The Priesthood of 'Yes.'

[HKHaugan]

When the word ‘priest’ flashes across a page or a TV screen the immediate thought is a collared black suit from one of the liturgical denominations. For a moment cancel those images, close your eyes and imagine yourself just cresting a hill while walking through a green meadow in old Galilee and running across a group of people sitting, intently listening to a bearded young man teaching. As you come closer there is a sense of
inclusion. You are there eyes transfixed on this person and something about his words, no, not just his
words, but him and the way he says them. Then he looks your way. He looks at you while he is speaking. For once something inside says, ‘Yes.’ That ‘yes’ inside was something you had been searching for all your life. You knew it was there but you could never put your finger on it. It was more than a feeling, more than a thought, more than a great rush of excitement, it was him. It was like an empty part in you that needed
filling and suddenly there he was filling you. And everyone else there seemed to be having the same sense. Their eyes too were transfixed and their bodies leaning forward grasping for and pondering every next word.

That, brothers and sisters, is Jesus the Priest, the priest of ‘yes’, the High Priest of ‘yes’, the High Priest of the heart, mind and spirit, touching the inner caverns of who we are, bringing His Spirit, the Holy Spirit to fill us that we may say ‘yes’ within. When I say ‘I don’t know’ or ‘I’m not sure’ or crouching alone in
the midst of the world’s crowds, He lifts us up to say ‘yes, now I know’ ‘I once was lost but now am found.’ He is the priest, the go-between, the One who brings God within where we sort out who, what and why we are. Most importantly we sort out who God is and we discover that His Spirit, His mind and His heart are One with God the Father. Through Jesus we see things from God’s perspective. He said ‘yes’ therefore we can say the same. We see the world both invisible and visible as He created them. We see from outside
of Creation what is really inside and from what is inside we see what is without.

He gives us this ability of sight to see in the night, without any fright or being up tight,

His flashes of light and the power in His might that makes everything right.

Just what is this ability of sight transforming our night into light and making us right?

It is how He was born, how He lived, how He was led, how He died and how He rose from the dead---

His trust in His Father deep in His heart, that was the first part.

His faith in the Spirit deep within gave the second part a start

and then of course that third part, His belief in His Father’s Word written in His head.

And why this great revelation coming from above?

The reason of course came from the source Who saw us from His mighty loft felt mercy and sent His love.

It is His faith that gave us faith, the sight that brings us to His height

to bare our hearts and minds for others that they may be sisters and brothers looking to Him when all hope was dim.

Oh that light that shines from on high that in the end no one has to be shy or retreat and cry.

And all this to say in a special way that all guilt He has wiped away crushing evil like clay,

taking the power of sin away to build us into priests to be like Him to shed light where all was once dim,

to have faith, trust and belief carrying the Word displacing lonely grief.

He is the promise from without to bring within His work for us to be priests of His faith, the world for Him and His Kingdom to win, His gift and purpose for us to begin.

Accepting today what He calls us to be,

priests for His glory that all may say ‘yes’ as we and they accept Him as our Priest for eternity.