JESUS CHRIST: PRIEST, SACRIFICE (VICTIM), TEMPLE AND ALTAR
Read Time: 6 minutes
I would like to take you on a brief biblical journey to look at the ways that Jesus is the one Eternal High Priest, the one Sacrificial Victim and the one Temple and Altar.
Throughout salvation history all the sacrifices offered by the priests, either Jewish or Pagan, were always distinct and separate from the priests that were offering the sacrifices.
After the fall of Adam and Eve in Genesis and the consequences that resulted from that fall, we read in Genesis 3:21 And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skins and clothed them. In other words, animals had to be killed, and blood needed to be shed to cover their shame. As Hebrews 9:22 puts it,” …without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins.”
Next, we go to Genesis 22 where God asks Abraham to sacrifice his only beloved son Isaac. In the narrative God tells Abraham to go to the land of Moriah
to offer Isaac on one of the mountains. The only other place that mentions Moriah in the Bible is 2 Chronicles 3:1 “Then Solomon began to build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem on Mount Moriah.” This is the same place where 1000 years after Abraham, Solomon builds the Temple and where Jesus would be eventually crucified on Golgotha, one of the mounts on the range of Moriah. On the third day, as the narrative tells us, Abraham, after laying the wood on Isaac went up to the mount to the place of sacrifice. Isaac submits himself willingly to his father. After all Abraham would have been around 120 years old and Isaac would have been in his late teens strong enough to carry the wood and certainly strong enough to get away if he had wanted to. But Isaac asks, “Where is the Lamb?” This question has echoed down through the centuries. Where is the Lamb? But God provides a ram in substitute for his son Isaac. An animal is killed, and blood is shed.
Then the scene shifts to Moses and the Passover in Exodus 12. An unblemished lamb had to be killed, and its blood sprinkled on the lintel and the door posts, and they had to eat the lamb so that the Angel of Death would pass over the people of Israel. This feast was to be held in perpetuity every year.
Then we go to the beginning of John’s Gospel. It is the time of Passover and John the Baptist is preaching repentance at the Jordan as people make their way to Jerusalem. The Jewish historian Josephus says that as many as 250,000 lambs were sacrificed every year at Passover in the Temple. And in the midst of this sea of animals, John the Baptist points to Jesus and declares “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”
Then we come to Jesus Christ and His Passion. Christ is both the Eternal High Priest and Sacrificial Victim. (see John 1:29 and Hebrews 4:14-5:10; 9:23-10:18). The blood of animals could never take away our sins. Only the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ. He offers himself for our sins and one drop of that Precious Blood is enough to save the whole world. Within a generation the Temple is destroyed and animal sacrifices ceased completely.
Jesus says in Mark 14:58 and John 2:19 that He is the Temple. If we belong to Christ, then we also are Temples of His Spirit.
Jesus is also the altar, the place of sacrifice. In Him we are able to approach the presence of God to offer our own sacrifices through Jesus to the Father.
“Those who desired to offer sacrifices to God, had to do so necessarily through an altar. But Christ, the Victim of salvation, approached to God through Himself. Hence, He was also the altar of His own sacrifice. For us too in like manner, He is the altar of every one of our sacrifices, for we can bring no offering to God except through Christ.”
Maurice de la Taille, SJ
It is evident that Jesus has done all the heavy lifting, and He continues to do so. The question for each and every one of us is how do we respond? For Love demands a response. When we are at mass do we believe with faith? Do we hope in love? Do we worship in spirit and in truth? Do we bring all our prayers, works, joys and sufferings and place them upon the altar to let Jesus the Eternal High Priest take those sacrifices to His Father for us? What will our response be?