In today’s first reading from Hebrews, we hear that Jesus is our high priest. The reading proclaims that Jesus is our heavenly high priest: “It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.” The Jewish high priest would enter once a year into the Holy of Holies in the Jewish Temple on the Feast of Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16). He would sprinkle animal blood on the cover of the ark of the covenant to cleanse or purify it and the Temple. Blood was a “ritual detergent” which could cleanse or purify since it was viewed as the source of life. Hebrews called this earthly Temple and ritual a “copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary.” The author uses this earthly ritual to explain how Christ’s death and his blood can purify us from sin and bring about forgiveness.
The author’s focus is clear: “The main point of what has been said is this:
We have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up.” Jesus is our priest and intercessor in heaven, seated at the right hand of the Father. Jesus’ death brings about the forgiveness of sins and a new or renewed covenant: “Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.” He cites the prophet Jeremiah to support this claim:
“Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will conclude a new covenant…I will put my laws in their minds and I will write them upon their hearts. I will be their God, and they shall be my people…For I will forgive their evildoing and remember their sins no more.” (Jeremiah 31:31, 33, 35).
Covenants are established in blood. Jeremiah promises both a new covenant and forgiveness of sins. These words of Jeremiah are echoed in the words over the cup at mass, taken from Jesus’ words at the Last Supper: “Take this, all of you, and drink from it. For this is the chalice of my blood, the blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be poured out for you and for many for the forgiveness of sins. Do this in memory of me.” (Luke 22:20; Matthew 26:28).
We give thanks to Jesus our high priest who shows us the one true God and intercedes for us before our heavenly Father.
Image: “File: The High Priest – 1916234235071.jpg” by Flavio Grynszpan is licensed under CC BY 2.0.