Jesus Is the Anointed One of God: Prophet (Isaiah 61:1-2); Priest (Hebrews 7:11, 23-27); King (John 18:36-37; 19:14-19) - July 1, 2018

While the 4th of July specifically celebrates the completion of the Declaration of Independence – and this year, the 242nd birthday of the USA – it is also an occasion for us as Christians to thank God for the many blessings of the nation we live in. One of the more underappreciated of these blessings is the separation of powers in our government into three distinct branches: the legislative, executive, and judicial. Blessed by God with a clear understanding of human nature, our founding fathers have ensured that no one person would have absolute power and enshrined that principle by outlining and limiting the roles, powers, and authority of the three branches of government in the constitution. The president is the commander-in-chief, the legislature writes laws and controls the purse-strings, and judges issue verdicts based on the constitution. (At least, that’s how it’s supposed to work.) While this separation of powers was unique in the 1700’s, it was not new. Some 3000 years earlier, God had established separate branches of authority among his OT people: the office of prophet, priest, and king. Each office had a specific role and authority and God intended them to be kept separate. (In fact, God ripped the kingdom away from Saul when he assumed the role of priest unlawfully. (1 Samuel 13:8-14)) No one sinful man was allowed to fill all three offices. There was only one perfect person who could: God’s only Son, Jesus Christ. Both during his life on earth and now as our ascended Lord, Jesus has been anointed by God to the offices of prophet, priest, and king.

I.                    He Proclaims Good News to the Poor

In the Old Testament, anointing with oil was used to symbolize that a man was “set apart” by God to carry out a specific task. Anointing signified two things: 1) that God had chosen this person; and 2) that God would equip that person with the necessary gifts to carry out the task. While Jesus’ anointing properly took place before creation (1 Peter 1:20), God publicly confirmed his choice at Jesus’ baptism in the Jordan River. (Luke 3:21-22) The first office to which he was appointed is that of prophet. While we might think of a prophet as someone who predicts the future, the Biblical definition of a prophet is simply someone appointed by God to speak God’s Word – regardless of whether that Word deals with the past, present, or future.

In his first public act after his temptation in the wilderness (Luke 3:1-13), Jesus stood up in a synagogue in Nazareth, read these words from Isaiah, and stated unequivocally: today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing. (Luke 4:21) So what does it mean that Jesus is our Prophet?  According to Isaiah, he came to preach good news to the poor. In the context of Isaiah, the message was that God would carry out vengeance on their enemies, redeem his people from their exile in Babylon, and bring them back to their homeland. The good news was all about what God would do for his people.

Before we get to the specifics of the good news for us, let’s consider who Jesus comes to preach to: the poor. Who are the poor? On the one hand, this is not simply referring to those who are financially or materially needy or to an oppressed minority; on the other, neither is the good news for the comfortable and self-righteous. Isaiah uses four phrases to describe who the poor are: the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners, and all who mourn. The poor are those who are so broken by the trials and troubles of life that they have no more heart to try, who are so enslaved by sin and its consequences that they can’t imagine ever being free, who are locked up in the dark, meaningless prison of doubt and unbelief, who mourn because they despair of ever experiencing God’s love or seeing their enemies brought to justice. To all who suffer from sin and its effects, to all who crave freedom and relief, to all who fear God’s wrath and dread death and judgment, Jesus proclaims good news!

What good news? The good news is not that if you try a little harder, be a little better, dream a little bigger – that you can succeed and prosper and overcome; nor is the good news that Jesus came to bring social equality, financial prosperity, or physical health. No, the good news is that God sent Jesus to save you from your sins. (John 3:16) He has come to take away the guilt that weighs so heavily on our hearts, to free us from sins’ addictive, enslaving power, to release us from the darkness and meaninglessness of living as God’s enemies. He proclaims that we no longer have to fear sin, death, or the devil because he has come to crush them once and for all. And even though Jesus is no longer here preaching this good news with his own lips, he continues to carry out his prophetic office by sending out pastors and teachers and ordinary, every-day believers like you to preach this good news of forgiveness, life and salvation to a world of brokenhearted, imprisoned sinners. (Fathers leading mealtime devotions, mothers singing Christian hymns at bedtime – Jesus is carrying out his prophetic ministry) Jesus is not a mascot to be trotted out in support of any of the political debates roiling our nation, he is a prophet anointed by God to preach good news of God’s grace to poor sinners like us.

II.                  He Offers the Perfect Sacrifice for Sin

In the Old Testament, while prophets proclaimed God’s Word to the people, priests (and especially the high priest) represented the people of Israel before God. They offered prayers and sacrifices on behalf of the people as a reminder that sinners need a mediator before a holy God. But there were two problems with these priests: 1) they were sinful themselves, so that before they could offer sacrifices for the sins of the people, they had to offer sacrifices for themselves; and 2) their sacrifices of lambs and goats were never sufficient; they had to keep offering these sacrifices day after day, month after month, year after year. But far from being useless ritual, this all served a very important purpose: it pointed the people ahead to the perfect High Priest God had promised to send.

From the moment of his conception, Jesus was a different kind of priest. He wasn’t a descendant of Aaron or a member of the tribe of Levi (he was from the tribe of Judah – Luke 3:33)). He came from the order of Melchizedek – a mysterious character from Genesis who had no beginning or end. (Genesis 14:18-20) He was not like the priests who had come before him, who entered the office by virtue of their bloodline. No, Jesus became high priest because he was holy, blameless, pure, set apart from sinners, exalted in the heavens. And because he had no sins needing sacrifice, he sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself. When Jesus came to represent us before God on the altar of the cross, he did not present a lamb or a goat or a bull as a sacrifice – he offered himself. He was both the priest and the sacrifice. His blood, the infinitely precious blood of the spotless Son of God, was the only sacrifice precious enough to pay for the sins of the world. This means that there is no need for you or me to do something or offer something to pay for the sins we have confessed to committing. Jesus did it all for us. The sins of yesterday, today, and yes, even tomorrow have been paid for. Your forgiveness and your salvation are finished, once and for all.

But that doesn’t mean that Jesus’ work as our high priest has ended: 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. Jesus’ sacrifice is done, completed, finished. (John 19:30) But what isn’t done? Our sinning. We continue to sin minute after minute, day after day, year after year. And so Jesus continues to represent us before God. He stands in as our defense attorney, fending off every accusation the devil and our own consciences can hurl at us – the accusation that we are sinners who deserve nothing but wrath and punishment – by pointing back to his sacrifice for sins once for all. The apostle John speaks of the comfort that is ours because Jesus continues to serve as our high priest: if anybody does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world. (1 John 2:1-2)

Whether they know it or not, people are still searching for a priest, a mediator, to represent them before God today. Many don’t recognize this need, many would prefer to spend Sunday morning camping, running or boating – because they misidentify the source of trouble in their lives. They blame their problems on other people, on emotional trauma, on physical maladies, or – these days – politics. But none of those are the root cause of the real problem that we all have: a broken relationship with God caused by my own, your own sinful rebellion. And so, while people search for help and relief in pills and therapies, in materialism and gluttony, in recreation and entertainment – none of those ever really work because – just like the thousands of sacrificial lambs and goats – none of those things can solve the problem of sin. None of those things can give us a right relationship with God. Only Jesus can serve as our Great High Priest. Only he has sacrificed himself for the sins of the world. Only he can continue to represent us before his holy throne. Jesus didn’t only come as a prophet to proclaim good news to poor sinners like us, he is good news for sinners like us – because he has taken our sins on himself and given us his righteousness, he has made us right with God once and for all by sacrificing himself. He, and he alone, is our Great High Priest.

III.               He Is Our Conquering King

The third and final role, or office, to which Jesus was anointed is that of King. One would think that this would be the easiest office to understand because everyone knows what a king does. Sadly, that’s not true. Just like in Jesus’ day, many people are looking for Jesus to be a social and political king: a powerful and persuasive personality who will give them free food and health care, provide them with jobs and homes, educate their children and overthrow their enemies and lead them to prosperity and power. Because Jesus refused to be the kind of king they wanted, they turned him over to the Roman governor, Pontius Pilate to be crucified. And yet, even as Jesus is standing bound and helpless before Pilate, he teaches that this is precisely how he rules as king.

My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jews. But now my kingdom is from another place. An earthly kingdom consists of a territory and the people in it. The king rules with laws and the sword. But Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world. He didn’t come to set up an earthly kingdom with borders, armies, and laws. Instead, Jesus came into this world to testify to the truth. What is this truth? The truth that we are, by nature, damned sinners (the law); but that he came into the world to save sinners from eternal damnation (the gospel). By means of the truth that he proclaimed as God’s anointed Prophet and carried out as our High Priest, Jesus would rule in hearts of everyone who is on the side of truth. Jesus does have a kingdom, he does rule – not with laws and borders and armies (so don’t try to make Jesus into a social or political leader) – but with the Gospel, with the good news of salvation.

At the same time, Jesus wouldn’t be a king and we wouldn’t be members of his kingdom if he didn’t go to war to defeat our enemies. And this is how he did it: carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). Here they crucified him, and with him two others – one on each side and Jesus in the middle. Nowhere is the contrast more crystal clear between worldly kings (and the kind of Jesus many are looking for) and the kind of King Jesus actually is, than right here, on Golgotha. Kings of this world send their subjects out into war to shed their blood to bring them the victory. Jesus went to war in our place and on our behalf, he shed his blood in order to bring us the victory. Kings of this world destroy their enemies. Jesus came to save his enemies: us. Kings of this world are sinful humans who have limited power and authority. Jesus is the King of kings (Revelation 19:16) who continues to rule everything – including all three branches of our government – for the good of his Church.

As you celebrate Independence Day, give thanks to God that he gave our founding fathers the wisdom to separate the powers of government, so that they and we know what their jobs are. More importantly, thank God for anointing his Son to be our Prophet, Priest and King. Many people want Jesus to be all sorts of things, but only when we receive him according to his offices will we be receiving the real Jesus and real comfort. To poor sinners like us, he proclaims the good news that God has had mercy on us. For rebellious people like us, he sacrificed himself to bring us peace with God. For defenseless people like us, King Jesus defeated our greatest enemies through his own victorious death on the cross. Jesus will not be whatever we want him to be. But as God’s anointed Prophet, Priest, and King he is exactly what we need most. Amen.