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Prophet, Priest, and King


                Now there have been many of those priests, since death prevented them from continuing in office; but because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood.  Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them.  Such a high priest truly meets our need—one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.  Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.  For the law appoints as high priests men in all their weakness; but the oath, which came after the law, appointed the Son, who has been made perfect forever. (Hebrews 7:23-28)
                Israel had millions of Levitical priests, and at least thousands of Levitical high priests. They did their jobs. They made sacrifices for their own sins, and for the sins of others. Those who were made priests and high priests were men – just plain, old, ordinary, sinful and flawed men, just like the rest of us. We might get upset that these supposed leaders of their community, these supposed pillars of the religious community in Israel, were such failures. Leadership should be held to higher standards, after all. And yet, God dealt with them in spite of their weakness, failures, and sins. Amazingly, God doesn’t necessarily disqualify someone from serving Him just because they aren’t perfect. He even called Cyrus, “My servant.” 
                Just as the point of the priesthood was no more to make people perfect than the point of the Law was. And it took a different sort of priest to make the sacrifice for the sins of the people. It took a priest who was innocent of the sins, who didn’t need to offer a sacrifice for his own sins, and a priest who was willing to be the sacrifice. In spite of the sufficiency of Christ, and the uniqueness of Christ, we still look to our church and civic leaders to act as prophet, high priest, and king, to be morally perfect with regard to others but indulgent of our sins. And when he is found to have feet of clay, we follow the Pharisees and Sadducees in calling for his crucifixion even though those leaders are not meant to be Christ.  As we head into another political cycle, keep in mind that our elected officials are all failed, sinful people – but also that we are not electing our Messiah. It is not his/her job to solve all our problems or to be prophet, priest, or king.

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