The world is horribly disordered and out of joint; it must come under omnipotent surgery before we can expect health.
~Billy Sunday (1862-1935)
Now if perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood (for under it the people received the law), what further need would there have been for another Priest to arise after the order of Melchizedek, rather than one named after the order of Aaron? For when there is a change in the priesthood, there is necessarily a change in the law as well. For the One of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests…. This becomes even more evident when another Priest arises in the likeness of Melchizedek, who has become a Priest, not on the basis of a legal requirement concerning bodily descent, but by the power of an indestructible life. For it is witnessed of Him, “You are a Priest forever, after the order of Melchizedek.” For on the one hand, a former commandment is set aside because of its weakness and uselessness (for the law made nothing perfect); but on the other hand, a better Hope is introduced, through which we draw near to God. And it was not without an oath. For those who formerly became priests were made such without an oath, but this one was made a priest with an oath by the One who said to Him: “The Lord has sworn and will not change His mind, ‘You are a Priest forever.’” This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant.
~ The Encourager, in Hebrews 7
Oh beloved, it is true. We think we know Him, and we don’t. At least, not yet. We waver in the laver of grace. We think that the Great Commission is a place to go. And while grace is a flow, and our path includes location – He is so much bigger.
There is a moment for each of us where we have to let go and let Him be who He is. But once we do, something happens. Our supposed thoughts that we would be comfortable in a hazy mystery about who He is become decidedly unhazy. While the mystery deepens, the clarity of His Life takes on sharp relief and color for us.
We thought we would have a friend. We have a Husband.
We hoped we would find encouragement. We have a Blessed Hope.
We thought to find god. God brought us into union with Himself.
We believed Jesus was just in the Gospels. He pours across the pages of all history and cultures.
We wanted Jesus to forgive our sins. He drives down through our capacity to even sin at all.
And He just gets bigger.
Questions we used to have with just our minds no longer to even seem to make any sense. Our sense that we could put Him to logical tests now seem silly. Our questions about whether we have free will or whether G_d is sovereign melt away in the amazing Light of His Presence. Of course He is in charge. And of course Love does not force others to comply.
And at first, we try to find the one meaning of a passage by straining out gnats of verb tense and trying to align it with commentators just as struggling as we. All the while, we find we were forgetting that the Word is Living and Active. Its meaning does not change, but it grows and comes to find the reader exactly where he or she is.
Over and over we try to wrap our minds around eternity. However, we forget that He has already put eternity into our hearts. The mind is too small to even begin to understand.
We fight our flesh like it is some sort of battle we can win. Something in us knows that we can’t, but we keep trying… Until one day He breaks through with a passage or few that we had been reading for years. One for this fool of a writer had to do with the Great Commission.
Surely, we are to go – in the power of His Spirit – to the uttermost parts of the earth with the good news. But it was only in the last couple of days that I realized that one of the most uttermost places was all the way through the hallways of my own soul.
Can we see it? This is why we need an Eternal Priest like Christ Jesus. The journey of our own soul is just too far. We could go all the way to the other side of the world (this writer has) and not even begin the first steps of the journey He really has for us.
Beloved, the reason Jesus is bigger than our failures and problems and quests is because of the fearful and wonderful image from which He has wrought us. We are incredibly complex people living in a world of complex problems. And our futile (read: infantile) attempts at understanding only lead us to the conclusion we needed to reach in the first place…. That is, we are amazing in Him. We are so amazing that the only thing that can help us realize our amazingness is SomeOne so Big and Real and Powerful that we begin to see ourselves in the Light of His Presence.
So, hopefully the problem is obvious. G_d is not interested in having tiny little, puffy sheep for His bride. No, He wants people so powerfully beautiful that they are just like Him. And the only way we are going to become like Him, is to begin to see Him for who He really is.
Tonight is your night. Time to begin to see Jesus as King of The Universe.
