Welcome back to The Light in Every Thing.

This week we pick up the thread of the last three episodes, "What is a Priest?" We recap some of our journey so far, remembering that a priest holds a place on a kind of "shoreline" between our world and the Spiritual world. The job of a priest is both to offer something from the physical world to the spiritual world, and then secondly to turn around and bring something from the spiritual world back to the physical world, a kind of gift or Divine Offering.

And so we describe today the lineage of offering, from the story of Cain and Abel, with the image of them as "creator" and "shepherd," all the way through to Jesus and beyond.

But first, we delve into the question, "What is different in the work of a Priest after Christ and what he accomplished at Golgotha?"

We explore the transformation of priestly offering from another angle today: how it has shifted from something external and tangible (like a lamb, or a bull) to something inside an individual, something active: to Love itself. This is a generative act - to Love, to sacrifice one's own life for their friends. Patrick discusses how the future of Christianity rests in this new priestly work which is actually generative, and creative, building something new - and goes beyond an older way of "giving up" or sacrifice, which was towards a recovery of the Garden of Eden.

The Being of Christ, The Word, The Name of God, Love- Patrick and Jonah string together all of these pictures into one image, an image that we might strive to be made in the likeness of. Through today's episode, we see in Christ Jesus a new image of Priesthood, of the individual, and of community. We see that humanity has moved into a role of "creator-hood," by the priestly example of Christ Jesus.

Notes:
- In this episode, Patrick references the point where the whole Hebrew nation are called into priesthood as Numbers 6 - Numbers is actually a reference to Aaron's blessing. (Numbers 6:22-27)
- The correct reference for that point in our episode today is Exodus 19:6, "and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation."
- John 17 - The High Priestly Prayer.

The Shoreline of the north side of the South Fork of Long Island. Long Beach, Sag Harbor, NY.

Our thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed the opening music, "On the Road" and the closing music, "Seeking Together". You can find more of his music here.

Our thanks also to Emily Watson for her excellent digital production work behind the scenes, and this week for her photograph of her hometown, above.

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