The Weeping Messiah

Hebrews 5:7-10

This paragraph is part of the author's description of Jesus as the Great High Priest. In this paragraph he is focusing on Christ's priestly ministry of intercession for the people before God. The key themes are prayer and obedience. When the author talks about Jesus offering fervent prayers with cries and tears, I immediately think of the Garden of Gesthemane. I think the author has that in mind as well but the author also indicates that this was not the only time that Jesus prayed with such fervency. The author indicates that this was a normal pattern for Jesus.
There are a couple of interesting phrases or ideas in this paragraph. First, the author says that Jesus was heard when he prayed to the one who could deliver him from death. At first I was confused by that. I could make the argument that Jesus was heard, just as the Father hears all our prayers, but that the answer was "no". However, the author's point seems to be that we can trust Jesus as our Great High Priest because God heard and responded positively to his prayer to escape death and therefore, as Jesus intercedes on our behalf, we can expect positive answers to our prayers as well. After doing some investigating, I discovered that this is precisely the point of the author and was reminded that Jesus did escape death; the Father responded to his prayer by raising him to life again.
This is a reminder to me that God may not always respond to my prayers in the way that I initially want or expect him to but that he will respond in a way that will bring him maximum glory. I can trust Jesus, even when facing death, even when dying, because I know that I have a High Priest who has even gone through and conquered death.
The second interesting phrase is: "once made perfect". This challenges my belief that Jesus was perfect because, right from conception, miracles had prevented him from inheriting the sin nature common to humanity and because he was fully God. The author's point is not that Jesus had some imperfection to work through and, after his time of obedience, his record was wiped clean and he was made perfect. The author's point is that as Jesus grew and developed as a human being he continued to face tests of obedience and as he continued to respond in submission to God he continued to work out and display his perfection. I can remember when I played volleyball and my dad was coaching. I was a terrible server. My dad would pull me off the court whenever it was my time to serve because I sucked! My dad also kept service stats that he'd post on the bulletin board outside the gym. I remember one time I went 0 for 0. I could say that I served a perfect game. However, I had not served at all. I think that's what the author was saying about Jesus. He was perfect but only as far as his obedience and perfection was tested. In Jesus' life, it was tested to the utmost. There is no greater test of obedience and Jesus passed it with flying colours, displaying his perfection. It is upon this life of perfect obedience that we now have hope for eternal life and for our own ultimate perfecting.
Here's what I know from this passage: I can trust Jesus as my intercessor and high priest because he is passionate in his prayer, because God hears and responds to his requests and because he is the only person who has earned the right to stand before God by his perfect life of obedience and submission. So, why do I pray so little?