Revised Common Lectionary (Semicontinuous)

A High Priest must be duly qualified and divinely appointed

5 ^1-3 Note that when a man is chosen as High Priest he is appointed on men’s behalf as their representative in the things of God—he offers gifts to God and makes the necessary sacrifices for sins on behalf of his fellow-men. He must be able to deal sympathetically with the ignorant and foolish because he realises that he is himself prone to human weakness. This naturally means that the offering which he makes for sin is made on his own personal behalf as well as on behalf of those whom he represents.

⁴ Note also that nobody chooses for himself the honour of being a High Priest, but he is called by God to the work, as was Aaron, the first High Priest in ancient times.

⁵ Thus we see that the Christ did not choose for himself the glory of being High Priest, but he was honoured by the one who said: ‘You are my Son, today I have begotten you’.

⁶ And he says in another passage: ‘You are a priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’.

Christ, the perfect High Priest, was the perfect Son

^7-10 Christ, in the days when he was a man on earth, appealed to the one who could save him from death in desperate prayer and the agony of tears. His prayers were heard; he was freed from his shrinking from death but, Son though he was, he had to prove the meaning of obedience through all that he suffered. Then, when he had been proved the perfect Son, he became the source of eternal salvation to all who should obey him, being now recognised by God himself as High Priest “after the order of Melchizedek.

An ill-timed request

³⁵ Then Zebedee’s two sons James and John approached him, saying “Master, we want you to grant us a special request.”

³⁶ “What do you want me to do for you?” answered Jesus.

³⁷ “Give us permission to sit one on each side of you in the glory of your kingdom!”

³⁸ “You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said to them. “Can you drink the cup I have to drink? Can you go through the baptism I have to bear?”

^39-40 —“Yes, we can,” they replied. Then Jesus told them, “You will indeed drink the cup I am drinking, and you will undergo the baptism which I have to bear! But as for sitting on either side of me, that is not for me to give—such places belong to those for whom they are intended.”

^41-45 When the other ten heard about this, they began to be highly indignant with James and John; so Jesus called them all to him, and said, “You know that the so-called rulers in the heathen world lord it over them, and their great men have absolute power. But it must not be so among you. No, whoever among you wants to be great must become the servant of you all, and if he wants to be first among you he must be the slave of all men! For the Son of Man himself has not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life to set many others free.”