Wednesday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time

Lectionary: 313

His name first means righteous king,
and he was also “king of Salem,” that is, king of peace.
Without father, mother, or ancestry,
without beginning of days or end of life,
thus made to resemble the Son of God, he remains a priest forever.

 

Melchizedek appears as a historical person in the Book of Genesis. The priest/king congratulates and blesses Abraham after the latter’s victory over four kings and their armies. By way of a thank offering, he offers bread and wine to Abraham’s God, although he worships another god in the city of Salem (which King David will rename Jerusalem.)

After that Melchizedek appears as a mysterious, sacred presence in the Book of Psalms and the Letter to the Hebrews. That anonymous Divine Author extemporizes on his name and title, and then teaches us that he prefigures Jesus.  The ancient priest/king and the Savior resemble each other in opposite directions: where Melchizedek has become a “Son of God” by his similarity to Christ, Jesus has become a priest forever in the line of Melchizedek. The ancient one is like God in having neither ancestors nor descendants; and, because he is “without beginning of days or end of life.” The Eternal Son of God, insofar as he is eternal, also has no beginning or end, and no ancestry.

Philosophers and pundits of our time might find the Author’s logic hard to follow. But they don’t expect God to act in history. When they trace historical developments, they describe certain forces that trigger and arouse other forces in causal connections. These forces move like fluids in a mechanical system that, under controlled circumstances, are somewhat predictable.

The Sacred Authors of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures were not as naïve as our scientists. They knew that God acts in history; and in the Bible they found prophetic patterns of God’s behavior. To believers these patterns appear clearly in ancient utterances and recent events. Retelling these stories, songs, laws and sayings recounted the past and prepared for a future fulfillment. If we think Saint Matthew was stretching when he linked two Hebrew words -- Nazareth and nazirite, for instance -- it made perfect sense to those who saw God’s guiding hand in the subtleties of the Hebrew language.

The Divine Author of the Letter to the Hebrews successfully anchored the Church’s worship of Jesus in the priestly traditions of Jerusalem, which included both the pre-Abraham worship of Jerusalem and the Levitical priesthood of Moses and Aaron. As he saw it, the Lord’s sacrificial death on Calvary was a Jewish holocaust like that of the Levites, in the manner of Melchizedek. The mystery of Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter would be inexplicable to the most devout Christians without this understanding of Jesus as the priest, the lamb, and the altar of sacrifice. 

As we gather with the priest at the altar, we take our place in the line of Melchizedek, offering again his bread and wine as they are the Body and Blood of Jesus. We unite the Jewish traditions of our faith with the religious impulses of all nations -- from Melchizedek to the Magi to the searching thousands of every religion. In the Lord we offer our worship for the salvation of the world and all its peoples. We take this duty upon ourselves with the same enthusiastic praise and approval that Melchizedek gave to Abraham.