Eligibility Requirements--June 29, 2021

Eligibility Requirements--June 29, 2021

"Now the one of whom these things are spoken belonged to another tribe, from which no one has ever served at the altar. For it is evident that our Lord was descended from Judah, and in connection with that tribe Moses said nothing about priests. It is even more obvious when another priest arises, resembling Melchizedek, one who has become a priest, not through a legal requirement concerning physical descent, but through the power of an indestructible life. For it is attested of him, 'You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek'." [Hebrews 7:13-17]

You want to know that the people you place in important positions are truly eligible to serve in them, right?  That just makes sense.

So, for example, you want someone teaching high school level Spanish to be fluent in written and spoken Spanish, with numerous years of training in the language, maybe some lived experience in a country where Spanish is the primary language, and probably some training in how to teach as well, as opposed to, say, someone who had only just watched a couple of episodes of Dora the Explorer.

Or if you are looking for brain surgeons, you surely want there to be a rigorous accreditation process by which physicians are trained and taught and then are able to gain an expertise in working with human brains (while keeping the humans who are currently using those brains alive).  If the board tasked with certifying brain surgeons says someone is not qualified, I don't want them anywhere near my noodle, if you get my drift.

Even in our form of government, the Constitution of the United States has requirements for eligibility to serve in different roles of elected office.  The president, for example, is required to have been born in the United States, be at least thirty-five years old, and have been a resident for fourteen years in the United States.  And while from time to time insidious conspiracy theories peddled by charlatans crop up to try to make people doubt whether all those requirements have been met, you really can have peace of mind in knowing that your leaders are truly eligible to serve.  

But, for a moment... do a little thought experiment with me.  Consider our nation's first president, George Washington.  He was certainly old enough to meet the age requirement, but did he technically meet the others?  He was born in Virginia, but when he was born, Virginia wasn't yet a state in the United States--it was, of course, still a British colony!  And when he was inaugurated in 1789, it had only been 13 years since the signing of the Declaration of Independence!  So even if you count that earliest date as the founding of our country, Washington himself couldn't have been a resident of the United States for fourteen years yet, because there hadn't even been a "United States" for that long!  And yet, obviously, nobody thought Washington was not eligible to serve as president.  No, they just all knew that his claims to eligibility were older and even more fundamental than the rules and structures set up by the Constitution.  Maybe everybody after Washington could check all the boxes, but for him, everyone understood he was a special case--he was eligible because he was, in a sense, the one who had even made it possible for us to have a constitution as a nation separate from Britain.

Maybe in a similar way, you could imagine a university back in the 1950s having a special guest lecture on the subject of the theory of relativity, and inviting Albert Einstein to be the presenter.  While it would be technically true to say that Einstein never studied the theory of relativity when he was in college (or to note that he didn't even have a high school diploma!), he would obviously be qualified to teach on the theory he came up with--it didn't exist as a subject when he went to college because he himself developed it!  He would be qualified and eligible to be an expert, even if he didn't check the usual boxes for the requirements, because he would be the source of the subject matter himself.

Well, in a way the writer of Hebrews thinks about Jesus in the same way: no, he's not a member of the tribe of Levi, from which the priests were selected in the religious systems of ancient Israel, but in fact, Jesus is still eligible to be our great high priest because he belongs to a yet more ancient--even eternal--sort of priesthood.  The writer of Hebrews has been making the case that there before there was even a tribe of Levi to begin with, there was this enigmatic figure, Melchizedek, who could be a priest without the right qualifications as laid out in the Torah.  So, something like our thought experiment about George Washington or Albert Einstein, Jesus can be eligible to be our intercessor before God, not because he is from the right biological family, but because he is a part of an even more fundamental and foundational kind of priesthood.  Jesus, by his very nature as God and human, is in a position to be the priestly mediator we need even without being a descendant of Levi.  After all, he is the very incarnation of the eternal God who has always been and always will be!

So while it is indeed important to have confidence that the people you place in roles of leadership are truly eligible to serve in them, with Jesus you can really rest assured.  Jesus doesn't fit inside the expectations of the rules, because he himself predates the writing of the rules.  He doesn't have to operate within "the system," because he is as eternal as the One in whose name the system was created.  He can go before God on our behalf because he is God-with-us.

Rest easy, dear ones. Rest easy.  Jesus is up for this responsibility.  He can handle it.

Lord Jesus, give us rest in knowing you are able to bear what we need you to bear for us.  Thank you, Lord.  Thank you.