To Christ glory and kingship

Daniel 7.9-10, 13,14 I saw, coming on the clouds of heaven, one like a son of man

Revelation 1.4b-8 Jesus Christ has made us a line of kings and priests

John 18.33-37 Yes, I am a king

 

Preached at the Eucharist with Holy Baptism of Naomi

 

To him was given dominion

and glory and kingship,

that all peoples, nations, and languages

should serve him.

(Daniel 7.14)

 

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To confer baptism today, as we celebrate the kingship of Jesus Christ, is beautiful and very appropriate.

 

The thread that weaves baptism and kingship together is anointing.

 

Anointing is the act of applying oil, in baptism it’s olive oil, which consecrates a man or woman and realises the inward anointing of the Holy Spirit.

 

In the scriptures, priests, prophets and kings are all anointed with oil; empowered by the Holy Spirit of God to fulfil their God-given task.

 

It’s water that makes baptism: water of life, cleansing and birth. Light signifies the light of the resurrection of Christ. Oil, for anointing, tells us we share in the life of the Anointed One.

 

Now, you may be thinking ‘who’s this Anointed One?’ he’s talking about!

 

So, the Hebrew for ‘Anointed One’ is  mashiach (מָשִׁיחַ,) and the Greek is chrīstós (χριστός).

 

Sound familiar? Mashiach, Messiah; Chrīstós, Christ.

 

Interestingly the first person to bear the title Maschiach was one of the most famous kings in the Bible, King David. And one of king David’s most distinguished ancestors is Naomi, the name of our candidate for baptism today!

 

And that’s why it’s significant that Jesus was born in the city of David: but let’s not get ahead of ourselves; we’ll enjoy that link at Christmas!

 

To be anointed in baptism we come to share in the life of Jesus Christ, the Anointed One: the Great High Priest, the Word of God and ascended and glorified King of all Creation.

 

No day or action is more important than the day of your baptism, it’s when we are grafted into the life, death and resurrection of the Anointed One, Jesus Christ.

 

Naomi, today you become a citizen of the Kingdom of God. You are recreated, reborn and take on the mantle of priest, prophet and king.

 

So, let’s look at those three aspects of being Christians – priest, prophet, king - which some of us have carried for many years, some more recently, Naomi as of today, and, who knows, there may be someone here not yet baptised who is being called to be.

 

Priest.

 

Let’s first be clear, I am ordained as a priest. But my priesthood comes first from the baptism I share with you: the ministerial priesthood - i.e. what I am ordained into - exists within the priestly body of believers.

 

My priesthood expresses and reflects the priesthood of the whole Church, all the baptised.

 

My first call, like yours, is to be baptised: how you and I serve Christ is down to discernment and wisdom and the gifts we have to offer to the whole Body.

 

You may not wear priestly robes, though at baptism St Paul tells us we ‘put on the Lord Jesus Christ’ (Romans 13.14; Galatians 4.24). Our “clothes” are compassion, kindness, humility and such like (Colossians 3.12,13).

 

The white robe I wear today, the alb, is the robe of baptism, the first robe that goes on me, and goes on you – be clothed in Christ!

 

What did our second reading today say? Christ ‘loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father…’ (Revelation 1.5,6)

 

That’s why we speak of the Church as ‘a royal priesthood, a holy nation’ (2 Peter 2.9)

 

The task of the priest at its heart, is to pray and offer sacrifice.

 

In prayer the individual priest stands representing God to the people and the people to God.

 

As a priestly people we stand representing God to the world, and lifting the world in prayer to God.

 

You are a priest of the priestly people of God.

 

You, with all the baptised, are to pray: praying for the sake of others, and offering your life, as I will bread and wine, ‘as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God’ (Romans 12.1).

 

We are most clearly the priestly people of God when we come together at the Eucharist.

 

Here, hidden in bread and wine, God presents himself to us, and we present ourselves before him, and we offer that sacrifice, which spills out into the world He made: ‘may our sacrifice be acceptable to God, the almighty Father’.

 

Go for it priestly people!

 

And you’re anointed as a prophet.

 

A prophet is one who receives God’s word, takes it to heart and proclaims it to the world beyond him or herself.

 

Being baptised we receive the Word of God, Jesus Christ, and are called to read and meditate on the scriptures as the ‘lively oracles of God’

 

A brief self-examination on what ‘goes in’ and what ‘goes out’ is worth doing.

 

On what goes in: how faithfully do I receive the Word of God? How often do I read the Bible? Do I seek out guidance and insight in reading that word? Do I have a bible in the house? Do I have a Bible app on my phone?

 

On what goes out: Am I ready ‘to give an account to others for the hope that is within me?’ (1 Peter 3.15) How do I help others gain insight into God’s word: my family, friends, colleagues, fellow believers? Or do I keep it all to myself?

 

When you’re addressing those questions then you are becoming prophetic. It is being, like Daniel, one who is prepared to look into and sound the depths of God and then reveal them.

 

Throughout scripture we see that being a prophet is never cost free: it’s not Cross-free.

 

But the anointing Holy Spirit gives grace, power and help to us to do that.

 

Try it! It sounds frightening, but it’s life-giving.

 

After all, as St Paul tells Timothy, ‘God did not give us a spirit of timidity, but a spirit of power, and love, and self-control’ (2 Timothy 2.7).

 

So, priest – a life of prayer offered sacrificially to God.

 

So, prophet – receiving and speaking God’s living word.

 

What of king. Now, you might say, ‘I get that I have a priestly role or a prophetic role as a baptised Christian, but king?!’

 

The Blessed Virgin Mary testifies, ‘[The LORD] has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate’ (Luke 1.52)

 

In the psalms it says that the Lord raises you up and crowns you, like a king: God, ‘who redeems your life from the Pit and crowns you with faithful love and compassion’ (Psalm 103.5).

 

Baptism is a coronation of the people of God; baptised into the ‘royal priesthood’ of the holy people of God.

 

To speak of kingship, is to speak of sovereignty and where authority lies.

 

First, in our lives as the baptised, we have to allow Christ to crown our lives; that is what the anointing of baptism does.

 

This is about mastery of self, the Spirit’s gift of self-control, not being like autumn leaves blown about, tossed to and fro by every breath of fashionable opinion, but being governed by the Spirit’s gift of ‘power and love and self-control’.

 

It’s about exercising wise sovereignty in your dealings with others, about how you reveal who is sovereign in your life: Christ, the King.

 

So in baptism the Christian is anointed: consecrated as priest, prophet, king.

 

This reality now touches Naomi’s life, as it has touched mine and yours, and might yet the life of someone you know.

 

As priest, prophet and king, live the life of the Kingdom, a kingdom described by St Paul as a kingdom of ‘…righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit’ (Romans 14.17)