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

Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22

--Rachelle Oppenhuizen

O give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; for his steadfast love endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the LORD say so, those he redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.

Earlier in this collection of reflections, in week one of Lent, I reflected on Psalm 51 with the story of a personal experience of brokenness and eventual healing. I’m inclined to continue the telling of that story a bit further, as the Psalmist seems to be doing also here in Psalm 107, from a place of restoration which nonetheless reflects on and acknowledges the difficulty of a previous time. The story doesn’t end at the “bottom” for the Psalmist, nor for the “redeemed of the LORD.” As one of the ones God redeemed from trouble, I’m prepared to say so.

I wish to extend my telling of the mystery of mercy with the sharing of this mandala which arrived in a dream some five years beyond the Psalm 51 experience in my life. In the dream, I’m watching four circles move around within a dark, square field. The circles migrate to the four corners and lines appear and radiate out from each circle to traverse the space toward the median of the opposite sides, intersecting at the center to form a layered star. A voice announces that a wedding is underway.

No kidding. A wedding is a symbol of union—a reconciliation of the tension of the opposites. Most dreams present a situation in which there’s a dynamic tension. Most marriages do, too.

As I reflected on the words of this Psalm, I recalled the suggestion presented by this image of a compass from which the four directions move toward the center to overlap one another and create a star. From the polarities, a new point of meaning (indeed, a means of navigation) is established by the coming together of the opposites—”from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south.” (Please consider, as well, the way that the reconciliation of these four directions is also descriptive of the work that is accomplished at the center of a cross—not to overstate the obvious, but this is a Lenten reflection.) To quote an ancient axiom, “As above, so below; as below, so above.” One might add, “as within, so without; as without, so within.”

The reconciliation of the opposites that the world longs for exists already in the hearts of those who have come to know the steadfast love of the LORD which endures forever. Christ prays in us for that Union, and guides us like a star toward the center.

Let them thank the LORD for his steadfast love, for his wonderful works to humankind.  And let them offer thanksgiving sacrifices, and tell of his deeds with songs of joy.

                                                                                 —Rachelle Oppenhuizen