Throughout the Old Testament, we read of the human race’s struggle with sin and how God sought to save His people. God came to us and revealed Himself to us and prepared us to receive salvation. Then, when the proper time came, God the Son entered into human history and assumed a human nature in the Person of Jesus Christ. In the New Testament, we read of God’s saving actions as He worked our salvation through His Son, who fulfills the Old Testament roles of priest, prophet, and king. We are like the sheep in the parable of the lost sheep. Sin has caused us to go astray and become lost. But Jesus, the Good Shepherd, and promised Messiah comes to us sinners. He seeks us out and invites us to receive salvation and be restored to God’s family.

Jesus the Messiah and Priest, Prophet, and King

The Hebrew word messiah and its Greek form, Christ, means “anointed one.” In the Old Testament, Levitical priests, the kings descended from David, and some prophets were anointed with holy oil as a sign of their status as a priest, king, or prophet, and of the task given to them according to their position. All those who were anointed were messiahs. That means that the kings descended from David in the Jewish royal kingdom were messiahs because they were all anointed. This anointing gave the person an outpouring of God’s Spirit to empower them for the tasks given to them by God. Throughout the Old Testament, the Jewish people waited in anticipation for the time when God would restore His people and fulfill His promises made to Abraham long ago that they would possess the Promised Land and be a great nation, that they would have a dynasty of great kings, and that the world would be blessed through them. In other words, the Jewish people were waiting for and expecting the coming of the Messiah. The Messiah would be not just a king or priest, but the king and priest who would save God’s people and restore them and the prophet who would speak definitively God’s Word. Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, the Anointed One, who came to redeem God’s people, although perhaps in a way different from what people expected. Jesus is not just an earthly king, priest, or prophet. He is God Himself, King of the Universe, become man. He is the High Priest, who offers Himself as sacrifice for the sins of all. And He is the Prophet who doesn’t just speak for God, but speaks as God because He is God.

The Paschal Mystery and the New Covenant

The Paschal Mystery, which refers to Christ’s Passion, death, and Resurrection, is the Sacrament of our salvation, the visible sign of God’s grace and truth that actually brings about God’s divine life within us. The Paschal Mystery is how Christ’s Passion, death, and Resurrection saved us from sin and death for new life as sons and daughters of God. The word Paschal refers to the original Passover of the Israelites in Egypt. To spare the firstborn of the Israelites from the final plague of death, God gave the Israelites instructions through Moses to sacrifice a year-old, unblemished male lamb, to spread its blood over their doorposts that night, and to roast and eat its flesh in a sacred meal that consisted of unleavened bread and wine. If they followed the instructions of this sacrifice, their homes would be passed over that night and the lives of their firstborn spared. This was the central saving action of the Exodus. In the New Covenant, Jesus, the Lamb of God, offered Himself as sacrifice on the Cross. Through His death, He paid the price for our sins that we could not, freeing us from sin and death and inviting us to be sons and daughters of God. We participate in Christ’s saving sacrifice when we receive the Eucharist at Mass, the bread and wine transformed into the Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ. We experience the Paschal Mystery in our everyday lives. Christ’s Resurrection teaches us that our life is not only sin, suffering, and death. There is a new, greater life beyond these. We are called to receive God’s mercy and salvation in the New Covenant in Christ and be His hands and feet throughout the world to share the Good News of salvation and make God’s mercy and love known to all.