The New High Priest
Jesus’
baptism sacramentally symbolizes his dying and rising, which in turn effects
the opening of the heavens, through which the Spirit descends upon him. The
Father’s words, referencing Isaiah, confirm and specify the nature of Jesus’
priesthood. Isaiah 42 begins the first of the four “suffering servant song,”
and thus for Jesus to be his “chosen” one, the one in whom the Father “delights,”
is for him to embrace, in the Holy Spirit, the suffering deeds of
righteousness, which “he will bring forth justice to the nations” (The Father’s
proclamation that Jesus is his beloved Son alludes to God’s commanding Abraham
to sacrifice his son, Isaac: “Take your son, your only son Isaac, whom you love”
[Gn. 22:2]. The act that God will ultimately not allow Abraham to do he will—sacrifice
his only beloved Son for the forgiveness of sins). Jesus will reveal that he is
truly the begotten Son of the Father by being the Spirit-anointed suffering
servant. Within the Christian tradition, beginning with the apostolic church,
the “suffering servant songs” define Jesus’ priestly ministry and so confirm that
he is the new high priest (Jesus three times predicts that he is going to
suffer and die, and rise on the third day [see Mk 8:31, 9:31, and 10:33-34 and
parallels]. During the Last Supper, Jesus says of Jesus: “For the Son of man
goes as it is written of him, but woe to that man by whom the Son of man is
betrayed” [Mk 14:21; see also Mt 26:24 and Lk 22:23]. Luke, on two occasions,
emphasized that the risen Jesus “opened” the minds of those to whom he appeared
and of those for whom he interpreted the Scriptures so that they would
understand “that it is written that the Christ should suffer and on the third
day rise from the dead” [Lk 24:25-27, 24:44-47]. Mathew interprets Jesus’
healing as the fulfillment of Isaiah 53:4: “he took our infirmities and bore
our diseases” [Mt 8:17]. In the Acts of the Apostles, Peter tells his Jewish listeners
that, while they, out of ignorance, handed Jesus over to be killed, that was
still done so “what God foretold by the mouth of the prophets, that his Christ
should suffer, he thus fulfilled” [Acts 3:18]. The Ethiopian eunuch is reading
Isaiah 53:7-8 when Philip meets him, and it is from this passage that Philip
explains to him the whole of the Gospel [Acts 8:26-35]. Peter also references
the prophecies concerning Jesus’s sacrificial death [see 1 Pt 1:10-11,
2:22-25]. The Book of Revelation portrays Jesus as the Lamb who was slain and
so looks back to Is 53:7 and Zec 4:10 [see 5:6]).
Within the
Father’s baptismal declaration we find the entirety of the “suffering servant
songs.” Jesus, as suffering Son-Servant, could rightfully say that “the Lord
called me from my mother’s womb, from the body of my mother he named my name,”
for his Father sent him into the world to take flesh from his mother, Mary, and
his Father, through Gabriel, designated that he should be called Jesus, YHWH-Saves.
Within his baptism, Jesus now recognizes that he is his Father’s servant who is
to “bring Jacob back to him” and gather “Israel” and in so doing he will “be
honored in the eyes of the Lord,” his Father (This prophecy also speaks of the
suffering servant being a prophet. From his mother’s womb the Lord “made my
mouth like a sharp sword” [Is 49:2]). Jesus will also become aware of the truth
spoken by his Father: “I [God] will give you [Jesus, my Son] as a light to the
nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Thus “the
Redeemer of Israel [God the Father] and his Holy One [Jesus, his Son] as a
light to the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Thus
“the Redeemer of Israel [God the Father] and his Holy One [Jesus, his Son],
[who is] deeply despised, abhorred by the nations, the servant of rulers”
declares: “Kings shall see and arise; princes, and they shall prostrate
themselves; because the Lord, who is faithful, the Holy One of Israel, who has
chosen you” (Is 49:1-7).
Jesus is
the one whom his Father has given a prophetic tongue so that he can teach the
weary. As this baptism, the Father has “opened” his “ear,” and Jesus, within
his baptism, has not rebelled at his Father’s word nor has he turned back.
Rather, because Jesus has spoken his Father’s word, “I gave my back to smiters,
and my cheeks to those who pulled my beard; I hid not my face from shame and
spitting.” Because of this, God the Father will vindicate his Son and declare
him innocent (Is 50:4-11).
Although
God prophetically proclaimed “Behold, my servant shall prosper, he shall be
exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high,” Jesus would come to realize
that, as the Father’s Servant-Son, such high exaltation would only come through
his being lifted high upon the cross, for only in his priestly sacrificial
death would be truly prosper as the king within his Father’s kingdom. In Jesus,
his Servant-Son, the Father’s words will be fulfilled: “As many were astonished
at him—his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form
beyond that of the sons of men.” His very upbringing stands again him, for he
was but a “young plant” rooted in “dry ground.” Therefore he had no “comeliness
that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him.” Because
Jesus is an unremarkable man from Nazareth, he is “despised and rejected by
men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief; and as one from whom men hide
their faces he was despised, and we esteemed him not.” Yet it is upon such a
man, Jesus, that the Father bestowed his Spirit and so appointed his
Servant-Son to be the new high priest who would offer himself as the supreme
sacrifice for the forgiveness of sin. Jesus is the priest who “has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrow . . . smitten by God, and afflicted. But he was wounded
for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities, upon him was the
chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed . . . . [for]
the Lord had laid on him the iniquity of us all.” Jesus would be the
sacrificial “lamb” who would be judged worthy of death, “cut off from the land
of the living, stricken for the transgression of my (God’s) people,” and thus “they
made his grave with the wicked and with a rich man in his death, although he
had done no violence and there was no deceit in his mouth.” But because Jesus,
as high priest, “makes himself an offering for sin,” his days will be prolonged
and the Lord will prosper him, for “he will see the fruit of his travail of his
soul and be satisfied; by his knowledge shall the righteous one my servant,
make many to be accounted as righteous; and he shall bear their iniquities.”
Because Jesus will pour out “his soul to death” and so “numbered with
transgressors,” having “bore the sins of many” and making “intercession for the
transgressors,” his Father will raise him up to sit among “the great” and “the
strong” as the Lord and King of an everlasting kingdom.
Although
Jesus will only fulfill these prophecies during his public ministry and particularly
within his passion and death, these yet unfulfilled prophesies were implanted
within him at his baptism (to James and John’s request to sit at his right and
left within his kingdom, Jesus responds, “Are you able to drink the cup that I
will drink, or be baptized with the baptism with which I am baptized?” [Mk
10:38]. Here Jesus is explicitly conjoining his baptism with the cross, which
is the fulfillment of the prophetic act of his baptism. Even more to the point,
Jesus states: “I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how I am constrained
until it is accomplished” [Lk 12:50]. Jesus anxiously waits for the enactment
of his real baptism [the cross], of which John’s baptism was a prophetic prefigurement).
They were implanted when the Father poured out his Spirit upon him and so
appointed him to be his suffering Servant Song, who would take upon himself the
sin of all humankind and through priestly self-sacrifice to his Father obtain
forgiveness. Thus Jesus literally embodies both priest and victim, and the
supreme efficacy of his priestly self-sacrifice will reside within his being,
both as priest and victim, the Spirit-anointed and so holy Son of God, Jesus,
as the Son of God incarnate, will be the supreme efficacious high priest
because he will offer himself as the supreme efficacious sacrifice (this is the
major doctrinal theme of the Letter to the Hebrews). Jesus, in assuming, in the
Spirit, the priestly responsibility of fulfilling these prophecies, elicited
his Father’s good pleasure. Moreover, in fulfilling these prophecies will
authenticate the Father’s declaration that he is truly his beloved Son. (Thomas
G. Weinandy, Jesus Becoming Jesus: A Theological Interpretation of the
Synoptic Gospels [Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America
Press, 2018], 94-97)
