#DailyDevotion Jesus Is Our High Priest And Our Sacrifice To God

Lent Day 29

Hebrews 5:5 So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by him who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”;

 

We should learn humility from Christ Jesus. Here is the Son of God, the Creator of all that is seen and unseen and holds it all together by his own power and he does not exalt him to be made high priest. Now we often think of pastors and priests as positions of power and authority and perhaps sometimes they do to but they are offices of service. They are great because they are positions of great service. Yet one cannot claim these offices for themselves. If they do, they are opposing God. But God claims them and appoints them to these positions through the Church.

 

So too, Jesus humbles himself to John’s baptism and there is appointed by the Father to be the high priest of the human race as the Father says to Jesus, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you.”  Now the high priest offers up sacrifices for himself and his sins and for the sins of the people. But Jesus is a different kind of high priest.

 

Php 2:8 “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” You see, Jesus himself is the high priest and the sacrifice. Jesus is the fulfillment of all the sacrifices offered to God under the Mosaic Law.  He is the Lamb of the Passover. Jesus is the morning and evening sacrifice. Jesus is the bull and Jesus is the scapegoats. He is the sacrifice for sins and he is our thanksgiving and peace offering to God.

 

If there is a sacrifice that we need as humans to be made to God, Jesus provided that sacrifice as our great high priest. He has entered into the Holy of Holies in heaven above with his blood and poured it upon the mercy seat of God. He did not have to do it for himself for he alone was clean, perfect and without sin which is why he alone is the sacrifice that reconciles us to God.

 

Having been made the sacrifice for us, Jesus has been exalted above every other name in heaven above and earth below to the right hand of the Father, where he continues to serve as our high priest interceding for us and for our salvation. So we too should now humble ourselves and set ourselves as each other’s servant, sacrificing ourselves for the good of the other Just as Christ Jesus has sacrificed himself for us. We are not called to sacrifice ourselves by crucifixion but by acts of love to the person in front of us. We do for them what they cannot do for themselves. He think more about them than we think about how we can please ourselves. For that is what our great high priest, Jesus Christ has done for us.

 

Heavenly Father, we thank you that have provided for us a great high priest who offers himself as our sacrifice so we may have peace with you. Grant us such faith that our hearts may be stilled in Jesus’ sacrifice and be conformed to his image of love and sacrifice for our fellows. In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.