Excuse me while I anoint my lips for the preaching task (use lip balm). Lip balm is one of the regular items you will find in my pocket during the winter months. That is when cold, dry northern winds leave us with chapped lips. I happen to use lip balm made by Burt’s Bees because, being a beekeeper myself, I like to support the little critters. But beeswax is just one of the ingredients in Burt’s lip balm. There are also three kinds of oil in the recipe: coconut, sunflower and just a wee bit of peppermint.

I have a recipe to make my own lip balm out of the beeswax I am storing from my hives. It is basically a certain ratio of beeswax to olive oil. You melt the two together and when the mixture cools, viola, you have lip balm. A few drops of essential oil such as peppermint give a pleasant aroma and taste and feel. If you change the ratio to allow for more olive oil and less beeswax, you get lotion. I also use lotion this time of year because the skin on my hands and around my elbows, knees and ankles gets dried out and sore.

In a pinch, Vaseline works well to put on lips or just about anywhere that is dried and chapped. Vaseline is petroleum jelly—a byproduct of oil refinement. Oil is the key ingredient in just about every skin-moisturizing product. Sure, you will find ingredients like aloe vera or lanolin--the latter term derived from the Latin, oleum, meaning: "oil." But mostly you will find glycerin, which is obtained from fats and oils as a byproduct of saponification.

Oil, then, whether (coconut, olive, petroleum or what-have-you) is the key ingredient in any preparation for soothing rough, raw, dry, chapped, sore, cracking skin. Oil is also the key ingredient in the liturgical act of anointing someone. Just like water is the key ingredient in baptism, and bread & juice are the key ingredients in communion, so oil is the key ingredient in anointing. And just like water and bread and juice all signify certain things such as cleansing, flesh and blood; so anointing oil signifies something.

Today we are going to explore what oil biblically signifies in our message entitled: "The Anointed One." The Hebrew word for "The Anointed One" is Messiah. The Greek word for "The Anointed One" is Christ. We are talking about a pretty prominent biblical image here, even if our pattern and practice of worship does not include anointing as readily as baptism or communion. Most of the liturgical anointing that takes place here is done in more private than public settings. This past Monday Rev. Denise Sagar anointed Toni Harris with oil as a fitting prelude to her newly expanded ministry to the youth of our congregation. What was that about? We’ll get to that in a moment.

Some time ago what is now our Youth Annex, "The Escape," was anointed with oil. Occasionally the sick in our midst will be anointed with oil. As it is written in the book of James, Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord (James 5:14). So both people and things can be anointed with oil, and are in this place in keeping with biblical precedent.

In our New Testament text for this morning Jesus quotes from an Old Testament text that includes a reference to being anointed. Our New Testament text picks up where we left off when I was last in the pulpit. Jesus has just been water baptized by John in the Jordan River, and then fire baptized in the desert wilderness where he was tempted by the devil. In our text for this morning Jesus begins his ministry in earnest as he makes his way back home to the Galilean town of Nazareth.

Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit, and news about him spread through the whole countryside. He taught in their synagogues, and everyone praised him. He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom (Verses 14-16). You will notice that it was Jesus’ custom to Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy (Exodus 20:8) just as you are doing today in keeping with the 10 Commandments. However this time Jesus is not sitting in the pews with his neighbors and friends. Jesus is sitting in the preacher’s chair beside the pulpit.

And he stood up to read. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written: "The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor" (Verses 16-19). Whether this was the assigned text for the day, or whether Jesus specifically chose it, we do not know. What we do know is that Jesus applied the text to himself.

I often preach about myself and, in fact, have already done so this morning in alluding to one of the products of my beehives. Some people like that preaching style and appreciate the originality it conveys. I’m not above borrowing a joke I’ve heard or a quote from the Internet or an illustration from a magazine, but there is no web site where I can get sermons about Bill Schnell. Others may view such a preaching style as a bit narcissistic. Well, nothing could have been regarded as more narcissistic than Jesus’ sermon on Isaiah’s text. Keep in mind that it was the practice in that day to stand while reading the text and then sit while preaching upon it.

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him, and he began by saying to them, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing" (Verses 20-21). According to the translation of the Bible I use, that is a sermon in eight words. I can just imagine some of you thinking right now, "If only Schnell would emulate Jesus’ economy with words as readily as he emulates his narcissistic preaching style."

I’m not sure that is all Jesus had to say about Isaiah’s text, but it is all that is recorded for us—and it is plenty enough. Jesus is saying, "The Lord has anointed me. I am the anointed one. I am the long-awaited Messiah. I am the Christ." Talk about being narcissistic. Or maybe not. In the Old Testament priests like Aaron were anointed, prophets like Elisha were anointed, kings like David were anointed, and even a Pagan Persian king named Cyrus was called Messiah—the anointed one—who was set apart for a special purpose relating to God’s people.

People and things that were set apart for God’s purposes were anointed with oil. Why? Because God wanted to use them as a healing, soothing balm for his sorely hurting people. To be sure, sometimes God set prophets aside for the difficult task of foretelling a coming wrath on account of people’s sins. But once that wrathful prophecy was fulfilled, God set apart prophets to speak reassuring word of comfort and hope. Sometimes he set apart the same prophetic voice for both tasks, and Isaiah certainly fell into that category.

Isaiah not only prophesied Judah’s destruction, he lived through it. He was carried away as a slave to Babylon with the rest of the Jewish exiles. But while he was in exile he continued to preach to his fellow captives, and his prophetic message switched from wrath and judgment to comfort and hope. He said, The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners… (Isaiah 61:1). What better news could a captive Jewish exile receive than that?

Just as God anointed Isaiah as a healing, soothing balm for a sorely hurting people, so this same God anointed Jesus for the same purpose. Jesus tells the Nazareth congregation, "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing …because the Lord has anointed me to preach good news to the poor." Not good news to everybody, mind you, but good news to the poor. Often times what is good news to the poor is bad news to the rich. Higher taxes that fund increased social services are good news for the poor and bad news for the rich. You cannot please all the people all the time. Jesus, to borrow a quote from a few Sundays ago, comforts the afflicted and afflicts the comfortable.

Jesus represents a soothing balm for the poor, the brokenhearted and the enslaved. But Jesus is definitely a point of contention for his Highness King Herod and the High Priests and the other high and mighty powers-that-be in his world. What does Jesus represent for us: a healing balm or a point of contention? That depends upon which group we place ourselves in: the high and mighty powers-that-be or the poor in spirit who recognize their own need.

Attitude is everything for leaders in a congregationally governed church such as ours, whether we are talking about ordained leaders or lay leaders. We might more correctly refer to them as ordained and lay followers because in a congregationally governed church the authority rests not in a bishop or priest, and not in a deacon or elder, but in the congregation. Why? Because we believe that God speaks through the voice of his congregation.

But sometimes we leaders are inclined to get high-and-mighty attitudes about our exalted roles. We behave as if we are the authority now, we call the shots, we say "jump" and everybody else is supposed to say "how high?" That attitude, my fellow servants, is a recipe for contention and strife in a congregationally governed church. Nobody is anybody else’s boss in a congregationally governed church such as ours, unless I am missing something in our Code of Regulations. We all have one boss, and that is God who speaks through the voice of his people.

I will tell you the attitude I love to see when new lay leaders are coming on board. It is an attitude that acknowledges need: need for mutual support and cooperation, need for people’s prayers and need for divine intervention in facing a ministry that is oftentimes overwhelming. No attitude could be more of a soothing balm for a church than that one. No attitude brings healing and restores wholeness like that one. No attitude is more anointed than that one. The best prophets, priests and kings in Israel’s history had attitudes like that when they were anointed—prophets like Isaiah, priests like Aaron and kings like David. Should we be any less poor in spirit than they?

In our bulletins is a blue insert, which is Volume 1, Issue 1 of "The Escape Newsletter," which is a newsletter of our newly revitalized youth program. Toni Harris, recently anointed as the Director of our youth ministry, writes a lead column for that newsletter entitled: "To the Youth of The Church in Aurora." In that letter she acknowledges her need and communicates a real servant attitude. She writes: "I’m completely open as to what your Youth Program will look like and you all need to help shape the direction of it. I will work as hard as I can to accomplish this, but I’m asking for your patience because it’s going to take time and effort. But let me tell you, you are worth every bit of it."

And then Toni applies a little healing balm where there might be a little sore spot with our youth. Our Youth Ministry has gone over seven months without being staffed by a Youth Director. Imagine going seven months without pastors. Okay, maybe that would not be so bad. Imagine going seven months without a Choir Director or Church Secretary. Several heroic souls have labored to provide some youth activities here and there, but no comprehensive program has been in place for a long time. If you were a youth in this congregation, you might have a little sore spot about that. You might have a little sore spot about hardly any families with youth uniting in membership with this church over the past year, and why should they have without a youth ministry in place?

Toni’s healing balm comes in the form of an apology. She writes: "I know it has seemed though the church hasn’t been there for you in recent months. But you need to know that even though there were few meetings and events, many adults were working behind the scenes to get a great program started for you. I am asking you to forgive us for this time spent without a program and to please work with me to get things up and running again."