‘According to the order of Melchizedek’: The Temple and the Place of the Skull on Good Friday
Hebrews 4:14-16, 5:7-10 [1]
“Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession.” [2]
It was a day of sharp contrasts in Jerusalem on that first Good Friday.
In the heart of the city was the ancient Temple. It had stood for half a millennium, a sacred place of prayer and sacrifice unto the God of Israel. Because of its holiness, Gentiles were not permitted to enter the Temple.
Outside the city walls, however, at the Place of the Skull [3], there was nothing sacred. This was the place of bloody execution. Here the Gentiles reigned; here the pagan empire of Rome imposed its will by brute force.
In the Temple, prayers were reverently uttered to Adonai, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
At the Place of the Skull, it was the voice of mockery which was heard from bystanders. And when the Crucified One speaks, it is to say ‘I am thirsty’ - an echo of the desperate plea of the psalmist who, in Psalm 22, cried out to God, “my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws; you lay me in the dust of death”. [4]
In the Temple, the sweet smell of incense filled the air.
In the Place of the Skull, the smells are quite different: blood, sweat, urine.
In the Temple, the ritual of sacrifice was performed by the priests; the animal slaughtered and the sacrificial blood flowed, making atonement for sin.
In the Place of the Skull, blood flows from the pierced hands and feet of the Crucified, and then, at the end, from His side.
The contrast between the Temple and the Place of the Skull on that first Good Friday is sharp, painful, total.
Could more contrasting scenes be found?
And yet, for the early Christians, at the very heart of their faith was the belief that there is a profound unity between the Temple and the Place of the Skull.
In fact, the Temple, they believed, was pointing to the Place of the Skull; for the early Christians, the Temple found its fulfillment in the Place of the Skull … what the Temple promised and anticipated came to pass there, at the Place of the Skull, as the blood of the Crucified flowed.
The Temple was the sign to the ancient people of Israel of God’s covenant grace, the sign of God amongst them. And in the sacrifices of the Temple, as the blood of animals flowed, was the sign of God’s forgiveness, of Israel’s sins placed upon another, that Israel might be redeemed, delivered, sanctified.
These signs are fulfilled, proclaimed the early Christians, in the flesh and blood reality of Jesus crucified upon the Cross.
This is the central message of that strange text in the New Testament, the Letter to the Hebrews.
Written to a group of Christians who knew the rituals of the Temple, it takes the language of the Temple - priesthood, sacrifice, atonement - and applies it to the Crucified Christ whose blood flowed at the Place of the Skull.
What makes this powerful are precisely the contrasts between the Temple and the Place of the Skull.
At the hill of crucifixion there appeared to be nothing of the peace, holiness, and righteousness of the Temple. Instead there were the darkest aspects of our human experience: anger, hatred, contempt, indifference, abuse, jealousy, rage, betrayal, greed, pride, denial, cowardice, injustice, self-righteousness.
But, at the centre of all this, bearing this sin of the world, there is the Crucified One. He utters no words of condemnation. No curses on those who crucify, who mock, who watch. He does not call for fire and brimstone upon the city that has handed Him over to the shameful, excruciating pain of death on the Cross.
“For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.” [5]
Here, at the Place of the Skull, is the priest; the sacrifice; the atonement. The One who bears the sins of the world, our sins, that we might know God's grace, mercy, and forgiveness.
The Temple was, as the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews goes on to say, “a shadow of the good things to come” [6]: at the Place of the Skull, on the first Good Friday, is the true priest, the perfect sacrifice, the everlasting atonement.
But how can this be? Those early Christians, to whom the Letter to the Hebrews was addressed, knew that Jesus Himself never ministered in the Temple; he did not belong to the priestly order. How, then, could Jesus possibly be the high priest?
It is here that the writer of the Letter to the Hebrews invokes an obscure figure from deep in Israel’s history: Melchizedek.
Melchizedek is encountered in a strange passage in the first book of the bible, Genesis.
Abraham, the father of Israel, is returning from a battle. A king of Salem, the ancient settlement that would later become Jerusalem, comes out to greet Abraham. This king is also a priest, described by Genesis as “priest of God Most High”. His name is Melchizedek. And, as priest, Melchizedek blesses Abraham.
We are told nothing more about him by the author of Genesis. We are only left with the knowledge that at the foundation of Israel’s story, the great Abraham was blessed by a mysterious priest, outside of the priesthood of Israel, whose ministry had a different form to those priests who would later minister in the Temple.
What God had done deep in Israel’s past with Abraham, God now does again at the Place of the Skull on the first Good Friday.
In the closing words of our reading from the Letter to the Hebrews, Jesus “became the source of salvation for all who obey him, having been designated by God a high priest according to the order of Melchizedek”. [7]
Jesus does not belong to the priestly order that ministered in the Temple; his priesthood is older, reaching back even unto the days of Abraham. And just as Abraham was blessed by Melchizedek, “priest of God Most High”, so we are blessed by Jesus Christ our high priest, whose sacrifice on the Cross, at the Place of the Skull, is our peace and our salvation.
On this Good Friday we behold Christ Crucified: our high priest, our sacrifice, our atonement. May we, on this most solemn day, heed the words of the Letter to the Hebrews: “Since, then, we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast to our confession”.
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[1] While the epistle appointed for Good Friday is Hebrews 4.14-16, 5.7-9, I have extended it to verse 10, as this verse is clearly integral to the passage.
[2] Hebrews 4.14.
[3] " ... he went out to what is called The Place of the Skull, which is called in Hebrew Golgotha", John 19.17. The Passion according to John is read at Ante-Communion on Good Friday.
[4] Psalm 22.15. Psalm 22 is appointed to be said or sung at the liturgy of Good Friday.
[5] Hebrews 4.15.
[6] Hebrews 10.1.
[7] Hebrews 5.9-10.
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