WESTMINSTER CONFESSION DOCTRINES:

CHRIST AS PROPHET, PRIEST, AND KING

Deuteronomy 18: 15-16; Hebrews 5: 5-6; Luke 1: 26-33

As mentioned last week, a month of sermons from the Westminster Confession of Faith grounds us in the great themes and messages of Christianity found in the Old and New Testaments. Today’s three texts direct us to passages that lift up Christ as prophet, priest, and king.

First, you may recall Jesus himself being questioned with comments like “Are you a prophet?” or “Sir we perceive you are a prophet.” So many people think prophesy describes the future that a better definition is needed. A prophet is a preacher, who in perceiving trouble ahead for a nation or a faith, warns that change is needed and points out what changes should take place in order to avoid calamity. The content of a prophet’s message is called prophesy. Preachers even today can, and ought to, preach prophetically when the world, a nation, or a congregation is drifting into idolatry, narcissism, explosive battles, or ethical quandaries. Dr. Walter Brueggemann of Columbia Seminary defines it this way: “The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and the perception of the dominant culture around us…. The alternative, on the one hand serves to criticize [the current culture], and on the other hand, serves to energize persons and communities by its promise of another time and situation toward which the community of faith may move….[living] in fervent anticipation of the newness that God has promised and will surely give.” [THE PROPHETIC IMAGINATION, Fortress Press, 1978, p. 13.] In our own day, last month a preacher in Minnesota lost a fifth of his 5000 members when he offered a prophetic sermon giving alternatives to a patriotic status quo. And the sermon series was at the request of his congregation! Sometimes the reading of Scripture and the listening for God’s guidance lead to unexpected results. Just as dissent is part of democracy and certainly of America, giving alternative solutions to problems is even better than just protesting. Being prophetic is dangerous business when facing those who have political or financial gain from the status quo. In a vote in Connecticut last week, a candidate was defeated in a primary who now is proposing an alternative, a so-called “middle way,” to the status quo parties in place. Is he prophetic? Probably not; but it is an example of an alternative. Those who history may identify as prophetic are the controversial figures, oft times the murdered figures of history, the Mahatma Gandhis, the Martin Luther Kings, the Anwar Sadats, and to name those names will make some people’s blood boil. “Sir, we perceive that you are a prophet,” one person said to Jesus many years ago. Of course he did! Jesus was stirring up trouble! In his day, he preached about an alternative to the culture that did not even count women or children in their census, an alternative to a culture that ignored beggars, blind people, and those with communicable diseases, and an alternative to the staunchly religious leaders who were beholden to the empire of Rome. The world still needs prophets today, doesn’t it? Bible readers will remember that religious and political men all found Jesus threatening. Aside from Joseph of Arimethea and a Roman centurion after his death, Jesus most loyal followers, aside from the Twelve, were women, tax collectors, those small in stature, those condemned as sinners, those from other countries, and those with disease. If Jesus were to connect with those people today, we would find him in the streets, the gathering places of common people, at the bedside of those who suffer, and in the middle of causes for justice. He may speak with governors, presidents, senators, or preachers, but not much. Jesus would be speaking to those hungry for justice and change. Isn’t that where the church and its ministry needs to be too? Prophesy makes those in this world feel uncomfortable, but it makes eternal life possible. A rich young ruler once left Jesus feeling sad because he learned that to have eternal life he had to release his great wealth to help the poor and then follow Jesus. There is one less ruler in heaven because of that encounter according to Luke. Prophesy and repentance saves churches, it saves nations, and it saves souls.

Second, Jesus was referred to as “the high priest” by the writer of Hebrews. There it was written “Every high priest chosen from among mortals is appointed to act on behalf of them in relation to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins.” [Heb. 5:1] That is what the high priests of Judaism did in the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem. That is what they pictured Jesus being for the world. Christian theology sees Jesus as the High Priest between mortal sinners and a holy God; between a man or woman who pleads for forgiveness and a judge who can grant it. But there are other priestly roles in the Roman Catholic Church and even in Protestant Churches; priests offer blessings, priests offer prayers at the time of death, priests offer the sacraments to others, priests sit with and pray with others, priests bring Christ to others through faith, hope, and love. Jesus himself offered priestly blessings and his presence at time of illness, death, or even marriage. As we demonstrate the Priesthood of all Believers each Communion service, so even each of you who follow Jesus can present him, pray like him, and minister in his name. Eleven years ago this month, I was visiting with Barbara Jackson, a dear woman in this church who was dying of cancer but radiating the light and loved of Christ to all who came to visit her. My visits included just sitting, serving Communion, reading, praying, and parting embraces. It was priestly work to bring Christ to another person but as I shared with the boys and girls today, she and other have also been like a priest to me by that definition: They offered back the love of Christ and sometimes offered sacramental gifts. Here is the book she gave me, inscribed in her handwriting, “8/95; Jeff, thank you for being with me during these difficult times; in Christian love, Barbara Jackson.” Not “thank you for communion, or for bringing the forgiveness or blessing of God;” she said “That you for being with me.” That is priestly work; and YOU CAN DO IT FOR OTHERS. The late Henri Nouwen, who was a caring, internationally known priest, described how he felt and what he sat at the bedside of his dying mother. “Shall I pray?” [He] asked softly. She seemed pleased and nodded.” And what did this man of faith do? Instead of going to his head, he went to his heart, and to his Bible, opened it where the words were very normal and safe and familiar because he had read them over and over to her in her dying and she had read them over and over in her living. He opened Psalm 41 and said, for Heaven and his mother to hear, “Like the deer that yearns for running streams, so my soul is yearning for you, my God.” And he continued with the rest of the Psalm, and as he did, her eyes let him know of her peace at hearing Scripture one more time. Sometimes being a priest to someone else is just reciting Psalm 23, or the Lord’s Prayer, or the reading of anther Bible passage or devotional book. Each of you, too, has the calling to be both a prophet and a priest.

Finally, Jesus was born a king, but not the kind already in our world. “My kingdom is not of this world” Jesus said. He came to overcome the world and to present an alternative, there’s that word again, to popular culture. “We are to live in the world, but not of the world,” kingdom people called “Christians” say. On a night long, long ago, an angel came to a young woman who lived just south of the line where Hezbollah and Israel are fighting now. The angel proclaimed the birth of an alternative to the current king and ways of her day, and of our day. In the midst of powerful empires now and then, God is working to give the earth a new king, to show a new way, with the hope of planting some of the kingdom of heaven on earth. In some places, in certain times, sometimes with children, sometimes with youth or adults in mission or fellowship together; sometimes after a hurricane, and classically when one homeless or lost person shows another where to get bread, or blue tarps, or drinking water, or a warm blanket: the one who was born on earth to Mary still reigns in the hearts of humans who chose to live like that. Jesus became not only an infant king, but also the King of Kings. And these words heralded his coming: “He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father, David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom, there will be no end.” [Lk.1: 32-33] May the Lord Jesus—prophet, priest, and king—still be offered to the world because the priesthood of all believers, that is, Christians like you and me, still lift him up, and offer ministry in his name, to broken and hurting people. Amen.

Jeffrey A. Sumner August 13, 2006