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.” (Book of Common Prayer, 2019).
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