21 January 2015 - a life that cannot be destroyed

Jesus is a priest forever. He lives forever to make intercession to God on our behalf. He is not one among many. He is the truth of priesthood that all before point toward and to which all after refer back. The truth of priesthood is offering for the sake of others. But aside from Jesus all others are distracted by their own sin. Aside from Jesus their capacity to offer is limited because they are finite. Only Jesus truly "remains forever" and is "without beginning of days or end of life." Only Jesus is a priest "by the power of a life that cannot be destroyed." Death reveals the limitations of the human race. The resurrection reveals that Jesus transcends these limits. Because Jesus is risen and has conquered death he is able to offer the world a permanent hope, an unshakable promise.

For you have been born again, not of perishable seed, but of imperishable, through the living and enduring word of God.

Only the truly risen one can be the priest we need. In turn, he asks us to open our hearts. He gives us the very love that enables him to offer himself so that we can love our neighbors with all that we are. He empowers us to transcend the limits of human love. He enables us to love with supernatural power. The Pharisees don't let themselves receive this. Their capacity to love remains limited. It remains temporary and partial. It can't embrace all who are in need.

Looking around at them with anger
and grieved at their hardness of heart,
Jesus said to the man, "Stretch out your hand."
He stretched it out and his hand was restored.

Our hands are too withered to love. But Jesus wants to heal us. He says, "Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirmt he feeble knees" (cf. Isa. 35:3). He invites us to stretch our weakness toward his strength that he might empower us. Let us not make excuses like the Pharisees. Jesus gives us the power to love. Let us use it. He makes us to share in his princely power. He is the one begotten by the Father. But he delights to call us brothers. Let us hear the words of the psalmist spoken about us and be renewed in strength and confidence:

Yours is princely power in the day of your birth, in holy splendor;
before the daystar, like the dew, I have begotten you.