 |
| The Anointed One |
For the Anointed Servant, the anointing in the redeeming function
really meant a burial. For the Anointed One of God, anointing did not mean
exaltation. In relation to humanity the anointing is the uniqueness of Jesus.
He was anointed by God, and for us.
The Messiah had to take on himself the pain and suffering made by the
destructive powers. All the darkness and death he nailed to the cross and
buried them in his flesh. Without the Anointed, the Anointing, and burial there
can be no priesthood, no Eucharist, nor a communion.
In one way or the other a Priest is a bearer of death, lifelessness or grace-lessness
experienced by people. He takes on to himself their bruises. It makes Messiah tear
his own flesh and shed his blood. He and his will had to be buried within the
salvific plan of the Father.
To transform a bread into his immolated body, to extend the sacrifice
to anyone who would believe in him, He anticipated the pain of the cross
although his life. So intense was his desire to take upon himself the dryness
and lifelessness that at the cross he cries out in reality, “I Thirst” to the
extent in him there was no more life left. So intense was the way he felt the
estrangement of humankind from God that he cried out, “Father, why have you
abandoned me.” He buries beneath the bread all that he suffered along with the
anointing with which he took it up. Any one who partakes of it, participates in
the immolated sacrificial body of the anointed in which is buried various kinds
of our deaths. We can touch those mysteries within the bread because we find
our sorrows immolated therein.
In him, in his body, in the bread we find the possibility of our
sorrows, wounds, loneliness, rejection and insecurities being anointed; not just ‘mine’ alone but we find the
struggle of all of us. If I receive the anointing, I too can extend my wounds
and pain in communion with them making up one body of Him who is the anointed
one.
It demands the most sincere intention and strong will, to be anointed;
not for being exalted but to be buried, to take upon us the sorrows and
groaning of the lifeless, and to pour out lifeblood over those woundedness.
Lifeblood of the anointed becomes the ointment for healing.
