(Given at the 8:30 am and the 10:30 am Sunday Masses at OLP)
Some might look at Moses’ lifting up his hands in our first reading as superstitious. When he dropped his hands, the Israelites were losing; when he kept them up, the Israelites were winning. They didn’t think it was magic, so what was going on here? Moses has the staff of God in his hands. God has proven time and time again that miracles would be had in connection with this staff. In one sense, it was a type of prayer. Only the Lord could deliver Israel from its enemies and grant victory in battle. It’s as if Moses is crying out, God please help us! This gesture, the lifting up of one’s hands, would continue in Israel’s history and even into Christian history. Naturally, it is of course a way of pleading. In a unique way, though, this gesture took on a special significance during Mass. It is called the orans position, and it is a priestly act. We as priests do this act as a sign of our Sacramental ministry, interceding on behalf of the Church and the people gathered. We don’t lift up a staff, but our anointed hands from our ordination. It is especially important during the Eucharistic Prayer. Why? Because it imitates Christ, and we priests are in persona Christi, in the person of Christ, especially at Mass offering the Eucharist. Christ offers the sacrifice of himself on the altar through the priest. It’s also, I think, a profound sign of Christ’s orans position. Just as Moses lifted up his arms in the wilderness, so Christ lifted up his arms at his crucifixion. And not only that, but he allowed his arms to be nailed to the Cross as if saying, see, I will always be praying for you, interceding for you to my Father. I will never stop praying for you. He can pray for us, my brothers and sisters, because he is truly man. Yes, he is truly God as well, but he is also truly man and our high priest. It says in Hebrews 7, “Consequently he is able for all time to save those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them.” Until our dying breath, Jesus will be interceding on our behalf to his Father. For our repentance, conversion, even our well-being. Not that God the Father and the Son are against one another, rather that Jesus gets to do this for us in his humanity. Moses carried his staff and lifted his arms up with it in the desert. Christ carried his cross and was lifted up onto it outside Jerusalem. His arms outstretched. When we see the priest doing the orans at Mass and when we see Jesus’ fixed orans displayed on a Crucifix, let us never think Jesus gives up on us. As long as we draw breath, Jesus intercedes for you and for me.