Intercede

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (JPS translation)

The days are surely coming, declares I AM, when I will cut a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant that I made with their ancestors when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt - a covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, says the LORD. But such is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says I AM: I will give my Torah into their innermost being, and I will inscribe it upon their hearts. Then I will be their Elohim, and they shall be my people. No longer will they need to teach one another, or say to each other, “Heed I AM,” for all of them, from the least of them to the greatest, shall heed me, declares I AM; for I will forgive their iniquities, and remember their sins no more.

Hebrews 5:5-10 (ESV - with some additional Greek work)

So also Christ did not exalt himself to be made a high priest, but was appointed by the one who said to him, “You are my Son, today I have begotten you”; as he says also in another place, “You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.” In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up urgent prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death, and he was heard because of his reverent submission. Although he was a Son, he learned obedience through his passionate suffering; and having been perfected, he became the author of eternal salvation for all who obey him, having been called by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek.

John 12:20-33 (ESV - with some additional Greek work)

Now there were some Greeks among those who went up to worship at the festival. They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and inquired of him, saying, “Sir, we wish to discover Jesus.” Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus. Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of humanity to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a solitary grain; but if it dies, it brings forth much fruit. Those who long to embrace their soul lose it, and those who are indifferent to their soul in this world will keep it for eternal fullness of life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say - ‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the crisis of this cosmos; now the ruler of this cosmos will be thrown out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

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Intercessory prayer. It’s what we call asking on behalf of someone else. There are all sorts of fancy church words we use for prayer. A petition is asking for something in general. Thanksgiving is self-explanatory. So is prayer of praise. Eucharistic prayer is another fancy word for thanksgiving. Confession is a type of prayer. Contemplation is a prayer which can be without words or centering on just one word of phrase, as we listened a couple of weeks ago for a word from the text to pray with in the ‘lectio divina’-style listening prayer. But intercession is one of those mediation-type words. “Inter”- as in “between.” “Cede” - as in yield or surrender. Together they make the word “Intercede.” To stand between one here and one here and surrender one’s self to better the communication between the two. At least, that’s the image I get with it. I just saw an old Star Trek episode to this effect, actually, with a deaf mediator who was famous for brokering cease-fires between fighting peoples. He had different ways of paying attention and the people he helped to communicate had to learn to communicate differently to work their problems out. It was a beautiful episode, one of the JeanLuc Picard ones.

What does Star Trek - The Next Generation - have to do with today’s texts? And with this morning’s theme “Intercede”? Well, let’s go way back to the First Testament, to the character of Melchizedek. It’s a Hebrew name meaning king of righteousness. And this king was not a king, but a priest. One who’s primary function was to intercede between God and the people. Like Moses did in the wilderness when the people got scared of that great fiery mountain where God got close and bright and set forth those ten commandments we’re learning about in Confirmation class. Again, for tips on understanding those, please feel free to strike up a conversation with our confirmand, or find Liz at the Bagel Cafe and ask her, since she’s one of our mentors. We Protestants have a long standing argument, inaccurate though it may be, that we don’t need a priest to speak to God for us, since we can approach God ourselves just fine, thanks. Not that we do so on a very regular basis, typically. It tends to be times of extreme grief or anger or want, primarily, when we come to God asking for help or a miracle or an explanation. Which might be why Holy Week is one of my favorite weeks for prayer, since I’m always asking for strength to figure out all of those additional worship services, which I adore. Being in those tight spots, for me, anyway, is where my prayer tends to be most fervent. Well, almost. Typically I try to do the bootstraps thing as long as I can, which isn’t very faithful. When I really get into prayer is when I know someone is hurting or in need and there isn’t a single other thing I can do about it. I know and love quite a few people with mental illness, for example, and when they hit their lows, with anxiety or depression, I hit my knees. Praying with and for people is one of the best parts of my calling as a Pastor, and yet it isn’t specific to being a pastor, it’s open to everyone. Every type of prayer is open to us. Confession, praise, thanksgiving, intercession, contemplation, are all simply expressions of our thoughts and feelings, fears and hopes, recognitions and regrets.

But this isn’t a primer on how to pray. What I want to get at is the reason we pray for each other. Though if there is anyone you care about like a child or a parent or a best friend, you know what it is like to pray for them when they are in need. The love and anguish that’s there when the only thing you can do is to pray. Imagine spending a lifetime in that kind of prayer for everyone you meet! Spending a lifetime in that kind of prayer for the whole of the world.

Melchizedek, as a priest, got to do something very like that. Making sacrifices from the people to the God they sought to understand, and speaking to the people on behalf of the God who sought to understand why in God’s name they kept hurting themselves and one another? Melchizedek was the first in a long line of priests. Remembering that role of the priests to intercede, to be the go-between for a holy God and a confused and wandering people, the author of the letter to the Hebrews reminds us that Jesus came to do that, too. To intercede for us. To be the go-between, except he did so by being both God and Human. Not quite sure how that works, exactly, but there are lots of theories and theologies built up around it, that I won’t go into now. We just trust that Jesus is both truly human and God from God, Light from Light, True God from True God.

So this is how the rest of that Gospel from today works: Jesus, who shows God to us and shows us to God, in that he intercedes for us, mediates between us, is reaching out to his own people, teaching them through the lens of their shared faith (because, yes, Jesus is a Jew), and suddenly these Greeks show up, these outsiders. It may not seem like a big thing, but the fact that word has spread as the people of God continue as a light to the nations, this cinches the deal for Jesus and he knows it is time to fully embody his glory. To glorify the name of the God who he is, to prove his reputation for healing and teaching and welcoming is not just idle tales, to really go the distance and give it his all. The ultimate intercession, Jesus is betrayed, beaten, and crucified, all the while praying through, and lifting up our pain in, his passion. Constantly connected God to Humanity, Jesus speaks of us to God and speaks of God to us in his healings, his teachings, his hospitality, and even in his brutal experience of betrayal and death, which is common to all of life. Life is so beautiful, so fragile, so temperamental, that it seems we only just get used to it, figure out how to do it, if we are so lucky, when it is depleted and gone. What betrayal of our bodies to give out on us just when we’ve started to enjoy living in them.

What betrayal of our hearts, to be broken open by the pain and suffering just when we’ve walled them off so they cannot be touched by hurt and loss any more.

But Jesus intercedes for us. Jesus puts the broken pieces of our relationship with God, and with ourselves, back together. Jesus prays us through his passion, prays God through his suffering, prays healing and new life and resurrection through his death.

And he continues this work, this Interceding, to the point that soon we won’t require reminders of God’s faithfulness because it will be written on our hearts, it will be his blood mingled in with our blood, just as we will ingest his Body and Blood at this Table today. For everything that separates us from our Beloved, all that seeks to get between God and we who God calls Beloved, is utterly dissolved in the power of the suffering passion of the God/Man on the cross. All those sins and shames which we carry in our hearts will have to give way to the love and forgiveness and perfect wholeness of our Creator who created us in the beginning and called us good. All of the hurt we hurt others with will be seen in the light of that love, and the work of reconciliation and forgiveness will be completed so fully that we will know in our deepest depths, to the glory of God, with what love God has loved us, so high and deep and wide and broad. 

Intercession is sort of like the work of piecing together two pieces of cloth. Sewing, or knitting, until there isn’t even a seam any more, but only one piece, one cloth, in that expert way only the original weaver can make it whole again. The intercession of our Lord, Jesus Christ, has brought us together like that, with God, and it is for this hour that Christ has come into the world, to be God’s name written our our hearts, as God already has our name written on God’s own heart.