The Priest

Hebrews 5 In the days of His flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to Him who was able to save Him from death, and He was heard because of His reverence. Although He was a Son, He learned obedience through what He suffered. And being made perfect, He became the source of eternal salvation to all who obey Him, being designated by God a High Priest after the order of Melchizedek.

There is something so poignant about Jesus pleading with His Father for another way.

The Bible says that Jesus was the Lamb slain from before the foundations of the world. A worthy sacrifice. A willing offering. A necessary tragedy. But as a man...how He must have dreaded the cross. The pain. The shame. The separation. The sin. We cannot, in our limited imagination, fathom what He endured on the cross. We say that is is why He came and that He bore it willingly for us and that is true. Maybe it also makes us feel a little better to say that He had a job to do and it He did it well because the thought of Him pleading with His Father to be released from it breaks our hearts.

Why the cross? Why the unbearable suffering? Why did His suffering make Him perfect? This verse says that in God's eyes, in His plan, this way, this road, this suffering, made Jesus worthy to become the source of salvation for all mankind. God chose Him to become a High Priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

Melchizedek represents a priestly king. An ultimated authority welded to a high priest. A holy ruler. An eternal reigning man-king-priest.

And that changes everything. Jesus Christ was already a heavenly king but somehow in God's plan it was necessary for Him to become a man. A priest. A king. Everything is held together by Christ. He is everything. He is complete. And because He was willing to become complete by suffering, God has given Him a name above all others. He has honored Him for His obedience and sacrifice. A priest, a high priestly king...forever.

He is the only way to eternal life. He is the only way to the Father or to heaven. Faith in His death and acceptance of His sacrifice is the only way. He earned that right through His obedience, even to the point of death on the cross.

For your soul....He was willing.