Back to Eden: Christ as High Priest and the Healing of Creation, by David Roef Nieuwejaers (NL)

In the Gospel of John, shortly before his arrest, Christ offers his High Priestly Prayer. He asks for glorification, for unity among his disciples, and for all future believers:

“that they may all be one, Father, as you are in me and I am in you; may they also be in us…”
What do these striking words mean, and why is Christ called our High Priest?

We approach these questions from both the perspective of early Christian tradition and that of ancient Jewish tradition, with particular attention to the mysticism of the First Temple (c. 1000–586 BC). This reveals that the original Temple was far more than a place of sacrifice: it was a cosmic sanctuary where heaven and earth meet, a symbolic expression of paradisiacal order and beauty. Within it, the High Priest acted as a representative of humanity, as a new Adam, entering the Glory of the Holy One and thereby bringing healing and renewal to the world.

Against this background, Christ appears as the heavenly High Priest who enters the true sanctuary—the Kingdom of Heaven—thus opening access to the glory of God and leading us back into the liturgy of creation. His prayer therefore goes beyond a merely ecclesial or religious understanding of unity. He prays for the restoration of our original vocation: to participate in the love of divine life, so that each human being may become, in turn, both temple and priest, in a life-giving communion with all that lives.

This lecture will be presented in Dutch