Jesus the Priest: Studies in Mark, Pt. 21

When one reads Mark’s account of the Gospel, especially the first few chapters, they see Jesus going around from synagogue to synagogue teaching, preaching and doing supernatural things. In Mark’s account Jesus also causes a stir among the scribes and priests. He heals on the Sabbath (3.1-6) and He eats with unclean persons (sinners; 2.15ff). He also plucks grain on the Sabbath (2.23-8). And when He is plucking grain on the Sabbath, He tells a story about the time when David entered the Holy of Holies and ate bread. Of course, when David did this, it was not the norm; this bread was reserved only for priests. Jesus likens this story to He and His disciples picking grain. He says, “In the days of Abiathar the high priest David…entered the house of God and ate the consecrated bread, which is lawful only for priests to eat. And he also gave some to his companions” (2.26).

I am not going to deal with the issues surrounding the accuracy of Abiathar’s priesthood, needless to say, I believe what Mark recounts here is correct. I may offer an explanation in another post. What I want to focus on here is the idea that by telling this story and making this statement, Jesus is associating Himself with the priesthood; He is referring to Himself as a priest. Why is this so overlooked though (I myself have overlooked this so many times while studying Mark’s account)? In this episode, Jesus who is talking with the Pharisaic priests considers Himself a priest. Of course, Jesus is not in the line of Levi (the priesthood) but of Judah, so, how can He do this? How could He be a priest?

Usually, when people want to talk about the priesthood of Jesus, they go to Hebrews. That is a good place to go and there is much to be offered there but I would suggest that Mark’s account also portrays Jesus, while at odds with the established priesthood, as a priest too. However, He is not like the Judaic priests in office; He is different. This raises a few questions: What was Jesus’ understanding of a priest (as Mark portrays it)? And, How is Jesus different?

It appears that Jesus’ understanding of a priest was someone who was of God. A few verses before this encounter with the priests, Jesus heals a leper and tells Him, “Go show yourself to the priests and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded…” (1.44). If we work backwards in this statement, we see that Jesus understands the priests to be affiliated with Moses. Of course, Moses received the commands from God and brought them to the people. From these two passages early on in Mark’s account, we see that central to Jesus’ understanding of a priest, then, is that a priest is someone who is from God, who brings the word (commands) of God to the people, who serves them the bread consecrated to God and lives a life of sacrifice for the community of God.

Now, when we get to chapter 7 of Mark’s account, we see these roles appear again. In the beginning of this chapter, Jesus has another run in with the religious leaders. On the surface, the whole issue looks like it has to do with cleanliness rituals. However, it has much more to do with who is truly a priest, than anything else. Really, the Pharisees have an almost legitimate reason to wonder about Jesus being a priest. Remember, they heard Him refer to Himself this way in 2.26 and now they see Him doing something that doesn’t quite line up with what their understanding of being a priest was: Jesus is eating with unclean hands.

Now, I need to make a clarifying note here. Mark 7.3 reads, “The Pharisees and all the Jews do not eat unless they give their hands a ceremonial washing…” It should be noted that as in many cases in Mark, the word “all” is not meant to be taken wooden literally. For example, in the opening verses of his account, Mark said that “all of” or “the whole Judean countryside and of Jerusalem” went out to the Jordan River. We should not think that every person left Jerusalem and made the long voyage to where Jesus was at; Mark is using a figure of speech here, which we use all of the time too. He does it again in 1.32 where “all” the sick and demon-possessed are brought to Him. This is Mark’s way of saying a lot. So, in 7.3 the reader should not take Mark’s phrase overly seriously. In fact, it was only required for priests to wash their hands before eating, not just any normal Jewish person (see: 30.18-21; 40.30-2). And that is an incredibly significant point! Did the leaders' challenge to Jesus on hand washing issues imply that they were interpreting Him, in some way, as acting or attempting to act in the role of a priest? Where could they have gotten such an idea but from 2.26? They were trying to catch Him breaking one of the priestly roles so that they could discredit His claim to being a priest.

Jesus doesn’t break the hand washing command of the priests because the command only calls for washing before entering the tent of meeting or before approaching the altar (see: Ex. 30 & 40). What the religious leaders had done was add to that law; they tacked on their own extra rules and stipulations. This is what Jesus has a problem with! In fact, He gives a prime example of this when He talks about Korban. Jesus then goes on to tell how they created Korban, a rule that allowed them to place their money in a treasury so that they did not have to use it to take care of their parents. They called it Korban, which meant “funds devoted to God” to make it seem like a holy action. However, Jesus sees right through that act and deems it unholy. He points out that the priests developed Korban under the guise of something holy, in order that they could do something unholy—break the 5th commandment. This is what Jesus explicitly means when He says they nullify the word of God; they nullify it by adding to it so they don’t have to keep it.

Contrary to a surface reading that might make Jesus seem anti-Law, Jesus actually affirms and keeps the Law here. In fact, He blasts the priests because they don’t. What is proven is that Jesus is the one who has fulfilled the role of priest, the only one. There are other allusions to this in Mark. For instance, Jesus bringing the word to the people! Mk. 1.14-5 makes this clear. Jesus also serves the bread that is consecrated to God (in fact, He serves bread many times!). Jesus also is a person from God, as Mark makes clear in the opening verses and is attested all throughout the Gospel. Jesus is also a person who serves among the people (and serves the people). Even a cursory reading of Mark reveals this as Jesus is going all over the place meeting people’s needs. Lastly, Jesus is the one who makes the sacrifice of sacrifices: He gives Himself up to be slaughtered as an offering.

One last thing, it might be the case that all throughout Mk. the priesthood and the Herodians are shown as teaming up (esp. 3.6) because Mark wants to highlight that not only is Jesus, the King of kings but in line with the priestly Christology of Hebrews, He is also The Priest of priests; Jesus is what a real king or priest looks like. Sadly, to my knowledge, this has not been picked up on yet. In fact, many commentators on Hebrews make statements such as, “Neither Paul nor the Gospels portray Jesus as a priest.” It is time, though, that such remarks are corrected.