I Believe In Jesus Christ

I Believe… in Jesus Christ Hebrews 7:11-25, HC Q&A 29, 31 Cascades Fellowship CRC, JX MI September 17, 2006 Confessional Preaching 2006 In 1986, there was a hot, young prospect out of Purdue taken as the third pick overall by the Houston Oilers. He was a quarterback – a big quarterback, with a howitzer for an arm; strong and accurate. The young quarterback became a holdout – for whatever reason, he didn’t want to play for the Houston Oilers. It didn’t take long before the other teams began circling, seeking to woo this young signal-caller. In the end, the Los Angeles Rams offered the sweetest deal to both the Oilers and the quarterback. The young man’s name was Jim Everett. Many of you may not remember him – but I do. I remember shortly after the Rams acquired him, banners began showing up at the Coliseum, painted with the likeness of Everett’s number 11 jersey, with messages hailing him as the savior of the team. The Ram fans became more and more impatient to see the young Everett on the field. Although the Rams already had two “starting-caliber” quarterbacks on the roster – Steve Bartkowski and Steve Dils – Jim Everett was seen as the heir apparent. Unfortunately for the Jim Everett and the Rams, Everett proved to be a little gunshy. In 1989, with a NFC Championship on the line, Everett crumpled to the ground in the anticipation of being sacked without even being touched. Everett had already been sacked repeatedly by the 49er’s defense that day. Reviews of

the play, however, showed that the pocket was still holding and the pressure Everett felt was generated by his own, skittish mind. Yet, when he first burst on the scene, Jim Everett was expected to be the next great quarterback – on a par with John Elway, and Dan Marino. Before he’d ever thrown a pass in a professional game, Everett was anointed as a superstar. Anointed. It’s a word we hardly take seriously anymore. We tend to use it in the same sense that I used just now, declaring someone to be the next great thing. Anoint today has a commonplace meaning – it is really just an expression of our expectations for someone. In reality, when we speak of anointing we are usually declaring what we hope they will be, not what they are. This is a very different definition from how the Bible understands anointing. When it speaks of anointing, it often carries with it the meaning that someone is anointed to something – they actually become what they are anointed to be. Take for instance the Old Testament priesthood. Not everyone could serve as a priest – only those of the tribe of Levi were eligible. But birthright alone could not make you a priest – you had to first be anointed as a priest.

The prophets were also anointed – consider God’s

command to Elijah to anoint Elisha as his successor. The same was true of the king in the Old Testament. Think of when David was anointed by Samuel in 1 Samuel 16:13. Samuel had examined all the sons of Jesse, except for the youngest, David, who was busy tending the sheep. When he comes in from the sheep, God speaks to Samuel and says, “That’s the

one, the one I choose. Anoint him.” From that point on, although it would be years until he ascended the throne, David is the anointed king of Israel. He is king. Now this all may seem like crazy talk – something only a pastor can get excited about. Who wants to talk about the Old Testament priesthood or those wild-eyed prophets? But we have good reason to grow in our understanding of what being anointed really means. In our Q&A from the Heidelberg Catechism this morning, we are asked “Why is he [referring to Jesus] called ‘Christ,’ meaning ‘anointed?’” Unless we know what we mean when we say “anointed” we have no idea of what we are confessing. So this morning I want to talk a little bit about anointing to understand what we mean when we say that Jesus is the Christ – the Anointed One. Once we understand what we mean when we say that Jesus is the “Anointed One,” then we will explore what Jesus is anointed to. Anointing is one of those ancient practices in the church that has long since fallen out of common use. It is sort of mysterious. We don’t really know when to anoint people anymore, or how for that matter. In our empirical, “gottasee-evidence” kind of world, anointing doesn’t make much sense because we are not sure what good it does. We don’t know how it works. Is it magic? Is there something about the oil that is holy and does that property transfer to the thing anointed? For us, being told that Bible says “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the

name of the Lord” sounds a little too much like voodoo. Pray – okay, we believe prayer works, at least think so. But anoint? What good does smearing scented oil on someone’s forehead do? And why shouldn’t we be suspicious today?

Usually when we hear

someone talking about “anointing” it is one of those T.V. evangelist trying to convince us that because he has spilled a little oil on a hanky, the hanky now has the power to boost our effectiveness in prayer. Often anointing is presented to us as a type of magic.

They seem to be saying the oil has some sort of

communicable power. But when you look at the practice of anointing in the Bible, a very different picture comes to light. Anointing in the Scriptures always pointed toward the work of the Holy Spirit in consecrating or setting aside a person, an object or an action for God and his glory. For instance, the utensils used by the priest in the Temple for offering sacrifices were anointed for that purpose. Additionally, when a person was anointed, the anointing was symbolic of the Holy Spirit at work in the life of the one anointed. So when we speak of someone being anointed, we mean that God has chosen this person and set them aside for his purposes. What is most interesting about the way the Bible describes anointing is that it is a prescribed act – something that God commands. Like so much of the acts of worship that God prescribes for his people, there is no power in the act itself. There is nothing inherently supernatural about anointing. It was practiced outside the worship life. The word “anoint” literally means “to smear or rub on.”

People would “anoint” their faces with oil, meaning they would rub oil on their faces to give them a brighter, more healthy appearance. Soldiers would anoint their shields, keeping the leather stretched over them supple and elastic. People would anoint their wounds with oils and salves to speed the healing process. But God takes this commonplace activity – something from everyday life and he injects it with meaning. It becomes a form a revelation and a waypoint for faith. God turns it to symbol, to represent that he has specifically chosen the anointed person or thing as his own and that he is at work in and through what has been anointed. In a sense, you could say that when a person was anointed by the command of God, it is like saying that God’s Spirit is now smeared all over that person, marking the person as his own; working in and through him. To use another illustration from football – sorry, ‘tis the season - early in the career of Hall-of-Fame quarterback Troy Aikman, the Cowboys also had Steve Beuerlein on the roster. Two topflight quarterbacks on the same roster invariably leads to a quarterback controversy. The young Aikman was angry and frustrated; he saw the move to get Beuerlein as a no-confidence vote against him.

Coach Jimmie Johnson, sensing Aikman’s angst, took the young

quarterback aside and told him that Aikman was his choice – he was the undisputed starter.

In other words, Coach Johnson anointed Aikman as the

quarterback of the Dallas Cowboys. In the same way, God uses the symbol of anointing to say to someone, “For this purpose, I choose you.”

So what are we saying when we call Jesus the Christ, which means “the Anointed One?” By the way, “Messiah” means the same thing – Anointed One. What do we mean by that? What we mean is that Jesus has been chosen by God the Father – the Father has smeared the Spirit all over Christ, claiming him as his own and for his own eternal purposes. If that’s the case, what has Jesus been anointed to? In what way is he the Christ – the One Chosen? In Ancient Israel, God established three offices – three vocations or positions of responsibility – to govern the nation of Israel.

The first one he

established was the office of prophet, or the person chosen to represent God to the people. You may remember that at the foot of Mt. Sinai, the Israelites were too terrified to approach the mountain because the fire of God’s holiness had descended upon its top. They begged God to speak through Moses rather than to them directly. Later, just before they enter the Promised Land, Moses tells the Israelites: The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own brothers. You must listen to him. For this is what you asked of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly when you said, “Let us not hear the voice of the LORD our God nor see this great fire anymore, or we will die.” LORD said to me: “What they say is good. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers; I will put my words in his mouth, and he will tell them everything I command him. If anyone does not listen to my words that the prophet speaks in my name, I myself will call him to account. God chooses Jesus as the ultimate fulfillment of that promise – a prophet greater even than Moses. The Heidelberg Catechism, Q&A 31 says that Jesus is

“our great high priest and teacher who perfectly reveals to us the secret counsel and will of God for our deliverance.” Colossians 1:15-20 says tells us that the fullness of God dwelled in Christ; that Jesus is the perfect image of the Invisible God. Jesus said of himself, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father….” Through the Incarnation, God draws near to us and reveals himself in the flesh of Jesus Christ. But Jesus also taught us the ways of God, calling us back from the abyss of sin we slouching toward. In Luke 4, Jesus reveals that he has come to preach the year of the Lord’s favor, of freedom for the captive and sight for the blind. Through parables such as the Prodigal Son, Jesus declared the immense grace of God and his extraordinary patience and compassion toward the lost – those who are separated from God because of their sin. The Gospel of John begins, “In the beginning was the Word. And the Word was God and the Word was with God….” In Jesus, we have the fullness of the revelation; God’s authoritative Word to man. Through his life and teaching Jesus reveals the Father to us, we should listen to him – he is our chief prophet and teacher. The next office that God provided for the governing of his people was that of the priest. If the prophet was the mouthpiece of God – speaking God’s words to his people, revealing the heart of God – the priest represents the people to God.

But Jesus wasn’t just any priest – in fact, according to the Law of Moses he shouldn’t have been a priest at all. Jesus was from the tribe of Judah, not the Levites. How could he possibly be a priest, then? The Old Testament priesthood – the priesthood established by the Law of Moses – had a very serious limitation. The priests were mere men – sinful and weak. They could not approach the throne of God on their own merit to mediate between God and the people, they needed to apply the blood of the sacrifice first to themselves. There needed to be a better priesthood. And so God chooses Jesus to be that better priest – before the foundations of the world, Jesus is anointed to be our Great High Priest. And though he does not need to offer any sacrifices for himself, Jesus does present a sacrifice before God the Father for us. Because our sin binds us in chains of destruction and separates us from God, Jesus offers his life of perfect obedience in exchange for ours on the Cross. Jesus bleeds and dies so that we can live. And here is the good part – he still pleads our case before God. Jesus’ priesthood did not end on the Cross. Because of the indestructible life of Jesus, he still stands before the throne of God, interceding for us, pleading our cause. The final office God provided for governing his people was the king. The Heidelberg Catechism says that as our eternal king Jesus governs us by his Word and Spirit, and who guards us and keeps us in the freedom he has won for us. When we were overcome by our enemy and defenseless, it was Jesus who rose to our defense. It was he who took up our cause and defeated the enemy

on his own turf. When Jesus arose form the grave, he declared himself the Lord of Life, breaking forever the chains of death upon us. As our King, he also leads us now in the paths of righteousness by his Word and through the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit. And when he returns, he will judge the living and the dead, restore righteousness and justice as the standards of society and establish eternal peace between man and God and between all mankind. This is the Jesus we declare when we say “I believe …. In Jesus Christ, God’s only Son, our Lord…. He is the prophet who perfectly reveals God to us. He is the priest who offers himself as a perfect sacrifice and pleads our case before God. He is the King who rules over us and establishes perfect peace. He is the Anointed One, chosen by God to restore us to fellowship with him. Blessed be the name of the Lord.