Anointed
“Anointed” by Pastor Rosanna McFadden
Good morning! Our chancel table is beginning to fill with candles and color on this third Sunday of Advent. Thanks to the Metzler family for introducing the third name of Jesus which we are considering this season, the name Messiah. It’s a concept which had been around for more than a thousand years in Jewish thought and practice — but not necessarily as a title. Messiah is the Greek version of the Hebrew verb, masach, which means to smear, rub, or spread a liquid, usually oil. You could masach a shield or other object, but people could be masach-ed as well: this act consecrated them as set apart for God’s service, and these people were called mashiah or anointed person.
I want to talk about Matthew’s use of the term Messiah as Stephen read for us this morning, but first I want to tell you a story. There was a woman named Hannah, one of two wives of man called Ramathaim. Her husband loved her and was kind to her, but Hannah had no children by him — a huge shortcoming in her culture. The other wife, Penninah, was constantly reminding Hannah of this shortcoming. Every spring this family would go to the Temple, and Penninah crowing about her own children became such a torment to Hannah that she could not eat. So she prayed, instead — poured out her heart to the Lord, and promised that if God would send her a male child, she would dedicate him to the Temple as a nazarite, or priest. Eli, the current Temple priest watched Hannah pray. Her lips were moving but she was praying silently, so Eli assumed she was drunk. He interrupted her prayers and said, “How dare you come here drunk, making a spectacle of yourself! Put away your wine.” But Hannah explained that she was telling God about her anxiety and distress, not intoxicated, and Eli said, “Go in peace, and may the God of Israel grant your request.”
You can guess what happened: Hannah and Ramathiam conceived a child, it was a boy. And when he was weaned, at the age of three or so, Hannah took him to the Temple to be raised as a nazarite by Eli, the priest. That child’s names was . . . Samuel. I would have told you at the beginning of the story that it comes from chapter 1 of the Old Testament book of 1 Samuel, but that would have totally given that away.
Samuel was Israel’s king-maker. God didn’t want Israel to have a king and thought having a God as the leader of their nations was even better than having a king, but the people looked around at all the other tribes and people and whined, everybody else has a king, we want a king. So God relented and sent Samuel, now an old man, to anoint a king for Israel. Samuel found a likely young man who was out herding his father’s donkeys. That man’s name was Saul. And in 1 Samuel 10, Samuel anoints Saul as the kind of Israel. By the end of chapter 16, the Lord was sorry he had made Saul king over Israel, and God sends Samuel to a little town outside of Jerusalem called Bethlehem, to anoint a king from one of the eight sons of Jesse. Samuel is understandably concerned about this plan, because Saul is still alive, serving as king, and will kill Samuel if he finds out that Samuel is already anointing his successor. But, as you know, the eighth and youngest son of Jesse is ruddy, handsome, has beautiful eyes (this is all from the Bible) and is pretty good with a sling shot, and Samuel anoints him and the spirit of the Lord comes mightily on the young man, David.
There are many accounts of anointing in the Old Testament, but this one was surely front of mind for Matthew when he was recording his account of the birth of Jesus Christ. The word ‘Christ’ is the Greek translation of mashiah, or Anointed One. Matthew is writing for a Jewish audience, and he begins his gospel with a genealogy, with Jesse’s son David as the hinge of the generations: fourteen generations from Abrahan to David; fourteen generations from David to the deportation to Babylon; fourteen generations from Babylon to the Messiah. And the birth of Jesus the Messiah (Jesus the Christ), took place this way . . .
As Katy told us in the Children’s Story this morning, the symbol for Jesus the Messiah is a lamb. Jews, even as far back as Samuel’s time, would have been familiar with the concept of a lamb of God, and it would have referred to an actual animal. A young sheep without discoloring or physical imperfection which would have been consecrated for sacrifice for a sin-offering. Jews would have seen the lamb as a consecrated offering, not as a king or a warrior or a religious leader. It is only with the coming of Jesus Christ that these two images get combined to represent the human Messiah.
This is most clearly stated at the beginning of John’s gospel. John doesn’t include a birth story, opting for a Creation story instead, but he picks up the action with John the Baptist, who is explaining to the Jewish authorities that he is not the prophet Elijah, he is not the Messiah, he is just the one who is coming to prepare the way. And the next day, when John sees Jesus coming toward him John says, “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” and the day after that John sees Jesus walk by and again says, “Look, here is the Lamb of God!” and one of the men who overhears is Andrew, who goes to his brother Simon, and tells him, “We have found the Messiah.”I believe these biblical stories have contemporary resonance. Christ coming as the Lamb of God to take away the sins of each person means that we are each mashiah, people who are consecrated for a special purpose. We will not all have the same special purpose, but that purpose may mean some sacrifice on our part — our time, our money, our convenience, our physical or emotional comfort. Not everyone can wield a drill or use a chop saw, but it has been wonderful to see the enthusiasm for SAWs in this congregation, and the difference an accessibility ramp can make for someone who has been trapped inside their own home. I have said before and probably will again, that in the economy of God, nothing is wasted. You don’t have to have a seminary degree to work for the kingdom of God. There is a place for people with construction skills, people who have worked in building trades or in RV factories; there is a place for people who know how to cook and plan meals for others; there is a place for people who have finance or accounting skills; there is a place for people who find really good deals at Goodwill; there is a place for children who teach us what simple faith means. Part of the role of the church is to provide opportunities for you to find out what you are being called to do and to be for the kingdom of God. In the name of Jesus Christ, our Messiah, we can offer what we have to the Lamb of God for the kingdom of God. We don’t typically do altar calls at Creekside, but that is the energy and the challenge I would leave you with today: I pray that we would find what we are being called to offer, and God would consecrate us for the work and witness of the kingdom. Amen.