JESUS THE ANOINTED ONE

JESUS.... THE CHRIST
Sometimes one learns lessons in the strangest of places.
Like the day I learned a Catechism lesson in a secular philosophy class at McMaster University. The professor was David Hitchcock, brilliant fellow. One thing that always struck me was his insistence on calling our saviour "Jesus of Nazareth." I had always referred to him as "Jesus Christ" much as I am referred to as Ken Gehrels or the Prime Minister as Jean Chretien or the mayor is referred to as Ben Franklin. That's how I spoke of the Lord - Jesus Christ.
On that day Dr. Hitchcock stared with his beady little eyes at someone halfway back in the room, someone who used that name and said, "His name is Jesus of Nazareth. The title given to him by his followers is Christ."
Boom. That was it.

And you know what? Properly speaking, and let me tell you that Dr. Hitchcock was a stickler for proper, the good professor was right. This unbeliever was spreading a truth in that secular classroom which the Heidelberg Catechism has been teaching to believers in churches all over the globe for 400 years.

To say that Jesus' name is Jesus Christ would be the same as saying my name is Pastor Ken Gehrels, or that the fellow living at 24 Sussex Dr carries the name Prime Minister Jean Chretien, or the one retiring from Nepean City Council this fall is called Mayor Ben Franklin.
Pastor, Prime Minister, Mayor - they're all titles.
They speak of the office that the person holds;
the task he was called to do.

So it is with the one we worship, the one whose title we bear when we call ourselves "Christians".His proper name is "Jesus", come from the town of Nazareth. And so, as would be the custom of His day, he would be referred to as "Jesus of Nazareth." That's His name. His title, reflecting the title He holds and the task He was called to do, His title is Christ.

Jesus - the One who is in the role of Meshiach, Cristos.

Now things weren't really as bad as Dr. Hitchcock made it seem for that poor first year philosophy student. That student wasn't so terribly out of line for calling Jesus by the name "Jesus Christ" the way you would be for saying my name is "Pastor Ken Gehrels."See - while it is true that I function in the role of pastor, I'm not the only pastor. And Ben Franklin is not the only mayor. Other people function in these roles and so we can't claim them for ourselves.
But in Jesus' case it is different.
There is only one office of Messiah, of Cristos.
And there is only one person who holds that office.
So we speak of Jesus the Christ.... Jesus Christ.

Unless of course, you are someone like David Hitchcock, who respects Jesus as a great ethical teacher, but refuses to honour him as the son of God or the Messiah.

JESUS' UNIQUE ANOINTING
But now to the heart of the matter. While we so properly and naturally make use of the word "Christ," do we really understand what it means?
Oh we could go running to our trusty dictionary and discover that Christ, Cristos, Meshiach, means "anointed one." But so what?
What does it mean that Jesus is the "anointed one"?

Back it up one step further - what does "anointing", in a generic sense, mean?
We run into the act of anointing first in the Old Testament where we see kings and priests anointed with oil. They had oil poured on their heads in a symbolic ceremony. That oil symbolized the Holy Spirit coming upon them in a special way, empowering them to do a special task for the Lord.Anointing showed that God had a task to be done. God called them to do it. God gave them the power through His Spirit to do it. He would see them through.
Christ - the anointed One
Jesus Christ - anointed in a special way, called to an office in a special way unlike any before or after him.
We read of his anointing in the scriptures. The first passage we will read describes the anointing ceremony. The second one has Jesus tell us in his own words what that anointing symbolized. Please read it with me.

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LUKE 3.21-22; 4.14-21 P.784

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When Jesus was anointed, no oil was used as a symbolic presence of the Holy Spirit. Instead the Spirit himself appeared in the form of a dove.

As Luke describes the scene, which occurs during the baptism of Jesus, the baptism is mentioned in almost an offhand secondary sort of manner. In Greek it actually is described in a "oh, by the way" sort of grammatical statement.
What counts is God the Father calling Jesus
God the Holy Spirit empowering him
and then, as we see in Luke 4 with Christ's sermon in the synagogue, God the Son - Jesus the anointed one - beginning to act out his calling.

Here at the Jordan river the great plan of God begins to move towards the climax. Here Jesus becomes what the prophets had said He would be -
Meshiach, Cristos --- The anointed one, appointed and sent by God.

And what was Jesus the Christ so uniquely anointed for; what was the special office he was called to take? In summary - He was to take up in Himself the perfection and fulfilment of all the special offices that God had used for centuries to guide and lead His people.

Which means we go back to the Old Testament and discover that God directed and connected with the lives of his people through three offices:
prophet - God's spokesperson
priest - mediator between God and people
king - God's ruler over his people

Now these three - prophet, priest, and king - come together in a perfect, fulfilling way in Jesus as God's chief prophet, perfect priest, and eternal king.

Now the story we read from Luke doesn't lay all of this out in complete detail. No more than the Old Testament story of King David's anointing as king of Israel, in 1 Samuel 16, shows the full scope of his future kingship.
So we need to do a survey through other pages of the New Testament in order to glean this information about the prophet, priest, and kingly functions that Jesus the anointed one was called to carry out; or, to use church terminologies, the offices he was called to fill.
Let's take a couple of minutes to consider those offices. As we do, the goal will be to help us better understand the work of Jesus... Christ, so that we might better worship and honour Him as the anointed, perfect, eternal prophet priest and king.

CHRIST AS PROPHET
First, then, Christ as prophet.
The prophet - speaking the Word of God to His people.

Jesus is the great prophet. So great that He is called, in John 1, not merely the one that speaks the Word of God. He IS the Word. Jesus is God's greatest Word of revelation and love and salvation ever to be spoken.
The definitive Word.
The final Word.

As that definitive Word He spoke many words to His followers - to us. Those words are true. They are eternal. They are God's Words.
In Matthew 17, after Jesus' heavenly glory is revealed to his three closest disciples during the transfiguration, God the Father speaks, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!" (v.5)
We must listen to that Word.
We must listen to that Jesus.... the Christ, anointed as the great and final prophet of God, God's ultimate Word to a sinful, lost humanity, the preacher of "good news to the poor."

The Words of Jesus about God, about ultimate human destiny, about His own divinity, about final judgement, about God's love for us.
Hear them!
Take them at face value!
Don't mess with them!
No one may say, "what he says about morals and ethics is fine but what he claimed about his own divinity and about being the exclusive way to salvation is going overboard." No one may say, "Well, his teachings were good in his day and age, but today we have to be realistic and understand that much of what he taught is simply not relevant anymore." When the Holy Spirit anointed Jesus and the Father spoke at the bank of the Jordan, You are my son... with you I am well pleased it was something that applied for all time.

This is what we mean when say Jesus is the Christ.

CHRIST AS PRIEST
But more - the bible also reveals that God the Father called Jesus, and God the Spirit anointed Jesus to the office of Priest, our only high priest.
A priest, as we have said, is a mediator between God and his people; he stands between sinful people and a holy God, bridging the eternal gap.
In Old Testament times the priest-mediators were chosen from among the Israelites, sinners just like the rest. So each day they had to offer sacrifices, first for their own sins and only then, after being cleansed, for the sins of the people.
In time the priest would die and another have to be chosen.

But now we have Jesus. Hebrews 7 speaks of his priesthood this way:
...Because Jesus lives forever, he has a permanent priesthood. Therefore he is able to save completely those who come to God through him, because he always lives to intercede for them. Such a high priest meets our need - one who is holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted above the heavens.... He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. (v.24-27)

The Son of God, who gave his life as a ransom for many stands with one hand on the throne of God and the other spanning the gulf between heaven and earth reaching to us, calling:Come to me all you who labour and are heavy laden. And I will give you rest.
 
 
 

The son of God, the eternal high priest - our link, our ONLY possible link, to heaven. A tender, caring, saving priest of whom Hebrews 4 writes: (v.15-16)We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.
Jesus - the Christ - our hope, our bridge to life, providing freedom to those imprisoned to sin; release for those oppressed by darkness and evil.

CHRIST AS KING
Jesus the Christ - our teacher, our saviour, and - not to be forgotten - our king.
Oh not an earthly king. A king who can be a tyrant, or a fumbling fool. This King is different. His kingdom is different. As Jesus said to Pilate, "My Kingdom is not of this world.. my kingdom is from another place" (Jn19.36).

In that light then we can read the witness of scripture telling us of Jesus' victory over the forces of Satan, telling us of his greatest victory of all on the cross and in the grave - where he met the greatest enemy - Death - and conquered it.
We can read the witness of scripture that he ascended to heaven, that he rests at the right hand of God the Father Almighty, and that one day he is going to return as a judge before whom all must appear, and to whom all will submit on bended knee.

The book of Revelation ch.5 portrays this as vividly as any bible passage, describing the Lion of Judah - the Messiah King - appearing as a Lamb who had been slain. The angels gather to sing the words now made famous through Handel's Messiah: Worthy is the Lamb, who was slain, to receive power andwealth and wisdom and strength and honour and glory and praise! To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honour and glory and power, for ever and ever!"
This we believe and proclaim, brothers and sisters, when we call Jesus "the Christ."
Jesus - the Christ - who will one day return to proclaim, with the sound of the trumpet, that he is here as almighty Judge and King to usher in the Year of the Lord's Favour.

Jesus - the Christ, the King. My King, your King
Jesus - the Christ, the Priest. My Priest, your Priest.
Jesus - the Christ, the Prophet. My Prophet, your prophet.
Jesus - the Christ, the Word of God, the Way to God, the Rule of God.

CONCLUSION
Communal reading of CATECHISM Q/A 31 - P.873