Who Was Melchizedek And Why Should We Care? Series

Solemnity of the Body and Blood of the Lord 2025

If the name “Melchizedek” does not bring any pictures into your head, please don’t feel uneducated. We are given today just a snatch from the story in the Book of Genesis. You may know that the Israelites assembled Torah over a period of many years, mostly from their oral tradition. But there were also documents from the Temple. All this work was attributed to Moses, who had led the people out of Egypt to the borders of the Holy Land promised to Abraham. The whole story we have in Genesis 14 seems to be a very old tale that had been stored in the Jerusalem archives, and records that before the conquest of Canaan by Israel, Jerusalem had a Canaanite king named Melchizedek, which is a name put together from words meaning King and Priest. This fellow was both king and priest in Jerusalem, which was an independent reign until the Hebrew king David conquered the city.

Abram, before the covenant with the Lord, was living in the central Holy Land with his family and retainers. Abram’s nephew, Lot lived in Sodom with his family. There was a war and the king of Sodom was defeated. Here’s what the Bible relates: “The four kings seized all the goods of Sodom and Gomorrah and all their food; then they went away. They also carried off Abram’s nephew Lot and his possessions, since he was living in Sodom. A man who had escaped came and reported this to Abram the Hebrew. Now Abram was living near the great trees of Mamre the Amorite, a brother of Eshkol and Aner, all of whom were allied with Abram. When Abram heard that his relative had been taken captive, he called out the 318 trained men born in his household and went in pursuit as far as Dan.” Abram appears to have battled the rear guard of the thieving kings and routed them, recovering Lot and his family and property and bringing them back home. That sets up the visit with Melchizedek, which is like a religious celebration, offering God the bread and wine. Then Melchizedek accepted the donation of ten percent of the recovered property. A prayer service like this was offered in later years in Solomon’s Temple by anyone who escaped a peril and vowed a sacrifice to God for the escape.

Our psalm today describes King David and his successors as priest-kings in the order of Melchizedek. David, like Melchizedek, functioned during his reign as King of Jerusalem, but there were times he presided at sacrifices, before his son built the Temple. Jesus, as the legal descendent of King David, is also designated both King and Priest. The Book of Hebrews in the NT makes that clear. Jesus forever offers His body and blood as the sacrifice that remits sin, in the great eternal wedding feast before the Father. When we gather for Eucharist, St. Paul tells us, the bread and wine re-present that offering here on earth. And we in communion share in the Body and Blood of Christ.

In St. Luke’s Gospel, we see in Galilee the precursor event of that first Eucharist. Jesus, on multiple occasions, miraculously fed five thousand or more people from a tiny collection of bread and fish. He was able to accomplish this because He was the Son of God, second person of the Blessed Trinity, whose love overflows, as the OT sings constantly, into gracious gifts for His people. As His people, we then gather to give thanks and praise, because Our Lord loves to hear the prayers of repentant sinners gathered together. May He be glorified into all eternity.