"And you will be called priests of the Lord..." (Isaiah 61:6)
All my mates who don’t know Jesus think that I am a priest. I’m not, but as soon as they hear I work for a church they can’t quite envision any other role than that of priest. It makes me laugh every time it comes up, because whilst they are in a practical sense wrong, in a theological sense they are right.
In the Old Testament, God ordains priests to stand between him and his people. As intermediaries, the priests would relay God’s word to his people, and in the other direction, the people’s needs and sins to God.
As Isaiah 61 refers to life both with and after Jesus, we see how on this side of the cross we are apparently called to be priests.
If this is news to you, it’s okay. Peter talks about this at greater length in his first letter to the church.
“What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the meditation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God” (1 Peter 2:5)
In the Old Testament, priests would offer animal sacrifices to God in a ritual ceremony that sought to please God.
However, we as priests are called to offer spiritual sacrifices, so put the family cat down right now. Spiritual sacrifices refers to the continual laying down of our own desires and designs, and instead submitting ourselves to the one who made us.
What can you lay down today? What in your life can you sacrifice in favour of what God would want?
We invite you to join us as we journey slowly and prayerfully through Isaiah 61 - line by line over forty days.
