March 15: The Great High Priest, Our Intercessor
.jpg)
♫ Music:
Friday, March 15
The Great High Priest, Our Intercessor
Scripture: Hebrews 4:14-16
Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
Poetry:
At Mass
by Vachel Lindsay
No doubt to-morrow I will hide
My face from you, my King.
Let me rejoice this Sunday noon,
And kneel while gray priests sing.
It is not wisdom to forget.
But since it is my fate
Fill thou my soul with hidden wine
To make this white hour great.
My God, my God, this marvelous hour
I am your son I know.
Once in a thousand days your voice
Has laid temptation low.
THRONE OF GRACE
Ever since the Garden, we have been hiding from our lovers.
Once we have joined ourselves with Christ and have become one with Him in spirit, we are His beloved and He pursues us fiercely. He always wants us, always is leaning into the relationship, always is moving toward us. He has made His home in us, and He intends to stay. Jesus never turns away from His own.
And us? Not so much.
Sin is the big problem here. When we sin, we think we are unlovable– we hate ourselves, and we hide from ourselves and we hide from others…including Jesus. This is stupid of us, because Jesus is the only way out of our sin and He sees us anyway. But, as I heard a pastor say once: “Sin makes you stupid!”
Indeed.
When I was younger, I wasn’t so bothered all the time by my sin. As a kid who was following Jesus, I thought that by the time I was sixty, I’d be really holy and hardly bothered by temptations to sin at all.
I wish.
Here’s the scary thing: we-humans really get to choose. We can choose to sin, even after we belong to Jesus. But here’s the amazing thing: we can also choose NOT to sin, now. The Holy Spirit gives us that power. We can turn towards, or we can turn away, from our Lord. As humans, we will always be filled by something/someone; we will always be mastered by something/someone. Our only choice is who/what fills us and who/what masters us.
The invitation here in Hebrews 4 comes from our Savior Himself, our Great High Priest Jesus, who is at once the sacrificial Lamb and the One doing the offering. Jesus invites us to the Throne of Grace, not the Throne of Judgment. We are fully accepted in Him, there is no more condemnation for us, because we are now His beloved children, living His resurrected life. These are complex mysteries theologically, but this is our true reality, our real experience right now.
Right now, as you read these words, you are beloved by the Creator of the Universe. Right now, He is intently attending to you and your needs. Right now, the Holy Spirit is praying for you and your temptations and trials. Right now, in whatever familiar sin is calling your name, in whatever your weak body or spirit desires and feels inevitably drawn to, right now, hear the voice of your loving Big Brother Jesus calling you to come and find the mercy and grace that you need to fight this sin.
So “hold fast to Jesus” and “draw near the Throne of Grace."
Because He gets it! Jesus was tempted in every single way that we are. What a comfort that is to me, to you. Name your sin… yep, that one too! Jesus sympathizes with us based on His personal experience. Jesus knows temptation from the inside out AND He didn’t sin, and so He is able to help us in our time of need. This is why He came, John tells us: to destroy the works of the devil, to do away with sin, to make fools of the evil one and his demons. We ourselves are Jesus’ inheritance from the Father (Eph. 1:18). We are His and He wants us. Jesus will help us; Jesus will see us safely Home.
Hallelujah! What a Savior. Hallelujah! What a Friend.
Prayer:
Jesus, You know how tantalizing this sin is to me, how much I want it– You know because you felt this temptation as well– but You didn’t give in. Help me, have mercy on me, a sinner.
Amen.
Betsy A. Barber, PsyD
Assoc. Director of the Institute for Spiritual Formation
Assoc. Professor of Spiritual Formation and Psychology
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
The Temptations of Christ, 1480-1482
(Overall and detail view)
Sandro Botticelli
Fresco on wall
345.5 cm × 555 cm
Sistine Chapel, Apostolic Palace
Vatican City, Italy
The notoriety of the Sistine Chapel lies mainly in the frescoes that decorate its interior, and most particularly in the frescoes painted by High Renaissance master Michelangelo. During the reign of Pope Sixtus IV, a team of Renaissance painters including Botticelli, Perugino, Pinturicchio, Ghirlandaio, and Rosselli were commissioned to create two cycles of paintings on the lives of Moses and Christ. The themes of the two cycles symbolically serve as confirmation of the continuity between the Old and the New Testaments. The Temptations of Christ depicts three episodes from the gospels. On the upper left side of the painting, a fasting Jesus is tempted by Satan to turn stones into bread. In the second episode, in the upper centre of the picture, Satan has placed Jesus at the top of the temple of Jerusalem and tempts him to challenge God's promise that angels will protect him if he throws himself off the building. In the third episode, in the upper right, Satan has taken Jesus to a high mountain where he shows him the wonders of the world. Satan promises Jesus power over this domain if he will deny God and bow down to him. Jesus sends Satan away while angels minister to him. In each case, Jesus responds by using Scripture to resist every temptation. As we reflect on these three episodes, may Christ’s understanding of our temptations and His mercy and forgiveness encourage us.
About the Artist:
Sandro Botticelli (1445–1510) was an Italian Renaissance painter who belonged to the Florentine School, which was under the patronage of statesman and ruler of the Florentine Republic, Lorenzo de’ Medici. Botticelli painted a wide range of religious subjects and a number of portraits. His work was highly sought-after due to the distinctiveness of his style, characterized by lyrical patterns and decoration crispy delineated with black contour lines. He and his workshop were especially known for their paintings of the Madonna and Child, many in the round “tondo” shape. His most well known works are The Birth of Venus and Primavera. The Medici's influence greatly increased Botticelli's reputation and he was asked by the Papacy to paint parts of the Sistine Chapel, an honor only extended to some of the Renaissance's greatest artists, such as Perugino and Michelangelo.
About the Music:
“Vom Winde Beweint (1990): 1. Largo Molto” from the album ECM Selected Signs III - VIII
About the Composer:
Giya Kancheli (b. 1935) is a Georgian composer who resides in Belgium. Best-known as a composer of symphonies and other large-scale works, Kancheli has written seven symphonies and a "liturgy" for viola and orchestra entitled Mourned by the Wind. His fourth symphony, In Memoria di Michelangelo, received its American premiere in 1978 with the Philadelphia Orchestra, shortly before the cultural freeze in the United States against Soviet artists. In 1985, the policy of glasnost, instituted by Mikhail Gorbachev, brought growing exposure and recognition of Kancheli's distinctive musical voice, leading to prestigious commissions and increasingly frequent performances in Europe and America. Dennis Russell Davies, Jansug Kakhidze, Gidon Kremer, Yuri Bashmet, Kim Kashkashian, Mstislav Rostropovich and the Kronos Quartet are all among his passionate champions. In recent seasons, world premieres of specially commissioned works have taken place in Seattle, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, and Vancouver.
About the Performers:
Kim Kashkashian, Orchester der Beethovenhalle Bonn, Dennis Russell Davies (conductor)
The Beethoven Orchester Bonn (Orchestra of the Beethovenhalle Bonn) is a German symphony orchestra based in Bonn, North Rhine-Westphalia. Named for Ludwig van Beethoven, who was born in Bonn, the orchestra's principal concert venue is the Beethovenhalle. As of 2017, the orchestra had around 100 players, performing 115 performances at the Bonn Opera including all premieres, 40 concerts in Bonn, mostly in the Beethovenhalle, and guest concerts in Germany and abroad. In 1907, Richard Strauss conducted his works in Bonn with the orchestra.
Dennis Russell Davies (b.1944) is an American conductor and pianist. Davies studied piano and conducting at the Juilliard School. In 1980, Davies moved to Germany, where he was General Music Director of the Baden-Württemberg State Opera House from 1980 to 1987. There he premiered two Philip Glass operas, along with many standard operas, often in productions with innovative and unusual staging. He has also held permanent posts with the Stuttgart Chamber Orchestra, the Orchestra of the Beethovenhalle Bonn (1987–95), and the Vienna Radio Symphony Orchestra. Davies has had a long-standing association with the jazz pianist Keith Jarrett. He has conducted Jarrett in classical concerto repertoire and conducted Jarrett's orchestral music.
Kim Kashkashian (b. 1952), from Detroit, Michigan, is a Grammy-award winning Armenian-American violist. Kashkashian is noted for commissioning new works for the viola, from composers such as Tigran Mansurian, Peter Eötvös, and Betty Olivero. Kashkashian currently teaches at the New England Conservatory.
About the Poet:
Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (1879–1931) was an American poet. He is considered a founder of modern singing poetry, as he referred to it, in which verses are sung or chanted. Lindsay became famous in his day as a traveling bard whose dramatic delivery in public readings helped keep appreciation for poetry as a spoken art alive in the American Midwest. With their strong rhythms rooted in the American vernacular, revival meetings, the soapbox, and the works of Edgar Allan Poe and William Blake, poems such as "The Santa Fe Trail," "Abraham Lincoln Walks at Midnight," and "The Congo" have become a part of the nation's literary heritage. His poems of this kind are studded with vivid imagery and express both his ardent patriotism and his romantic appreciation of nature. Both Lindsay’s poetic powers and his faculty of self-criticism steadily declined during the 1920s and he lost his popularity.
About the Devotional Writer:
Dr. Betsy Barber
Associate Director of the Institute for Spiritual Formation
Associate Professor of Spiritual Formation and Psychology
Talbot School of Theology, Biola University
Dr. Betsy Barber has a clinical practice with specialization in the soul care and mental health of Christian workers. She teaches courses in spiritual formation, soul care, missions, maturity, and marital relationships. She has particular interest in spiritual formation and supervision of students in spiritual direction and mentoring. She has worked with her husband as a missionary in Bible translation and counseling ministries for 24 years. In addition to being a licensed clinical psychologist, she has background and training in spiritual direction.