Here’s a
readers’ theatre setting of Hebrews 5:1-10, the epistle reading for Proper 24 B
(Ordinary 29 B) – the gospel reading for the 21st Sunday after Pentecost. It is set for two readers.
Readers’ Theatre: Hebrews
5:1-10
Remember what I said earlier about the role of the
high priest,
even ones chosen by human beings?
The job of every high priest is reconciliation:
approaching God on behalf of others
and offering Him gifts and sacrifices to repair the
damage
caused by our sins against God and each other.
The high priest should
have compassion
for those who are
ignorant of the faith
and those who fall out
of the faith
because he also has
wrestled with human weakness,
and so the priest must
offer sacrifices both for his sins
and for those of the
people.
The office of high priest and the honor that goes
along with it
isn’t one that someone just takes.
One must be set aside, called by God,
just as God called Aaron, the brother of Moses.
In the same way, the
Anointed One, our Liberating King,
didn’t call Himself
but was appointed to
His priestly office by God,
who said to Him,
“You are My Son.
Today I have become Your Father.”
and who also says
elsewhere,
“You are a priest forever—
in the honored order of Melchizedek.”
When Jesus was on the
earth,
a man of flesh and
blood,
He offered up prayers
and pleas, groans and tears
to the One who could
save Him from death.
He was heard because
He approached God with reverence.
Although He was a Son,
Jesus learned obedience through the things He
suffered.
And once He was perfected through that suffering
He became the way of eternal salvation
for all those who hear and follow Him,
for God appointed Him to be a High Priest in the
order of Melchizedek.
