The Helper Who Knows How It Feels

The letter was long, and by the time the reader reached this part, someone had gone to fetch more oil for the lamp.

No one knows who wrote it, but we know who it was for. They were Jews who had come to trust Jesus, and it had cost them a great deal. A few of them were thinking about going back to the old way.

"At least in the temple you can see the priest," someone muttered.

It was true. The high priest wore a blue robe and stood by the altar in the smoke, and you could watch him go into God's house for you. (Golden bells hung around the hem of that robe. When he went into the holy place, everyone outside listened for the jingle. As long as they heard it, he was still alive in there.)

So the writer told them about their priest.

"We have a great high priest," the letter said, "who has gone up through the heavens: Jesus, the Son of God. So hold on tight to what we believe."

Then it said something nobody expected to hear about a priest. "Ours is not a priest who cannot feel our weakness with us. He was tempted in every way, just as we are, yet he never sinned. So let us come boldly to the throne of grace, and find mercy, and help just when we need it."

Every old high priest, the letter explained, was chosen from among ordinary people. That was good, because he could be gentle with people who wandered off. He wandered too. On the yearly day for taking away sin, before he could bring an animal to be killed for the people's sins, he had to bring one for his own. (It made for a long morning at the altar.) And no one could simply decide to be high priest. God had to call him, the way God called Aaron.

Jesus did not choose himself either. The writer reached back into the songs of Israel to show it. God had said to his King, "You are my Son. Today I have become your Father." And God had said, "You are a priest forever, like Melchizedek."

(Melchizedek was a mysterious king who once carried bread and wine out to Abraham. He was a king and a priest at the same time, which hardly anyone ever was.)

Then the letter reminded them how Jesus had prayed on earth, with loud cries and tears, to the Father who could save him from death. He was God's own Son, and still he learned what obeying costs by suffering it.

The listeners in that room knew about tears. So did Jesus.

That was why they could come boldly to the throne of grace.

A throne is usually the most frightening seat in a kingdom. People do not walk up to one unless they are called. But beside this throne sits a priest who knows a hungry stomach and a tired back and a night of crying in a garden. The old high priests went in and out with their bells ringing, and one by one they died. Jesus went in and stayed. He did not need bells for his people to know he was alive. God made him the one who saves forever everyone who follows him, from that room with its smoky lamp to every bedroom where a child kneels tonight. The way to the throne stands open, and the priest who keeps it has cried real tears.