But you have an anointing from the Holy One. (1 John 2:20)
When I preached at an ordination ceremony recently, my mind went back to my own. Fifty years ago I repeated vows, knelt while godly leaders placed their hands on my head, and accepted the stirring commission, “Take authority to preach the Word, to administer the sacraments, and to fulfill the duties of an ordained minister in the church.”
The Old Testament records the ordination of priests in a solemn ceremony, including the unforgettable moment when they would be anointed for God’s service. A vessel of oil would be tipped above their heads, symbolic of the blessing of the Holy Spirit, and Scripture even describes in a vivid word picture the oil running down Aaron’s beard and onto the collar of his robe (see Ps. 133). Prophets and kings were anointed too. The symbol was powerful because what it signified, the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, was essential.
John, writing after Pentecost, said to all believers, “You have an anointing from the Holy One.” God has poured out his Holy Spirit on all his people, so that, in the power of the Spirit, they may share his love in the classroom, in the hospital, in courts of law, in shops and factories, on family farms, in the arts and sciences, in athletic arenas, in the home, and everywhere—all in service of the Messiah, which literally means “the Anointed One.”
Let the anointing of God saturate your service to him.
—Bob Black is professor emeritus of religion at Southern Wesleyan University, where he served for thirty-two years. He co-authored the denominational history, The Story of The Wesleyan Church.
© 2020 Wesleyan Publishing House. Reprinted from Light from the Word. Used by permission. Scriptures taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®.
