Lent Week 4

Psalm: Psalm 23 

Old Testament: 1 Samuel 16:1-13 

Gospel: John 9:1-41 

Epistle: Ephesians 5:8-14

Welcome to the fourth week of Lent. We are now around the halfway mark of our Lenten journey.  Hopefully by now if you decided to give something up for Lent you are seeing some benefits in your relationship with others and with God.  I hope you are also experiencing a deeper commitment to your faith in the Lord.  I know at least from a practical level I have more space in my life to do more worthwhile things.

This week I want to focus on the idea of anointing, or being called and sent for a purpose.  In 1 Samuel it is the story of the anointing of David by Samuel.  The Lord tells Samuel to go to Bethlehem and anoint a son of Jesse to be the next, and second, king of Israel.  On arriving, Samuel is shown all the sons of Jesse by age until none of them are chosen, and Samuel asks if there are any other children.  David, being the youngest, wasn’t even invited to the party. He was out tending the sheep.  When David arrives, he is anointed, and although the words of Samuel are not recorded if he said anything like “I anoint you as the king of Israel,” it must have been a strange experience for those present.  The Spirit of the Lord then comes “mightily upon David” (13) at that point and Samuel leaves to another city.  It is actually a pretty strange story and David won’t be king for quite a while after this scene.

The second scene of being sent and anointed is from the Gospel of John and the truly Anointed One, Jesus.  In this story of the man who was born blind, Jesus healed him on the Sabbath and created a stir for a couple of reasons.  First, it was on the Sabbath and second, the Pharisees debated whether Jesus was sent from God or the devil.  But the passage is full of clues to where John thinks Jesus is from.  To begin with, his disciples asked Jesus, “who sinned, the blind man or his parents for him to be born blind?”  Jesus responded that neither sinned, but he was born blind “so that the works of God might be displayed in him.” (3)  So Jesus is fulfilling this plan of displaying the mighty works of God when he healed him.  Then, John tells us that Jesus told the man to go wash in the pool of Siloam, which means “Sent.” This is important to John because he translated it and Jesus both sends the man and alludes perhaps that he also has been sent from the Father.  What follows is the whole controversy with the Pharisees until in their debate with Jesus, we get this line about Jesus: “We know that God has spoken to Moses, but as for this man, we do not know where He is from.” (29) They are wondering, where has Jesus been sent from?  Finally, Jesus himself answers the question straight out to the formerly blind man, “You have both seen [the Son of Man], and He is the one who is talking with you.” (37) Jesus is the Son of Man, anointed, and sent by the Father to display who God is through his mighty works.

 

So, where does this leave us? I think the Bible is clear that we are all anointed, called by God as God’s children, to be agents and ambassadors of the Kingdom of God.  This is both a great privilege and responsibility.  We follow in a long line of people going back to the very beginning, like to Abraham, as we discussed a couple weeks ago, and even before that.  God has been faithful to call humanity to himself and to equip and prepare us for his service.  We are able to partner in that task through the help of God.  Let us seek to live faithfully to the calling the Lord has on our lives.  Just as Jesus was sent to the world, so we are also are sent to our neighborhoods, jobs and schools to bring Christ.  Let us go out in faithfulness.

Grace and Peace.