“HE KNOWS WHAT IT’S LIKE”
Good Friday, the Crucifixion of Our Lord
March 25, 2016
Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church
Glenshaw, Pennsylvania
TEXT:
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 4:15, 16 (ESV)
Have you ever wondered why most Lutherans don’t feel comfortable
referring to their clergy as “priests”? You know, it’s not just a
matter of personal taste or preference; there is a theological reason
for it. You see, “priest” is a very specific term that has a very
specific meaning. A “priest” is someone who offers up a sacrifice and
thus serves as an intermediary between God and His people. Since we
in the Lutheran Church do not consider the Lord’s Supper to be a
sacrifice of any kind, we do not usually call the person who
officiates at the Sacrament a “priest.” To be sure, there are some
Lutherans, even in our Missouri Synod, who prefer the title “priest”
because, as they explain it, the pastor does offer up to God the
prayers of the people on their behalf and he is therefore functioning
as a priest of sorts--an intermediary. However, most of us have
avoided using the term “priest” in reference to pastors because it
seems to confuse more than it enlightens.
However, when we start talking about Jesus, it’s an entirely
different matter. The Bible not only calls Jesus a Priest; it calls
Him our High Priest. Especially on this particular day--Good
Friday--we see Him fulfilling His ministry as our High Priest, because
on Good Friday the Son of God offered to His Father--literally--the
Sacrifice to end all sacrifices. And that Sacrifice was Himself,
offered up on the altar of the cross for the sin of the world. This
was the all-sufficient Sacrifice--the one that made full and complete
atonement for human sin and brought about reconciliation between the
perfect God and His sinful creatures once and for all. What makes
this Sacrifice so effective is the fact that it is the perfect
Sacrifice: “The [perfect] Lamb of God” (John 1:29) is offered up by
the perfect High Priest, and the Lamb and the Priest are One in the
same. Let’s spend these few minutes this evening at the foot of
Jesus’ cross thinking about what kind of High Priest we have and what
that means to us.
What kind of High Priest do we have in Jesus Christ? Well, in many
respects He is like us. Because we know from the Scriptures and
believe in our hearts that Jesus is God, we might be tempted to think
of Him as being somewhat insulated from the rigors of everyday life.
But the event that we are commemorating this evening ought to make it
clear to us that this is not at all the case. When Jesus consented to
become human for the sake of humans, He “jumped right into” human life
“with both feet,” as they say. As our text puts it, our High Priest
“in every respect has been tempted as we are.” The betrayal and
desertion of His most trusted friends was real, and it really hurt.
The whip and mockery of the soldiers and the crown of thorns were
real, and they really hurt. The nails that were driven into His flesh
and the insults that taunted His soul were real, and they really hurt.
Not only did all of these experiences hurt Him; they presented Him
with the very real temptation to abandon His mission. Remember:
Jesus came into the world and endured all of this willingly. He
didn’t really have to put up with any of it. He could have backed out
at any time.
But our High Priest is more than One of us. He is not only like us
in some respects; He is infinitely better than us. While it is true
that He “in every respect has been tempted as we are,” there is a
fundamental difference between His facing of temptation and ours. In
spite of all of the very real temptations that He faced, Jesus
remained “without sin.” He not only endured temptation; He mastered
it. You and I endure temptation every day. We don’t really have a
choice. And more often than not, we cave in to temptation and take
the easy way out. But our High Priest, when faced with the same
temptations that we face (and even greater ones) stood up to the evil
and overcame where we most often are overcome. He refused to be
sidetracked from the task that He came to accomplish. He headed to
that cross and grave with such determination that some unbelieving
psychologists of our day have even suggested that His death was a
suicide. Of course it wasn’t. It was instead driven by His humble
submission to the will of His Father and His commitment of love to
sinners like us in the face of every temptation to do otherwise.
What does it mean to us that we have this kind of High Priest? The
text before us speaks of the practical value of this, as well as a
resulting new attitude toward God on our part. We are told: Let us
then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace.” The two key
words here are “grace” and “confidence.” In the High Priest who made
the perfect sacrifice for our sin we see the grace of God toward us
manifested in all of its fullness. Here we are accepted by God, even
though by our sin we have made ourselves unacceptable to Him. Here we
are loved by God, even though we have made ourselves unlovable. Here
we are forgiven by God, even though we often think of ourselves as
being unforgivable. The knowledge of this grace gives us confidence
as we approach our God. Since peace between God and us has been
established by the Sacrifice offered once and for all by our High
Priest, we can come into the presence of God “with
confidence”--without any fear of judgment or condemnation.
The reason why we can have such a confident spirit as we approach our
God is because at God’s throne “we . . . receive mercy and find grace
to help in time of need.” The God who had pronounced us guilty in His
Law now pronounces us not guilty in the Gospel--all because of His Son
Jesus Christ, our great High Priest, and He showers us with mercy and
grace through His Holy Spirit, working through Word and Sacrament.
Because of the Sacrifice that Christ made for us so long ago, we have
at God’s throne of grace an ongoing source of strength--somewhere to
go in our time of need. Here at the cross of Jesus is everything that
we will ever need because here we find a powerful and gracious God who
is able and willing to provide us with all that we need.
Tonight we have come together to worship our High Priest, Jesus
Christ, as we commemorate the Sacrifice that He offered on our behalf.
Because He is like us, He knows what our life is like, with all of its
trials and temptations. He’s been there. He not only knows what it’s
like; He has endured it all. And because He is infinitely better than
us, He has resisted every temptation through which Satan tried to veer
Him off course and sidetrack Him from His work of redemption. He has
overcome it all. Since this is the kind of High Priest that we have,
we never need to be timid about coming to our God with our needs--most
especially our need of forgiveness and restoration. We can have
perfect confidence in the love and power of our High Priest.
Amen.
May the One who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood,
making us kings and priests before His God and Father, lead you to a
life of repentance and trust. May He also be glorified in the lives
of you, His people. He who calls you is faithful, and He will do it.
Amen.