Many of you may remember from your grade school days a novel by Mark Twain titled, The Prince and the Pauper. It has been adapted in various forms of Disney productions and even a few cartoon tales. The Twain story begins with two boys with identical features — one a spoiled royal heir, and the other a street urchin surviving on his wits. By chance they meet. The pauper is enamored with the fineries of the palace, while the prince envies the pauper's freedom to come and go as he chooses.
Eventually, they agree to change clothes and identities, and each then endures a series of misadventures as they seek to survive the other's life. In the process, the pampered prince discovers the hard realities of being subject to another's merciless power, and the pauper learns that having royal authority also carries with it the responsibility for the welfare of others. When the king dies unexpectedly, the prince comes to the throne much wiser and kinder for his adventure.
Power and compassion — a divine combination, and also a difficult balance for any leader to keep. The best of our leaders are those with the clout to get things done but who are devoted to using that power for the enhancement of those over whom they have authority.
Power wielded without compassion is cruel and corrupt, while sympathy without competency is ineffective and futile. Anyone facing criminal prosecution or a costly civil suit wants a lawyer not only with the highest skill level, but also with a passion to fight ferociously for the client. Likewise, when we need a heart transplant to survive, a well-meaning friend with a penknife and no medical training won't do us much good; and neither will a cardiac surgeon who chooses to vacation in Maui in our hour of need. What we most need is a physician with skill and a deep commitment to the patient.
Those of us with sin-sick souls require that similar combination of sensitivity and compassion, balanced by the power to effectively heal and forgive. We need to know, in the words of the children's table grace, "God is great and God is good. "Goodness without power is ineffective, and power without goodness is demonic.
The quest of the human spiritual journey is to connect with a higher power that can deliver us from our human predicament and engage that power to come to our aid. In the history of that human journey, it is the role of the priest to help us make that connection. One could argue that, historically, the so-called "oldest profession" is that of the priest, or "holy man." In religious cultures all around the world it is the sacred duty of the priest to represent the divine mystery to mortal men and women — and to intercede with the deity on the worshiper's behalf.
In the Old Testament, the very meaning of the word for priest means "to stand between." For the most part, the task was accomplished with cultic ritual. The role of the priest was to receive the offerings of penitence or thanksgiving from the worshiper and to in turn offer those gifts as an intercession on the worshiper's behalf. In Genesis, Melchizedek, the King of Salem (meaning "righteousness" and "peace") received the tithe from Abraham following a successful military campaign, and in turn pronounced God's blessing upon the patriarch. In later history, it was Aaron and his descendents who were chosen to make those offerings and intercessions — first in the traveling tabernacle, and later in the Jerusalem temple(s). In one particular ritual, on the Day of Atonement, the high priest would enter the holy of holies in the central part of the Jerusalem temple. There in the place where God had promised to dwell, he would offer sacrifices for the sins of himself, his family, and the whole nation in hopes of assuring God's continued presence with the nation.
But by the time Jesus came to Jerusalem, the office of high priest was not what the scriptures intended. Rather than a lifetime position for a man chosen by God, the high priest office had become a political reward granted by Rome for loyalty given, services rendered, or price paid. It was a ceremonial function, emptied of spiritual power, and by the time our preacher wrote the book of Hebrews, there was no longer a temple in which to offer sacrifices; and thus no functional need for a priesthood.
Some folks in our own day and time seem to insist this is still the case. For the enlightened, scientific mindset of our generation, prayers of penance and thanksgiving to the deity are irrelevant superstition from a bygone day. We like to think we control our own destiny and that we have progressed far beyond ritual and homage to deal with life's uncertainties.
In our modern world we do still have similar intermediaries to ensure our safety from the perils of daily living. We have sought to forge our own path into the mysteries of the universe. Rather than relying upon priests, we turn to science and technology, medicine, economics, and politics to solve our daily woes and save us from the terrors of our enemies. But even these require human faces to interpret to us their mysteries, and to guide us to the proper rituals for successful results — a kind of modern "priest" if you will. To plumb these mysterious forces we will offer any number of sacrifices: we will pore over self-help books, consult our financial gurus, and call our psychic hotlines; we hire our attorneys, and tune-in to Dr. Phil in our efforts to fix the troubles and predicaments in which we find ourselves.
But if the truth be told, even with our knowledge and technology, and all the material resources at our disposal, most of us feel helpless in the face of chaotic forces beyond our control. We blanket our fears behind a guise called "homeland security," all the while knowing we are never truly safe. We pad our pension plans, not wanting to admit that one catastrophic illness or injury could wipe out our life savings. Factories get bought out and jobs get moved to another country. Months of drought or a siege of rainfall can wipe out a season's crop. A phone call from the police in the middle of the night — our child in jail, or worse — and our lives are changed forever. A stroke or heart attack, and our youthful strength and vitality vanish like a vapor.
How do we cope? To whom can we turn? Our friends may be sympathetic, but what can they do? The government could redress grievances, but what does it care? We need a friend. We need a Savior. We need a merciful someone with power and might.
Most firefighters and rescue workers know that effectiveness at their job requires the proper equipment and skills training, as well as character, and the courage to face danger for the sake of those in peril. When your car has stalled out in the midst of a flash flood, having rescuers shout encouragements from the flood banks is of little comfort. Likewise, having courageous people dive in without the equipment or the stamina and skills to endure the current, leads only to disaster for everyone. We need someone with enough courage and compassion to brave the winds and currents, but also with the lifeline to secure us and guide us to safety.
To be effective in the rescue of the human soul requires an unbreakable connection with the saving power of God as well as a willingness to enter the torrents of sin and death to deliver that saving power to those in peril. We need a rescuer who is both great and good.
The problem with our modern "priests," however, is that they are all mired in the same human predicaments as we. Many have worldly power and influence, but lack true goodness, and others offer grandiose solutions that are irrelevant to our particular situation. And for all of them, even their best efforts produce only limited success. Knowledge is incomplete, and power is relative. Their guidance may help us avoid a few calamities and cushion a few of life's bumps; but in the end they cannot restore our innocence, transform our fallen nature, mend a broken relationship, or walk with us beyond the grave.
But we know the one who can. His name is Jesus. Like Melchizedek before him, he is the king of righteousness and peace. Just as Melchizedek offered a blessing from Almighty God before and beyond the Levite priesthood of the Jewish tradition, so also does this Jesus intercede with God on our behalf, standing on his own eternal authority.
As the floodwaters of human inhumanity thrash and churn around us, and threaten to sweep us away — we reach out to Jesus, our lifeline to God's saving power. Jesus, who is both willing and able to wade into the torrents on our behalf, and able to reach us where we are, and wrap us securely in the strength of his loving arms — arms that once were stretched wide for us upon the cross of Calvary.
In the words of the Apostle Paul, Jesus, God's royal Son "did not count equality with God as something to be grabbed, but made himself nothing ... He humbled himself, and became obedient to death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:6, 8). The prince — for the sake of his royal subjects, became a pauper.
The preacher of Hebrews asserts that both power and compassion are the qualities required for the priestly role of uniting a holy God with a sin-soaked, struggling humanity. In his journey to Calvary, we easily recognize Jesus' compassion for us. We recognize in his suffering and agony our own sorrow and grief and loss. Many of the pagan mindset in the preacher's community, as well as in our own, insisted that a suffering Savior is no Savior at all. They declared that the path to salvation lay in escaping human suffering by moving beyond it, or desensitizing ourselves to it. Some deny its reality altogether. The gnostics of the preacher's community insisted that Jesus the Christ only appeared to be human, and thus was not tainted by the carnal existence.
Not so, declares the preacher, and generations of Christians after him. The Jesus of history was, and remains fully human, and that humanity does not diminish his divinity but only serves to enhance it. He "learned compassion through what he suffered." Compassion is at the center of the divine Spirit. Jesus is able to deliver us from the torrents of human sin and suffering precisely because he has entered them with both feet. Because he lived and died in complete obedience to God, he is able to ford those powerful currents and to offer forgiveness with the very authority of God.
Just as Jesus embraced his own human vulnerability and mortal limitations, so are we likewise called. In the presence of our God, who is both great and good we are challenged to pray without fear or embarrassment. Praying for our real human needs, and those of others means we recognize our weakness — our inability to attain for ourselves what is ultimately God's to give. In the process we place ourselves at the mercy of this God, who may or may not respond exactly as we desire. Prayer makes us vulnerable, but it also draws us into closer relationship with God, and in that prayer life we gain strength beyond our human comprehension. Trusting both in Christ's greatness and goodness, we come before the royal throne of heaven as the poor and helpless pauper, and in turn we gain all the power and favor of the Prince of Peace.