2024/08/12

156. Priesthood Leading to the Last Table of Jesus.

The genuine image of the priesthood, hidden in the wilderness, was that of a "servant". The priesthood makes those who assume this office not servants like servants of the world but friends of Jesus Christ, leading all men to his last table. The Lord said, "Those whom I love, I reprove and chasten; so be zealous and repent" (Revelation 3:19). So, we can roughly summarise the characteristics of the "servants" who receive the rewards given to "He who conquers" in each of the letters to the angels of the seven churches that we examined in the previous issue, as follows. 

They test those who call themselves apostles but are not and find them false. They endure patiently, bear up for Jesus' name's sake, and have not grown weary. They remember from what they have fallen, repent and do the works they did at first. They do not fear what they are about to suffer. They awake, leaving the works of those who have the name of being alive and are dead, strengthen the rest who are dying, remember what they received and heard, and keep them and repent. They hold what they have fast so that no one may seize their crown. They come out of the state of lukewarm, neither hot nor cold, and buy from Jesus Christ gold refined by fire, that they may be rich, and white garments to clothe them and to keep the shame of their nakedness from being seen, and salve to anoint their eyes, that they may see (cf. 2:1-3:22). 

Establishing the New Testament was indispensable for understanding and carrying out what is said above. That is because the priesthood of Jesus and the formation of those who have taken it entirely differ from that of the priesthood of the Old Covenant. Jesus said, "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it upon an old garment; if he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old" (Luke 5:36), and said, "And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins" (5:37-38), warning of the danger of mingling old and new Covenant teachings. He continued, "And no one after drinking old wine desires new; for he says, 'The old is good.'" (5:39), foretelling that if the Old Covenant teachings are continually input into those who are under the New Covenant, they will prefer the Old Covenant teachings. 

If believers read and listen to the books of the Old Covenant, constantly injecting the teachings of the Old Covenant into their memory and retaining them, the teachings of the Old and New Covenants will be placed mixed in their memory. There will be a danger of a preference dependence when we, even unconsciously, begin to sympathise with the laments and appeals to God of the people of the Old Covenant times who were waiting for the coming of the Saviour and, in time, begin to taste them superimposed on the situation in which we find ourselves. That is because we often try to draw comfort from the vision of Jesus of the Second Coming, even though we do not know when he will come, forgetting the Holy Spirit, who is always with us and working among us. 

As Jesus himself said, "You search the scriptures, because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness to me" (John 5:39), and, "These are my words which I spoke to you, while I was still with you, that everything written about me in the law of Moses and the prophets and the psalms must be fulfilled" (Luke 24:44), now that Jesus had come into the world, and that God's definitive plan of salvation through Jesus Christ has been made clear by the establishment of the New Testament, we should handle the earlier teachings as an essential object of historical study for understanding it. 

When we sit around Jesus' last table, made present by his words commanding us, "Do this in remembrance of me" (Luke 22:19), the preference dependence on the Old Covenant makes us obsessed with our unworthiness to receive the Lord, rather than makes us concentrate on Christ present in the Eucharist as God with us. So, many believers around the world, even when they see the Eucharist before their eyes, fail to realise that the desire to confess that he is God with us and our Saviour lurks deep within them. Even though that desire is a divine blessedness that the Father in heaven had already revealed to Peter the Apostle and Jesus to Martha and had been given to the believers. 

Before the feast of the Passover, Jesus rose from supper and washed the feet of the Apostles. That must have been to wash away the memory of all previous covenants before entering the new Covenant with them. To Peter, who said, "You shall never wash my feet," Jesus answered, "If I do not wash you, you have no part in me" (John 13:8). 

Maria K. M.