"The Holy Spirit shall descend upon you," answered the angel, "and the Power of the Most High shall overshadow you; and therefore the child will be called 'holy,' and 'Son of God.'
"Why, what harm has this man done?" Pilate said to them for the third time. "I have found nothing in him for which he could be condemned to death. So I will have him scourged, and then release him."
There have indeed gathered together in this city against your holy Servant Jesus, whom you has consecrated the Christ, not Herod and Pontius Pilate only, but the nations and the people of Israel besides--
For he is the radiance of the Glory of God and the very expression of his Being, upholding all creation by the power of his word; and, when he had made an expiation for the sins of men, he 'took his seat at the right hand' of God's Majesty on high,
our eyes fixed upon Jesus, the Leader and perfect Example of our faith, who, for the joy that lay before him, endured the cross, heedless of its shame, and now 'has taken his seat at the right hand' of the throne of God.
It was, indeed, fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, should, when leading many sons to glory, make the author of their Salvation perfect through suffering.
And consequently it was necessary that he should in all points be made like 'his Brothers,' in order that he might prove a merciful as well as a faithful High Priest in man's relations with God, for the purpose of expiating the sins of his People.
Therefore, Christian Brothers, you who, all alike, have received the Call from Heaven, fix your attention on Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our Religion.
If, then, Perfection had been attainable through the Levitical priesthood--and it was under this priesthood that the people received the Law--why was it still necessary that a priest of a different order should appear, a priest of the order of Melchizedek and not of the order of Aaron?
To sum up what I have been saying:--Such is the High Priest that we have, one who 'has taken his seat at the right hand' of the throne of God's Majesty in Heaven,
how much more will the blood of the Christ, who, through his eternal Spirit, offered himself up to God, as a victim without blemish, purify our consciences from a lifeless formality, and fit us for the service of the Living God!
To the Angel of the Church in Philadelphia write:-- "These are the words of him who is holy and true, who holds 'the Key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, and shuts and no one opens':--