No More the Outsider

How d'you fancy being a priest?

I know.

Priests haven't exactly got the greatest image in the media right now.

But that's not the kind of priest I'm talking about.

Here's the issue: do you realise that most people, at some point in their lives, feel like outsiders?

Most of us know the experience of standing outside a door that other people seem to walk through without a second thought.

As I write I'm heading off to a breakfast shortly, where I'll be walking ... maybe left standing ... in a room full of people.

Will I know anybody? How's it going to go? That low-level anxiety ... that particular flavour of uncertainty ... is more common than we usually admit.

Mattering

And it's not just social awkwardness we're talking about. It's the door of influence, of significance, of being taken seriously. Of mattering. Mattering matters to us, deeply, whether we acknowledge it or not.

Which is why there's a claim in Revelation chapter 5 that I find genuinely remarkable.

It says that through Jesus, people from every background are made - and here's the exact phrase - "a kingdom and priests."

In the ancient world, priests were the people with access. That was the defining thing about them.

They were the ones who could go where ordinary people couldn't: into the presence of the sacred, into the place where the real decisions were made.

Everybody else waited outside.

Only the priest went in.

And this vision says that exclusive access is now open to everyone who belongs to the figure Revelation calls the Lamb.

Not just a religious elite.

Not just the theologically trained or the socially acceptable.

Every person bought by the blood of Jesus is given the status of a priest - direct access to God, standing before the throne of heaven, and none of it depending on their CV, their reputation, or their past.

That is not a small thing.

In a world where almost everything seems to be gated - shut off behind a fence, where access, platform and significance go to those who already have those things - the kingdom of God runs on a completely different economy.

You don't have to earn your way in.

The access price has already been paid.

The door is now open.

So what's to do?

Well, as they say in other English-speaking cultures: get in.

If you want to make a start on that, you can read or listen to Mark's Gospel — one of the most direct and vivid portraits of Jesus you'll find anywhere — completely free here: https://live.bible.is/bible/ENGNLH/MRK/1