Hebrews 5:5-10

Melchizedek appears briefly in Genesis 14 as a priest-king who blesses Abraham. Psalm 110, source of the second quotation here, takes him as the prototype of a priesthood that Hebrews 7 will explain is greater than that of Aaron.

Who is this figure of blessing and reconciliation prior to and greater than the line of Abraham? What does Melchizedek represent about how God acts in history?

What was utterly mysterious in Genesis is fulfilled and made known in Christ. Jesus, true God and also true man, comes to us as the perfect model of how to receive blessing from God and become a blessing to others. His prayers, fully human in their passion, open for us the way to follow him in faith through the acceptance of unjust suffering and death to the revelation of life that transforms suffering and death into salvation.

May we learn and receive in him an obedience that turns our suffering into blessing.

—Curtis Gruenler