We hear John the Baptist telling his disciples to go and ask Jesus if He is the One. It is important to know that this is not John showing a lack of faith in who Jesus is, but quite the opposite. Remember he has known Jesus for 30 or more years by this point. They grew up together; John knew Mary and Joseph. John is trying to spur his disciples to see in Christ what he already knows of Christ: that He is the one, that He is the Saviour. So John tells them to go, and then they ask, and Jesus responds. And look at all the things that Jesus tells them to say to John: all the healing, the miracles, the good news. Jesus and John are doing a tag team to inspire the Gospel proclamation in these people, that they would go and proclaim what Jesus is going in the world, which is what Jesus had them do. John already knew, and Jesus did this so that they would begin to learn about the need to proclaim the Gospel, to proclaim that Jesus Christ is King. That what this moment is about; it is easy to misunderstand it. It is not that John lost is faith, his faith in Jesus Christ was strong to end, for after all, he was beheaded and Jesus spoke such high words about him, which we hear in the Gospel.

Jesus Christ was, for John the Baptist, his King. Jesus Christ is our King. Of that we must never have any doubt. Things in the world we can doubt, we can question, we can critique. Things of the world can be suspect; for the world is fallen and under the power of the Prince of Darkness. Yet of Christ, none of this applies. He is our King, He is our Saviour, He is the Coming One. He has forever won the victory over the Prince of Darkness. He is ever seeking to come to us, every day. This is why He came to visit us in great humility; this is why He will come at the end of days to judge both the quick and the dead; this is why He took our human flesh and nature upon Him, so as to be able to come to us in His glorified and sacramental Body as our daily Bread, received through the opening of Scripture and the Breaking of Bread.

We saw this in the teaching of the first two Sundays of Advent. The 1st Sunday of Advent dramatically illustrated that Christ is the Coming One by the Gospel reading of Christ’s entrance into Jerusalem upon the donkey and a foal, in which we are the citizens of heavenly Jerusalem to whom Christ is coming. And the Second Sunday of Advent emphasized His coming to us in the opening of Scripture: that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them: Christ our daily bread known through Scripture unveiled.

Today we hear Saint Paul teaching the Church that he and the other priestly ministers of Christ are servants and, more poignantly, are stewards. Paul, the other apostles, even John the Baptist, sent by God to go before Christ to prepare the way in our hearts for Christ’s coming to us, are stewards, Paul says, of the mysteries of God. “Mysteries” comes down in the Latin then English lineage of our scriptural translations, is in Greek the same word as Sacraments. So the priestly ministers of Christ are stewards of the Sacraments of Christ; are sacramental stewards. This is an important teaching for Paul, which is why he gave it to the Church in Corinth and to the whole, universal Church.

Why is it an important teaching for the Church? It is because Christians need to know, and ever remember, that what priests do is make Christ known. They do so in their sacrificial ministry of the sacraments. They make Christ known through the sacrament of Scripture in their preaching and in their teaching. They make Christ known through the act of blessing; while all Christians can and should offer blessings to each other as an act of devotion and goodwill, only blessings offered by Priests truly convey heavenly grace, sacramental grace. And Priests make Christ known through the sacramental rites both in the Liturgy and flowing from it. In the Liturgy priests are stewards of the dominical sacraments of Baptism and Eucharist, as well as the sacraments of Matrimony, Confession, Unction, and with the help of the Bishop, Confirmation. Bishops make possible these sacraments just mentioned, as well as the sacrament of Holy Orders. Each of these is a means and channel of saving grace. Christ is the Coming One through the Sacraments, through the Sacraments which are His chosen and instituted channels. To be sacramental stewards means the Priest preserves the proper understanding and practice of the Sacraments, through his teaching and ministry.

As Jesus taught His disciples to regard S. John the Baptist differently and uniquely, the Church is to regard priests differently and uniquely. Priests are set apart, which is what consecrated and ordained means. They are called to be servants of Christ so as to know Him profoundly, not merely for their personal benefit, but for others: that they are able to fulfill their calling to be effective stewards of the mysteries of God, of the sacraments of God, of that which is necessary spiritual food for the salvation of Christian disciples. Jesus and Paul want the Church to regard priests as means by which Christ comes: means by which Christ nourishes His disciples with Himself.

Christ the High Priest offers Himself eternally, the ordained priesthood makes Him present in the liturgy through the sacrifice offered by the priest, and all believers participate in this sacrifice by offering their lives, transforming the world through the sanctifying power of the Holy Spirit working through them. Priests are necessary to God’s plan of salvation, which is why the Church has always had them, and evidence of the existence of Bishops, Priests, and Deacons is shown in the New Testament and in the earliest documents we have, documents dating to around AD 100. Let us pray for the priests of Holy Church, that it may please God to illumine all Priests with true knowledge and understanding of His holy Word, that both by their preaching and living, they may set forth God’s Word, and make Christ known: always that Jesus transform those men called to the priesthood, that by Christ working through them, the hearts of the disobedient are turned to the wisdom of the just, and turned to follow Christ as their Saviour, Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

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