Jesse Owens panicked. How could he owe $114,000 in back taxes? Soon there would be a court trial condemning him to a long prison term. This was an issue Owens realized he had to accept, failing to personally oversee his business ventures. He had not scrutinized the character of the man who represented him. He wrongly trusted his business partner to file his income tax returns.
Ashamed. Afraid. Anxious. Owens grabbed his jacket and rushed into the kitchen to kiss Ruth, his wife, good-bye. Not even pausing to explain, taking the stairs three and four at a time. Thirty-five minutes later he was at Chicago’s O’Hare Airport with a round-trip ticket to his boyhood home in Alabama.
Oakville was no longer a community of share cropper fields as over the years it had developed into a town. Buildings now stood in place of pastures. Despondent, Owens worried that he would never be able to find that plot of earth where his family’s shack once stood. Frantically, he ran about the town, darting here, dashing there, zigzagging his was across town, desperate to find that place he once called home. Then somehow, he just knew…he just knew…he was standing on the spot where he once lived. The fifty-three-year-old man, an Olympic gold medal track star, fell to his knees. He dug his hands into the dirt he once farmed and started to pray. He prayed in such agony that he sensed only one last drop of blood was left in his spirit. Then he realized, “True prayer means nothing else but giving the final drop of your soul’s blood to reach God.”
At one point all of us are going to find ourselves in a seemingly hopeless and helpless situation. The problem, we believe, exceeds our emotional and physical resources. Other times we will be all consumed by the guilt of our sin and the mismanagement of our lives, thinking there can be no redemption for our wayward soul. The situation defies a solution. Apprehensive, we await our doom.
Condemnation would be our precarious lot except we have a High Priest who has taken upon himself our sin, our guilt, our remorse, the problems of our own making. When we confront these problems that defy description or a transgression that leaves us numb, there is a sense of security and well-being in knowing Jesus is our High Priest who guides and forgives us. The trials and tribulations of life will not subdue us, for we have Jesus as our pastor.
It is only in the book of Hebrews that the Christological title of High Priest is applied to Jesus. The authorship of Hebrews remains unknown and has been strongly debated through the centuries. The position of this author resides with those who maintain Hebrews was written by a woman, perhaps Priscilla. This would make Hebrews the only book in the Bible penned by a female. Sexism aside, her maternal understanding is reflected in the theology associated with Jesus as our High Priest.
In Judaism, God is distant and, unapproachable, a name that can be neither written nor spoken. God is the lawgiver. Though most of the dictates are ones of liberation and justice, a number institute ritualistic practices with an accompanying fear for a violation.
Redemption and reconciliation for the Jews could only be secured by the High Priest who was the only one who could approach God, and then only one day in the year. On the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would enter the inner sanctum of the Temple, the Holy of Holies, and make a sin offering on behalf of all the people of Israel. The High Priest was mortal, thus before sacrificing for the nation he had to first make a sacrifice to cleanse his own soul. The sacrifice was only temporal for it had to be repeated yearly. It is for this reason the sacrifice made by the High Priest was an insufficient means of grace.
Priscilla demonstrated that Jesus was the embodiment of the new High Priest whose act of atonement was both final and complete. Priscilla establishes that Jesus is both fully divine and fully human. Confessing his divinity she wrote, “He reflects the glory of God and bears the very stamp of his nature.” (Heb 1:3) Attesting to his humanity she summarized, “It is fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” (Heb 2:10)
Jesus is the perfect priest because he is perfectly divine and perfectly human; he can bring together man and God because he is man and God. The High Priest who stands in the Holy of Holies is no longer a mere mortal, but God Himself.
Having established that Jesus is both man and God, Priscilla declares that his act of atonement is ultimate and everlasting. She wrote, “Furthermore the priests were many in numbers, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office; but he who holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able for all time to save those who approach God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. For it is fitting we should have such a high priest, holy, blameless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens. Unlike the other high priests, he has no need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for those of the people; this he did once and for all when he offered himself.” (Heb 7:23-27)
The Holy of Holies need never be entered again, for in Christ the sacrifice made on our behalf is everlasting.
The Latin word for “priest” is pontifex, which means “bridge-builder.” Jesus is not only the bridge-builder, he is himself the bridge between man and God. He is the High Priest who intercedes on our behalf.
Martin Luther, the father of the Protestant Reformation, was always fearful of the state of his soul. He constantly worried that he would be condemned to hell at worst, assigned to purgatory at best. To amend his sins, he made a pilgrimage to Rome. In the Holy City he embarked upon every ritual of redemption sanctioned by the Vatican.
One such appointment was climbing Pilate’s stairs on hand and knees, kissing each one while reciting the Pater Noster, the Lord’s Prayer. Each step acted as an indulgence that would lessen one’s time in purgatory. At the top of the steps Luther raised himself to his feet and in disillusionment, exclaiming, “Who knows whether it is so?” A question of who could possibly know if this made any difference, and certainly doubtful that it did. It was one of Luther’s final acts before declaring the theological doctrine of justification by faith alone, and the denouncement of the Catholic view of works-righteousness.
With Jesus as our High Priest, we can pray with the desperation of “giving the final drop of your soul’s blood to reach God,” knowing we are forgiven and accepted, redeemed and sanctified. Reconciled.