Letter from the Vicar (March 2008)
Dear friends,
Two boys were playing in the street, the one a Roman Catholic, the other a high church Anglican. The Roman Catholic priest came down the street and his young parishioner shouted out, “Good morning, Father.”
A bit later the Anglican priest came along and the other boy called out, “Good morning, Father” at which the Roman Catholic boy protested: “He’s not a Father, he’s got a wife and three kids”!
Controversies about the priesthood of the ordained ministry have raged long and loud in the history of Christianity. Should clergy be called priests? What does it mean to say you are a priest? Is an Anglican priest the same as a Roman Catholic priest? Is it right to call priests Father or Mother? And so on. But if there is dispute about the priesthood of ordained ministers there is no such dispute about Christ’s priesthood. All Christians are agreed that Jesus is a priest.
But what does it mean to say that? To understand it we have to understand what essentially a priest is. A priest is someone who bridges the gap between humanity and deity. He conveys human things to God and brings divine things to us. When a priest offers sacrifice she is conveying a human offering to God that something in turn may be brought from God to humans. When he blesses he is bringing something good from God to us. When she intercedes she is carrying the concerns of humanity to God’s throne. There are quite a few problems for human priests, however, in case you haven’t realised. And they’re not just to do with stroppy PCCs or churchwardens.
The three greatest problems are these:
1. In case you hadn’t noticed it is the case that in and of ourselves priests are weak and sinful. The letter to the Hebrews says that it is for this reason that the priests of the Old Covenant had to be constantly offering sacrifices for sin. Jesus Christ, however, though tested in every way did not waver from his commitment to following God’s will as we do. The New Testament describes this fidelity as sinlessness.
2. Human priests are impermanent. We do not last forever, though some old buffers I know look as if they’ve been around since the time of Noah. Jesus Christ, however, is “a priest for ever”. He is permanent. And “consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he ever lives to make intercession for us.” (Hebrews 7.25)
3. We are human, all too human, but we are not divine, not even the best looking female priests! But Jesus, because he perfectly unites both the human and the divine in one person completely fulfils the requirements for a priest, to be the satisfactory representative of God to humans and of humans to God. Jesus is the priest par excellence, he is the ‘great high priest’ because he perfectly represents God to us and us to God. He fully shared in our human condition but he also shares fully in the life of God. “But what does that all mean for us?”
I hear you asking, “What does it mean for me?” It means that within the life of God Jesus the high priest is always at work for us. To requote the verse from Hebrews, “He ever lives to make intercession for us.” Jesus’ offering of himself and his concerns to his Father continues all the time. So when we pray and offer worship, our prayers and worship are caught up into the eternal offering of Jesus. I think this is an enormous encouragement.
Like me I expect you often feel that our worship and prayer is paltry and so inadequate when you consider who it is we are worshipping. But Jesus takes up our prayers, however stumbling, and perfects them for us. This is surely what happens when we celebrate the Eucharist. Our imperfect offering is united to the perfect offering of Jesus and he transforms it into something which is fully acceptable to God. This is why it is perfectly appropriate for those who preside at the Eucharist and who are given the responsibility for bearing the blessings and mercies of Christ to his people to be called priests. For they share in the high priesthood of Christ.
Actually all Christians share in it, though the Church focuses it in certain people, for we all have the duty of bringing God down to earth and raising earth up to heaven. Jesus did this through his obedient life culminating in his death on the cross. He continues to do it and he does so supremely and perfectly. Because of that everyone can know that the path from earth to heaven and from heaven to earth is open. There are no barriers, no obstacles. And that, my friends is the glory of the incarnation, the glory of the life, the glory of the resurrection, the glory of the reign and yes, even the glory of the cross of Christ.
Yours sincerely,
Richard Franklin
March 2008
