Contemplative Bible Reading

Hebrews 5:1-2 (New Living Translation)

1 Every high priest is a man chosen to represent other people in their dealings with God. He presents their gifts to God and offers sacrifices for their sins. 2 And he is able to deal gently with ignorant and wayward people because he himself is subject to the same weaknesses.

The events of this past week were…well, what word do we use? Startling. Disgusting. Worrisome. Weeping. I guess we could find an adjective for every letter of our alphabet.

Then we consider the above verses.

The High Priest—the one person standing between regular folks and God—was subject to the same weaknesses as the regular folks. A brotherhood of weakness.

God sent His Son to earth in human form to feel these same weaknesses.

And then we see what we saw this week, this past year, and every year of our life. People acting like, well, let’s use the adjectives. And lest we forget, they have the same weaknesses that I have. Yes, but…

Yes, but what? Yes, but I don’t act out like that. I may feel that way, but ooops. Jesus tells us about the sameness of “feel that way” and “act that way.”

Oh, that. Yes, oh, that. We are in a brotherhood of weakness. We weep at how these weaknesses are expressed. We pray for better in others and in ourselves. We thank God for His grace and peace that pass all human understanding.