If you and I were living when Jesus still walked the earth–and if we were Jews, we could go into the Temple. Now, Gentiles couldn’t, but Jews could. Yet, even being Jews, we still couldn’t go all the way into in the Temple. We’d have to stop halfway through the Temple, where we would come to a low wall. Only priests could go behind that wall. The rest of us could look over that wall and watch the priests offering animals as sacrifices on the altar.
And if we stood in just the right place on our side of the wall, we could catch a glimpse inside the Temple’s Holy Place. The lampstand that was there might provide enough light, so we could see into that room where our feet would never step. Maybe, we could see the curtain at the back of the Holy Place, in front of the Holy of Holies. The Holy of Holies, above the Ark of the Covenant, was where God had promised to make His presence known to His people.
Only priests could go into those sacred parts of the Temple. Only priests could come near where God made His presence known to His people in the Old Covenant. What a privilege to have direct access to God. If only we were priests!
But what allowed someone to serve as a priest, to offer the evening and morning sacrifices? What allowed him to eat the bread of the presence and drink the wine on that special table every Sabbath? What allowed him to burn the incense on the Table of the Bread of Presence? It was because someone was ordained as a priest. That was our Old-Testament reading–how someone became a priest in the Old Covenant.
For a man to become a priest, he would have to go through a God-ordained ritual, which involved washing, so the man could be pure enough to be in God’s presence. But it didn’t stop there. After that, he would put on white garments, to show the holiness he now had after bring purified through God’s use of water to do that.
But it didn’t stop there. He was then anointed with oil. Oil was what God used to set someone apart for a special duty. And that idea still lives on today. For example: when we call Jesus, “Jesus Christ,” we are really calling Him “Jesus the anointed one.” Whenever we call Jesus, “Jesus Christ,” we are recognizing Him as our priest, as one anointed. Being anointed with oil was God’s way of setting someone apart to serve in a special way.
But the ritual didn’t stop there. Sacrifices were made, and then the priests-to-be ate of that sacrifice. They had a communal meal with God and one another. Only after those four parts of God’s ordained ritual were completed, could a man then serve as a priest in God’s Old Covenant.
But we, you and I, live under the New Covenant. What does that Old-Covenant ritual have to do with me and you? It still has meaning for us in this way: How did Jesus fulfill that Old-Covenant priestly ordination ritual. After all, did you hear our Epistle reading? The Apostle Peter, speaking to the Christians in Asia Minor, both pastor and congregation, said: “You are a chosen people, a royal priesthood” (1 Peter 2:9).
Every Christian in the New Covenant is supposed to serve as a New-Covenant priest within God’s Royal Priesthood. The “you” to whom Peter refers is plural and points to all the listeners of His Epistle, both pastors and laity.
So, how are we ordained into the Royal Priesthood of the New Covenant? The New Testament doesn’t plainly tell us. But Jesus did say this about all the rituals that God had set up in the Old Covenant: “Don’t ever think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets. I didn’t come to abolish them but to fulfill them” (Matthew 5:17).
Since the New Testament doesn’t tell us specifically how God ordains us into the New-Covenant Royal Priesthood, we have to look at how Jesus fulfilled the rituals for Old-Covenant priestly ordination. That’s the key.
Now, maybe you’ve already figured out the New-Covenant fulfilled form for the Old-Covenant washing during priestly ordination. If you thought baptism, you’re right. After all, the New Testament even calls baptism a washing in 1 Peter 3:21 and Titus 3:5.
Baptism also fulfilled the Old-Covenant ritual of putting on white garments. For the New Testament says this about baptism: “All of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ” (Galatians 3:27).
But what about the anointing with oil? That’s murkier, for Jesus never commanded anointing with oil like He did the washing of baptism. And yet, we know in the earliest days of the Church that after one was baptized, he was anointed with oil. For us, this eventually became confirmation. Of course, back then confirmation was the pastor anointing oil on the one who was just baptized and then laying hands on him, praying for God to confirm the Holy Spirit given to him in baptism.
But as we are inclined to do, we often take what God wants to do for us and make it all about what we’re doing for Him. And so we often think that confirmation is about someone confirming his faith instead of what God is doing. And yet, toward the end of the confirmation ritual, the Lutheran Church still gives the pastor these words to say as he lays his hands on the confirmand: “The almighty God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given you the new birth of water and of the Spirit and has forgiven you all your sins, strengthen you in His grace to life everlasting” (LSB Agenda, pr. 30).
Now, it’s a bit easier for us to figure out the fulfilled, New-Covenant form for the final part of Old-Covenant priestly ordination. In the Old Covenant, those who would serve as priests would eat of the sacrifice and commune with God and the others being ordained into the priesthood. The Lord’s Supper fulfills that last part of priestly ordination. Jesus sacrificed Himself for us and we eat His body and drink His blood in communion with God and one another.
So, what makes someone a priest in the New Covenant? It’s baptism, confirmation (recognizing that confirmation is God’s confirming of the Holy Spirit given to someone in baptism), and the Lord’s Supper. Those are the New-Covenant forms that fulfill Old-Covenant priestly ordination.[1]
But that leads us to ask, “What do priests do?” Priests offer sacrifices. The job of an Old-Covenant priest was to offer sacrifices to God for the sins of the people. But we don’t need to offer sacrifices to God for the sins of the people. Our High Priest, Jesus Christ, had already offered Himself as the sacrifice for all sin.
Yet, God’s priests still offer sacrifices–not sacrifices for sin, but sacrifices of praise and thanksgiving. Peter calls them, “spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God because of Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). We don’t offer dead animals on the altar of the Temple. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices, being the face of Jesus to others in our lives. Our entire life becomes one of living out our thanks and praise to God for our salvation.
We live our lives in the world as priests, not to be served but to serve, just as our High Priest, Jesus Christ, came to serve us. Jesus dies for you, He rises for you, He baptizes you, He confirms you, and He communes you. Jesus makes you a priest in God’s Royal Priesthood. He sets you free from sin, death, hell, and from all that can separate you from your Lord. Jesus has done it all. So, you are now free to be the hands, feet, and love of Jesus serving this world as His priest.
Are you a husband or wife? See how much you can give to the one you love instead of how much you can get. Go out of your way to show the most love to your spouse when you’re getting the least love from him or her. Your priestly work will make a difference in your marriage.
Are you a parent? Provide for your children, teach them right from wrong. But most of all, fill them with God’s Word in your home and then bring them to hear that Word–that priestly Word–that makes an everlasting difference.
Are you a son or a daughter? Obey your father and mother. Honor them as God’s representatives. Love them as the ones God is using to take care of you. And even if your mom or dad doesn’t always admit it, your priestly work is making a difference.
Are you an employee? Work as hard for your boss as would for God–because you are working for God.
Do you live in a world with people in need? Care for those who can’t care for themselves. Stand up for the unborn; watch out for an elderly neighbor. Bring someone to church who can’t drive. Your priestly work makes a difference.
When you do those works with faith in Jesus, you are offering yourself as a living sacrifice. When you are a priest, when Christ has redeemed you, it’s not just what you do at Church that’s holy. Everything you do in life, from something that took months of planning to the most mundane task are spiritual sacrifices that are holy to God.
As you go about your daily tasks, you may do the same deeds as an unbeliever. But you do them as a believer. And that makes all the difference. God accepts your most meager works done with faith as if they were the greatest deeds ever done, for Jesus has forgiven anything that may be lacking in those deeds. You are a part of God’s priesthood. Your life is a spiritual sacrifice acceptable to God because of Jesus Christ.
What do priests do? They offer sacrifices. We offer ourselves as living sacrifices in this world. That’s because Jesus died for you. And now Christ is risen! He is risen, indeed! And so you are free to serve God through serving others because your salvation depends on Christ, not you. Amen.
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[1] We read from Tertullian (160-225, from Carthage):
Having come out of the baptismal pool, we are anointed with blessed oil according to the ancient discipline in which it was customary to be anointed with oil spread on the horn to receive the priesthood. It is with this oil that Aaron was anointed by Moses; from which comes his name of the Anointed (christus) which comes from chrisma, meaning “anointing.” (Tertullian, “On Baptism,” ch.7; ANF 3:672)
From Hippolytus (170-235, from Rome):
After this [being baptized], pouring the sanctified oil from his hand and putting it on his head he [the bishop] shall say: “I anoint you with holy oil in God the Father Almighty and Christ Jesus and the Holy Spirit.” And signing him on the forehead he shall give him the kiss of peace … (On The Apostolic Tradition, 21:22-23, Stewart-Sykes translation)
From On the Apostolic Tradition we find that the priestly “ordination” rite for those being brought into the Church consisted of baptism, anointing with oil (chrismation/confirmation), and the Lord’s Supper. We find this sequence in chapter 21, “On the handing over of holy baptism.”
The early Church’s sequence of someone being baptized, anointed (chrismated/confirmed), and then participating in the Lord Supper mirrored the ordination of priests in the Old Covenant. In Old-Covenant ordination, the final act was the priest eating part of the sacrifice. God “ate” His part of the sacrifice and the priests ate their portions. Thus, in the Old Covenant, we see a “communion” of sorts. Through such a similar sequence, one was ordained into the New-Covenant’s Royal Priesthood.
