THE PERFECT SACRIFICE OF JESUS CHRIST


THURSDAY, SECOND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

Heb 7:25-8:6; Ps 40:7-10,17; Mk 3:7-12

Offering the Perfect Sacrifice to God

The text for today opens with the profound and immediate implication of the two unalterable things upon which the Christian faith and hope hinge. “The power of Jesus to save is utterly certain, since he is living for ever to intercede for all who come to God through him.” We must remember that the reference here is to the Son of Man, Jesus Christ our Lord; he is the Eternal Word made man for our salvation. Thus, the reference is not to his eternal existence with the Father but to his assumption of our human nature for the sake of saving us sinners. It is in the human nature he took that the Father acclaimed him to be his Son and established him on oath as our High Priest in the Order of Melchizedek. Based on these two unalterable things he saved us and continues to intercede for us before the throne of God as our High Priest. The certainty of our salvation through his powerful priestly intercession is based on these two unchangeable realities—these two qualifications he has as the Son of Man. The Father proclaimed him to be his Son in the human nature he assumed and also established him as a Priest in the order of Melchizedek in the same nature.

As we have noted earlier, the Father proclaimed him a Son based on his righteousness, which consists in his complete and total conformity to the will of the Father right from his conception. The Psalm witnesses this conformity: “You do not ask for sacrifice and offerings, but an open ear. You do not ask for holocaust and victim. Instead, here am I. In the scroll of the book it stands written that I should do your will. My God, I delight in your law in the depth of my heart.” So, on the side of God, he is qualified to stand and mediate for us sinners. The author also listed the qualities that make him suitable to stand in for us as our priest. “To suit us, the ideal high priest would have to be holy, innocent and uncontaminated, beyond the influence of sinners, and raised up above the heavens; one who would not need to offer sacrifices every day, as the other high priests do for their own sins and then for those of the people, because he has done this once and for all by offering himself.” We have earlier presented the holiness or his innocence as what gives him primacy in our shared human nature, for he presents the truest form of our nature by his purity. Thus, he is uncontaminated and beyond the influence of sinners and the author of sin. Subsequently, he is most pleasing to God. His primacy in our nature qualifies him to be our high priest, as argued by the author.  

Most importantly, we must note that his innocence or holiness was not just conferred by God but earned by his obedience and cooperation with the Father’s will. Hence, he is appointed on oath as our high priest after he has been made perfect through suffering. The author argues that his suffering coincides with his well-pleasing sacrifice to the Father for our salvation. For this reason, he did not offer another victim for the expiation of our sins, but the life he offered to the Father is the once and for all expiation for the sins of mankind. “He has his place at the right of the throne of divine Majesty in the heavens, and he is the minister of the sanctuary and of the true Tent of Meeting which the Lord, and not any man, set up.” The Tent of Meeting in which he ministers is in heaven before God and within us who believe and profess faith in his name, for both are set up by the Lord for true and heavenly worship of God. His unique power to intercede and to save us, sinners, from sin and evil is what we witness in the Gospel. The unclean spirits called him the Son of God in the sense of his sinless life, for they do not know him as the Eternal Son of the Father, which is revealed only by the Father to those he chooses for salvation.  

Let us pray: Almighty and ever-living God, grant us grace to understand the holiness of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, that reposing all our confidence in the sacrifice of his life which he offered in expiation of our sins, we may walk the way of salvation he traced out for us. Through the same Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. 

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

THE ANALOGY OF CHRIST AND HIS CHURCH

Image
SUNDAY, TWENTY SEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Gen 2:18-24; Ps 128; Heb 2:9-11; Mk 10:2-16 The two shall become One, mystery of Christ and his Church The readings and theme for this week propel us toward understanding the gift God promised to man, which is beyond his knowledge and experience. Because of this, he gave us the analogy to understand the mystery, which is the divine gift. The analogy given in the reading from Genesis is a man’s union with his spouse. This analogy is profound because it has various levels of meaning. The good thing with analogies is that they work with what is easily given to our experience to transport us to the realm beyond our senses. God made man to be a temple where his Word would dwell. The indwelling of the Word in man would not be realised suddenly, for it must follow the free will and acceptance of men who are made in the image of God. The divine project is to make man like God to facilitate mutual communion. Hence, the statement: “It is not goo...
Read more

YOU CANNOT SERVE BOTH GOD AND MONEY

Image
  SATURDAY, ELEVENTH WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME Reflection from Friar Nicholas Okeke, OP  2 Chron 24:17-25; Ps 98:4-5,29-34; Mt 6:24-34 You cannot serve both God and money Prayer and the desires of our hearts have the same origin, for prayers are desires expressed to our God. Thus, many people do not connect to the Lord’s prayer because it does not express the deep yearning of their hearts. In other words, any Christian who has no spiritual or interior life would find the Lord’s prayer not suitable for his kind of prayer. As we explained in yesterday’s reflection, every aspect of the Lord’s prayer contains a germ or seed of a part of the divine revelation by our Lord Jesus Christ. So, if our regenerated spirit is dormant, we would not draw our lives from the Lord, who is the Spirit. We can only live a heavenly life through the Holy Spirit communing with our regenerated spirit. If we are not drawing our life from deep within, which is our spiritual part, then we are drawing it from ...
Read more

WE ARE MADE IN HIS IMAGE

Image
OUR LADY OF LOURDES Gen 1:20-2:4; Ps 8:4-9; Mk 7:1-13 The Origins of heaven and earth God made the material universe (or what the author called heaven and earth) from light and darkness, as contraries, and water as material or changeable. These contraries and the substratum are the origins or principles of material heaven and earth. The above truth is what the author of the passage states as follows. “Such were the origins of heaven and earth when they were created.” Apart from these three principles or origins: light, darkness, and water, the divine will is the creative force generating each new nature. The new natures are introduced by God’s word, expressing his will. “Let the waters teem with living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth within the vault of heaven.’ And so it was.” The same command is given to the earth, which was made from the water and now acts as the substratum of another set of creatures. “Let the earth produce every kind of living creature: cattle, re...
Read more