In those days, Melchizedek, king of Salem, brought out bread and wine,
and being a priest of God Most High,
The LORD works throughout history to prepare us for all he wants to do for us in Jesus Christ. Here we have an example of this. Melchizedek's name means king of righteousness. He is the king of Salem and therefore the king of peace. He is a priest of God. He is clearly someone important as he is in a position to offer blessing to Abram and collect a tithe from him. So even though his offering of bread and wine might seem to come out of the blue we take note of it anyway. God put this priest here in a position to bless Abram and therefore, in turn, his entire family. He put him here to prepare us for still greater blessings to come. For Melchizedek's line of priesthood is to continue.
The LORD has sworn, and he will not repent:
"You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek."
Jesus restores the priesthood of Melchizedek, the priesthood of the firstborn which the Israelites lost by worshipping the golden calf. He is perfectly the king of righteousness because he is without sin. He is perfectly the king of peace because he puts an end to sin which is the cause of discord. And because he is the sinless offering which overcomes death his priesthood abides forever. This is the one sacrifice which takes away sin for all time. It does not need to be repeated, only made present to each time and place. He is a priest forever because he offers this sacrifice in the heavenly sanctuary of eternity. On earth our priests make this one perfect sacrifice present to us.
For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup,
you proclaim the death of the Lord until he comes.
He works through his priesthood to make this sacrifice available to every man, woman, and child just as he works through the disciples to feed them with the bread and fishes.
he said the blessing over them, broke them,
and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd.
And there is more than enough for the crowd, more than enough for the whole world. Do we believe in the ability of the LORD to feed his people? Or do we fall back on our own resources as the disciples momentarily do? Let us trust the LORD, knowing that after all are fed there will still be baskets left over.
They all ate and were satisfied.
And when the leftover fragments were picked up,
they filled twelve wicker baskets.
No comments:
Post a Comment