Chapter 8 - New Testament Myth
I don't know what triggered it. Epiphanies come like lightning. Maybe I was picturing women lifting up the consecrated host at their dining room table, as their young children looked on attentively like little birds in a nest. I imagined what a million picture frames in my mind would like like, of women holding up hosts in the air, offering to God and their family this most sacred gift.
That's when lightning struck me on a bright and sunny day, out of nowhere. BAM !!!
Wait a second. The priesthood has no right over the Eucharist. The Passover was given to the Israelites to perform as a sacred institution....Whoa .... there was no priest required for the Jewish families to celebrate Passover, it was an annual memorial feast celebrated in their own homes. The priest's job in the Old Testament was to offer sacrifice for atonement of sins, not the Passover lamb...
The Lord instructs Moses and Aaron, "tell the whole community of Israel ... every one of your families must procure for itself a lamb ... and shall share in the lamb ... and then with the whole assembly of Israel present, it shall be slaughtered. Take some of its blood and apply it to the two doorposts and the lintel of every house... that same night they shall eat its roasted flesh ... with unleavened bread. .. It is the Passover of the Lord. Seeing the blood I will passover you... no destructive blow will come upon you. This day shall be a memorial feast for you, which all your generations shall celebrate... as a perpetual institution." Exodus 12 : 1-14
So then, I told myself almost laughing with a dizzying joy, we ALL have permission to celebrate the Lord's Supper ! "For whether we live, we live unto the Lord; and whether we die, we die unto the Lord." Romans 14 : 8
Words cannot express the shock I felt ... I thought the Lord had guided me to the priesthood ! Well, once I calmed down, I remembered He actually said, "why don't you think about the priesthood." He never said become a priest, but just, think about it. I still scratch my head today as I write this, that I didn't see this years ago. Once I was confirmed in the Catholic Church, I went to Mass every day. When I became a priest, I celebrated Mass ... every day, even twice a day. When I experienced the Eucharist, I knew that Evangelicals had thrown out the baby with the bathwater when they followed Luther into the Reformation. So I just assumed, well, the Catholics have the Eucharist, that's what I want, so ... I believed in the need for a priest. I guess I have to be Catholic to receive Communion. I didn't question it.
As I thought about this cover-up, I wondered, how did it start ? When did people begin saying, the Apostles were priests ? An Apostle is a messenger. A priest is an Old Testament function that concerns atonement of sins. When did the Apostleship become justification for a male-only, New Testament priesthood ? Clearly, that myth was invented for the excuse of a male-only Church leadership.
Women were present in the Upper Room - that signified the Passover meal at home, that all prepared, and all ate. I began to see a great deception exposed before my very eyes, like developing a film photo in a dark room. With a bitter feeling in my heart, I wondered to myself, was the elite caste of a New Testament priesthood invented to keep the Christian population under an authority ? Was it used to leverage the political ambitions of men who passed on the myth of New Testament priesthood ? Apostles didn't create cardinals and popes. The worldly church did.
Now I know.
The problem we face today isn't people leaving the Church, the problem is people going to the “Church” in the first place. We sold our birthright for a meal. I began to see an eerie pattern emerge. I began to see the corruption of the worldly church appear plainly before my eyes. I was startled, and shocked, that instead of priests shepherding God's people, I found King Saul.
"Then all the elders of Israel gathered themselves together, and came to Samuel unto Ramah, and said unto him, Behold, thou art old, and thy sons walk not in thy ways ; now make us a king to judge us like all the nations. But the thing displeased Samuel, when they said, Give us a king to judge us. And Samuel prayed unto the Lord. And the Lord said unto Samuel, Hearken unto the voice of the people in all that they say unto thee: for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them. According to all the works which they have done since the day that I brought them up out of Egypt even unto this day, wherewith they have forsaken me, and served other gods, so do they also unto thee. Now therefore hearken unto their voice ; howbeit yet protest solemnly unto them, and shew them the manner of the king that shall reign over them.
And Samuel told all the words of the Lord unto the people that asked of him a king. And he said, This will be the manner of the king that shall reign over you : He will take your sons, and appoint them for himself, for his chariots, and to be his horsemen ; and some shall run before his chariots. And he will appoint him captains over thousands, and captains over fifties; and will set them to ear his ground, and to reap his harvest, and to make his instruments of war, and instruments of his chariots. And he will take your daughters to be confectionaries, and to be cooks, and to be bakers. And he will take your fields, and your vineyards, and your oliveyards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants. And he will take the tenth of your seed, and of your vineyards, and give to his officers, and to his servants. And he will take your menservants, and your maidservants, and your goodliest young men, and your asses, and put them to his work. He will take the tenth of your sheep: and ye shall be his servants.
And ye shall cry out in that day because of your king which ye shall have chosen you, and the Lord will not hear you in that day. Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel, and they said, Nay, but we will have a king over us ; that we also may be like all the nations ; and that our king may judge us, and go out before us, and fight our battles. And Samuel heard all the words of the people, and he rehearsed them in the ears of the Lord." 1 Samuel 8 : 4-21
It is strange to find that ancient words in the Psalms still resonate today. "Do ye indeed speak righteousness, O congregation? do ye judge uprightly, O ye sons of men?" Psalm 58 : 1 … "Let their table become a snare before them, and that which should have been for their welfare, let it become a trap." Psalm 69 : 22
It is time for the sons and daughters of God to take back what is rightfully theirs, the blessing that God intended to give them directly, without any intermediary except Christ Jesus Himself. We don't need a priest to receive the Eucharist. We only need faith, even as small as a mustard seed.
I believe there was a rite of passage at the Temple of Jerusalem, when Mary and Joseph presented Jesus there. Simeon comes in the Spirit, takes Jesus into his arms, blesses God and says, "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word ; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation, which thou hast prepared before the face of all people ; a light to lighten the Gentiles, and the glory of thy people Israel." Luke 2 : 29-32
Simeon is "the last priest", the last son of the Old Testament priesthood, exiting stage, for the eternal High Priest to enter. The Divine Priest who renders all human priesthood unnecessary. We, being His Body, participate in His Priesthood, which takes place in Heaven.
