Twenty-First Sunday after Trinity, 21 October 2018, Eldroth
You know when I see the writer of the Hebrews describing Jesus as The High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek, it strikes me that that name sounds like the name of a fantasy hero. You know, from the world of fantasy films and video gaming, which is of course very popular among the young. It is a place of heroes and anti-heroes, moving in combat between different worlds in a fast-flowing series of scenes, endlessly battling to gain and regain power of different sorts. These fantasies often draw on well-known myths and legends, on scripture and folklore.
Each character tends to come from a particular class: a class that excels in combat, or magic, a professional or criminal class. The influential fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons features four classes of players: Fighting Men, Thieves, Wizards - and the Clerics, who specialise in healing and supportive magical abilities. [2]
There are numerous Priests in fantasy gaming. The role-playing video game franchise Final Fantasy has sold over 135 million units worldwide. ‘The Priests [in Final Fantasy] are physically weak and vulnerable, but their healing powers are quite significant. Their powerful Holy spell and … their curative magic … makes them offensively valuable.…’ [3]
Famous priests in fantasy gaming include Nightcrawler, a superhero in the Marvel Comics X-Men series, and Father Markus Kane, in Fahrenheit, a paranormal thriller set in New York City. [4] The fantasy genre goes wider than games, of course. Look at the mainline TV schedules - Doctor Who, with its fantastic creatures from all manner of orders and worlds; and the massively popular Game of Thrones, whose Red Priests and Priestesses possess the power to bring people back to life. [5]
Have you ever visited the Harry Potter film studios in Hertfordshire? I think it’s one of the most fantastic places I’ve ever been to - fantastic in every sense of that word. In a vast arena of full-size sets created for the series of fantasy films, I was overwhelmed by the scale, the craftsmanship, the creativity and above all the tremendous imagination which went into creating each set and each character, down to the tiniest details. It’s a wonderland, a world of creation.
On the film studio tour I read a quote from Steve Kloves, one of the films’ screenwriters, considering why the Harry Potter films appeal so much to their vast worldwide audiences: ‘The thing about Potter,’ he said, ‘is that it’s very earnest about expressions of things like loyalty, courage and redemption. Audiences were hungry for that.’ [6]
Which suggests that beneath the thrills of the fantasy world, its fans are searching for something deeper. They are looking for values which they can take from the stories and apply in their ordinary lives, away from the screen.
So, back to Jesus as The High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek. What sort of character is he; and what are his powers? Could the Christian story have that something which people are looking for?
The Order of Melchizedek was the oldest and greatest of all Israel’s priestly lines. Genesis affirms that Melchizedek was "priest of God Most High". Abraham paid tithes to Melchizedek, and in the Psalms David pronounced that the future King of kings or Messiah was a "priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek.". This order of priests were the most powerful of all. You would want them on your side in any holy battle. When the writer of Hebrews called Jesus the High Priest, he placed him at the very pinnacle of this order. [7]
Maybe some fantasy fans will be drawn to Jesus the High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek, if we tell them about him. They will certainly find something surprising, something unique. Because of all the heroes of scripture, Jesus plays to a different set of rules. They called him Messiah, but Jesus didn’t behave the way they’d expected. For the High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek turns out to be not a cleric militant, not a crusader advancing the cause of righteousness with arms, armour, and magic. Jesus uses his powers in a unique way. He is the king who came ‘not to be served but to serve’; he is the messiah who ‘gave his life a ransom for many’.
Jesus breaks the mould. He breaks the rules. If he was a character in an online game he would melt the computer down because he just would not co-operate with the rules of engagement. This is the great appeal of Jesus the High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek, not so much his absolute holy power, but the way he refused to use it in violence on others. His self-giving love breaks the cycle of death. Only he can do this. This is very good news in a world of violence, whose online games, TV dramas and big-screen fantasies trap us in a web from which it seems there is no escape - where we are consigned to play out endless battles, over and over again, to gain and regain power of different sorts.
People are caught up in this because they are offered no alternative, in the fantasy world or the political world or the business or academic or social world. Yet we hunger for values like loyalty, courage and redemption. The values displayed by The High Priest of the Order of Melchizedek.
Point people towards Jesus and you point them to a whole new liberating way of life, in which the loving creator God enables you to live outside conflict, in generous relationships with others. In the online game Darksiders II, we are told, ‘Death Comes For All’. [8] But this is in the fantasy world. In the reality of God’s world, Jesus comes for all. And he comes as a servant, he comes as a gift.
Notes
[1] A rewrite of The High Priest of Melchizedek - hero for our times? first preached in Devon in 2012, and published in my Devon Sermons, and in modified form in Somerset in 2015.
[2] Wikipedia, Character class, Cleric.
[3] Caves of Narshe website, Final Fantasy Tactics Job Classes: Priest.
[4] Wikipedia, List of fictional clergy and religious figures: Priests.
[5] Game of Thrones Wikia: Red Priest.
[6] Steve Kloves quote from a display photographed at the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, London.
[7] Genesis 14.18, Psalm 110.1-4.
[8] Soundtrack narrative from the Gameplay Trailer, Darksiders II - "Death Comes For All”
Comments