Do We Need a Priest?

We were living in Japan in the Fall of 1967 and Billy Graham was coming to Tokyo. The whole church buzzed with excitement. As they made plans to take a group each night, I made plans to invite my friend Maya. Maya did not attend our church, her family was Catholic, but she was a good friend and I loved her. She was as excited as I was at the prospect of an adventure to Tokyo and ran into her house to ask her mother if she could go. Maya's mother said yes, but with one requirement. She had to go to confession first.

My 11 year old mind was puzzled. Not knowing the mind of her mother, I still wonder if she wanted to make sure Maya was all "confessed up" before going to a religious gathering, or if it was such a bad thing to go hear the protestant evangelist that she needed to confess ahead of time. So I dismissed the whole priest thing at that point and decided that was for Catholics and the Old Testament. 

You can do that for a while...until you read Hebrews.

God began appointing priests in the Old Testament to represent the people to our Holy God. But those priests were just a shadow of who was to come. Jesus, the Son of God, is our High Priest. Jesus represents us to our Holy God as He sits at His right hand. While the priests could sympathize with the people they represented because they were mere men, Jesus sympathizes with us because He came to earth as a man, faced our same temptations but never sinned.

The priests offered sacrifices for the sins of the people but not until after they offered sacrifices for their own sins. Jesus had no sin, so no sacrifice was needed for Him, but He as our High Priest, has made the sacrifice for our sins. The priests made many sacrifices. Jesus only made one. It would be a perfect sacrifice that would forever end the need for sacrifices and it would be costly. It would need to be a sacrifice that would satisfy the wrath of God for our sins. Our sins deserve death. It would have to be perfection. It could only be Jesus Himself. No thing, no animal, no person would be enough. Jesus, our High Priest gave the sacrifice of Himself and on the cross, He died a most cruel death. For me. God the Father received the death of Jesus as payment for my sins. Three days later God raised Him from the dead. Oh what a Savior!

Do we need a priest? Oh yes, and His name is Jesus!

I hope my friend Maya knows Jesus as her priest. I hope you do too.

Earlier there were a lot of priests, for they died and had to be replaced. But Jesus’ priesthood is permanent. He’s there from now to eternity to save everyone who comes to God through him, always on the job to speak up for them. Hebrews 7:23-25 (The Message)