Jesus: Better High Priest, Better Cleansing

A woman spotted an antique copper kettle for $2 at a garage sale. It was badly tarnished, so she asked the man running the sale if he thought the discoloration would come out. “Hmm. Let me see,” said the man as he disappeared into his house with the kettle. He came out ten minutes later with the same kettle now gleaming. He handed it to the woman for inspection. As she took $2 from her purse to buy it, the man coughed and pointed politely to a new price tag dangling from the kettle’s handle. It read: “Like New: $20” The owner felt that his trouble to clean away the grime and to remove the discoloration made the kettle ten times more valuable than it had been minutes earlier.

Everything is more valuable once it has been fixed and cleaned. That’s why people spend weeks even months preparing their house for sale. They will replace floors and paint the walls even though they won’t get to enjoy the finished product. Going through that hassle, however, should help them get a better price for the house.

The Bible teaches that we sinners need a proper spiritual cleansing if we want a happy future. Our sermon text this morning assures us that we have received such a cleansing from Jesus, the better high priest. I thought the best way to explain God’s Word today is to speak to you from the perspective of a Jewish priest who can better relate to the words of our text than many 21st century Christians can.

Shalom my friends. Peace be to you! My name is Joshua. I am a priest who served in the temple at Jerusalem 2,000 years ago. I am ashamed to say that like many of the priests in my day, I was slow to believe that Jesus was the Messiah, the promised Savior we had been waiting for. What convinced me? Well, the Holy Spirit of course. He did so through the dramatic events on Good Friday, and through the preaching of Jesus’ disciples. I was on duty that Friday when Jesus died. The Evening Sacrifice had just been offered. A lamb’s carcass was burning to ash, and its blood had been sprinkled around the base of the Altar of Burnt Offering.

While other priests attended to the burnt offering, I gathered up a handful of incense and entered the first room of the temple. Boy, was I excited. You see, ministering before the Altar of Incense is a privilege each priest gets to do once in his life. I suppose it’s how your pastor feels when he’s asked to preach at a pastors’ conference—it’s a privilege they don’t get often.

That Friday, Good Friday, was my turn to stand before the Altar of Incense and to offer prayers for my people. As I took a deep breath to begin, the silence was interrupted by a protracted tearing: r-i-i-i-i-i-p! The thick, ornate curtain which hung in front of me tore from top to bottom. Imagine someone grabbing your country’s Declaration of Independence, the one with the original signatures from 1776, and tearing it in two.

The temple curtain wasn’t just a piece of our nation’s history, however. Its purpose was to separate the Holy Place, where I stood, from the Holy of Holies. That’s the second and only other room in the temple. It’s the place the Ark of the Covenant used to be situated until we lost it 600 years earlier. As a regular priest, I was not permitted to enter the Holy of Holies. I was not even allowed to peek. Anyone who would have tried would have died. It’s like what would happen to any of us if we thought it would be interesting to stick our head in a blazing fire as if it was nothing more than a bowl of water. The human body is not made to withstand fire. Neither are sinful human beings equipped to stand in the presence of a holy God—and that’s what the Holy of Holies symbolized: the place God rested his feet on earth while he sat on his throne to rule the world (1 Chron. 28:2).

I’m not sure how long I stood there in front of the torn curtain, mouth agape, heart pounding like thunder echoing off the mountains. When I realized that I was still breathing, still part of this world and not standing before God’s judgment throne to be punished, I slowly backed out of the temple and told the other priests what had happened. It wasn’t until weeks later that I was able to make sense of it all. By then, I had listened to several sermons by Jesus’ disciples. I was also among the large group to whom Jesus appeared after his resurrection! Yes, I am here to tell you, that Jesus is the Messiah that we were waiting for. He’s your Messiah too—the one appointed by God to secure a place in heaven for you.