Jesus' Anointing

This week we take a break from our study of Exodus and turn to the celebration of Holy Week.  I posted about my family's traditions surrounding Holy Week a few years ago.  Today I want to focus on an occurrence that is often overlooked in the recounting of the last week of Jesus' life. To start out, I have to ask the question: what does it mean when we say Jesus the Christ?  

Both of the terms "Christ" and "Messiah" mean the same thing, "Anointed One." (Christ is Greek, and Messiah is Hebrew).  What role does anointing play in the Old Testament?  There are two kinds of people who are anointed, priests, and kings. Since Jesus qualifies as both a priest and a king then it makes sense that he would be anointed. Yet, there is no account of Jesus being formally anointed by either of religious or political leaders of the day.  There isn't even an account of Jesus being anointed by God.  

There are only two accounts of Jesus receiving an anointing, and both were performed by women.  In John 12:1-8 Mary the sister of Martha, anoints Jesus' feet shortly before Holy Week.  In Mark 14:3-9 an unnamed woman anoints Jesus' head with spikenard. Some people think of these as two separate events, and some people see them as two recountings of the same event. For this discussion I will consider them the same event.  Mary, the sister of Martha, pours a very expensive and aromatic oil on Jesus right before his crucifixion.

Why, if one of Jesus' main titles is "Anointed One," is Jesus anointed only by women?  And what is spikenard and why would a women own a very expensive alabaster container of it?  

Spikenard is a essential oil perfume made from a plant that grows in the Himalayas. It would have been expensive because it was imported from a far-away country. Why might a woman own some?  We must remember that ancient Israel, especially the cities, would have been very stinky places. There was the smell of sweaty bodies, sweaty animals, and animal dung. Jews performed a lot of ritual washings, but in the desert running water was scarce and baths were few. It would have been normal, therefore, for a woman to have purchased, or have been gifted perfume as part of her dowry to sweeten the experience of marital intimacy. 

I purchased some spikenard last time we studied the New Testament.  It has a nice smell, but quite strong.  A few drops of it would have gone a long way. The story specifically says that pouring the whole container on Jesus' head was considered a waste and the smell filled the house. 

One way to look at the scene is that Mary, by sacrificing the large container of oil was showing her great love, perhaps even romantic love, for Jesus.  She was, in essence, saying, "because of my great love for you I will never marry or love another man. I know you are going to die, so I will use all my spikenard on you at once, while I have the chance." 

If this is the case, it is a very touching and romantic scene. It makes it even more beautiful that Jesus appears first to Mary when he is resurrected.

There is, however, an even more impactful symbolic meaning to this scene. If you read through my blog titles from the last time we studied the Old Testament, you know that the idea of God as the Bridegroom, and the church as his bride permeates the whole Old Testament, and then recurs in force in the book of Revelation. I think the reason that the woman in Mark who anoints Jesus is unnamed, is because Mark (and the other gospel writers) was aware of this symbolism.  He knows that spikenard is associated with the bridal chamber.  He knows that the bride represents the church.  He is showing two important principles. 

First, that it is Jesus' death that makes him the Bridegroom. When Judas asks why Jesus allowed the waist of the expensive oil, Jesus says that she has done it in preparation for his burial (Mark 14:8). He is combining images of marriage and death on purpose. He is showing that Jesus' suffering and death is the marriage that joins us to him in an everlasting covenantal embrace. 

Second, Jesus is not established (i.e. anointed) as priest and king by worldly religious or political leaders, but by the church itself (symbolized by the woman).  In order for him to be our priest, we must be his disciples.  In order for him to be our king, we must be his subjects. It is our love and respect for him that enthrones him and makes him Lord in our lives and in our hearts. 

Joseph in Egypt Revisited

 I wrote a lot about Joseph in 2022, so much so that it took two posts that you can find here and here. This year as I was reading the story again, I was thinking about how I would present it to 15-year-olds.  A lot of what I wrote about four years ago is interesting to a scriptorian but might not be very interesting to a teenager. In reality, what I ended up writing four years ago doesn't actually give anyone practical advice on how to live your life. I didn't end up teaching the lesson this week, but my co-teacher gave a beautiful lesson that has real application in a modern teen's life.  She first talked about Joseph fleeing Potiphar's wife and how we might apply the lessons from that story in our lives to avoid temptation and sin. Then she talked about all that Joseph went through and how, though it seemed terribly unjust at the time, it brought Joseph to the place he needed to be right when he needed to be there to save his family. 

As someone who is on the other side of 60, it is this message that resonated the most with me this year. The question I ask myself is, did Joseph's brothers have to sell him into slavery for him to end up in Egypt in time to save his family?  Did Potiphar's wife have to proposition him and did he have to languish four years in jail in order to catch Pharaoh's attention? 

I think the answer is no. I think that the Lord doesn't depend on other's bad decisions to accomplish his works. It is possible that if Joseph's brothers had been kinder to him, something else, perhaps less hurtful, might have happened to him to bring him into Egypt.  If Potiphar's wife hadn't propositioned him, maybe Pharoah would have met him anyway, since he was working for the Pharoah's captain of the guard. 

The encouraging thing about this story is that even when someone uses their free agency to hurt us or misuse us, God is great enough to figure out a way to help us accomplish our mission on earth anyway. If our brothers throw us into the pit, He can send Ishmaelites (I think it is significant that is was a branch of the covenant family) to save us.  If we are wrongly accused, He will give our cellmates prophetic dreams that will eventually lead to us being brought before Pharoah. If we are patient and faithful, the Lord will help us overcome any roadblock put in our way by the sins of others. 

And what if I am the betraying brother?  What if I am Potiphar's wife?  What if my actions cause someone else to be thrown into some kind of proverbial pit?  In my mind, the greatest blessing of the atonement is not that my sins can be washed away, it is that God's grace can somehow heal the negative consequences of my sins on others. My faults won't keep someone else from completing their mission. If I was at times a bad wife, a bad mother, or a bad friend, the atonement can heal my family, my spouse, or my friend. It is what I pray and hope for the most. It is what I hope and pray for every day.

Women at the Well

 This week in Come Follow Me, we read about Isaac and Jacob's attempts to find a wife.  In both cases, their bride is found at a well.  In Genesis 24 Abraham sends Eliezer to find a wife for Isaac among his kinsmen in Haran.  When Eliezer arrives, he prays for a sign from God about which woman should be Isaac's wife. Rebecca fulfills the sign by drawing water from the well for Eliezer and all his camels.  She turns out to be Isaac's cousin and agrees to return with Eliezer and marry Isaac. 

In the next generation Jacob has fled his home because Esau has threatened his life for taking his blessing.  Jacob goes back to the same set of relatives in Haran and sees his cousin Rachel at the well watering her flock. He falls instantly in love with her and ends up agreeing to work for her father for seven years in order to marry her. 

So what is up with women and wells?  Water is a complex symbol in the Bible. In the creation narrative, and in the story of Noah, water is a chaotic force that has to be subdued.  In both places this roiling chaotic water of the ocean is called תהום (tahom) (Gen 1:2  and Gen 7:11). In the Law of Moses, water is a symbol of cleansing. For example, Leviticus 14 explains the cleansing ritual for leprosy with involves both blood and running water. But in these stories the water represents the life force. 

My son and his wife live in New Mexico.  When we drive there from Utah, especially in the summer, it is really clear how water gives life.  As you drive everything is baren and dry, but if there is a river, you suddenly see trees and green plants. 

If you have read my blog about the fall, you know that Adam's name in Hebrew means "soil" or fertile dirt, and when the Lord is cursing him for taking of the forbidden fruit, he is called "dust",i.e. infertile or dried up dirt instead of soil. Eve's name mean "life". 

So how does dried up dirt become soil? By adding water. How can Adam become fruitful and multiply? By uniting with Eve. The life force, or fertility, in the Old Testament is therefore associated with water. 

If we think of water as a symbol of feminine life force, then the meetings at the well make total sense. Eliezer approaches a city looking for a wife for his master's son, and the one he chooses is the one that offers him the symbol of feminine life force.  Isaac + Rebecca = offspring just like dust + water = fertile soil. 

Even more symbolic is when Jacob meets Rachel.  Before he arrives she is not able to access the water from the well, but when he moves the stone from the well, she is able to water for flocks.  Her life force is enabled by his arrival.  Together they free the life force symbolized by the water in the well. 

Of course, the third time we see a woman at the well in the New Testament (John 4). In this case Jesus asks the woman of Samaria to draw water for him. She is surprised that he, a Jew, would ask water of her, a Samaritan woman. They both knew the stories of Isaac and Rebecca and Jacob and Rachel.  It is no wonder that the Samaritan woman was surprised at Jesus' request. When she hesitates, Jesus says that he "would have given thee living water."  What symbolism of water is Jesus referring to here? 

When we take the water of the sacrament which represents Jesus' blood,  or when we are baptized, we think of the cleansing symbol of water. Later, however, Jesus says to the woman, "the water I shall give...shall be...a well of water springing up into everlasting life."  That sounds more like the life-giving/fertility type of water symbol. The kind of water that turns dust into soil.

When Isaiah has a vision of the temple, he sees water gushing from under the temple (Ezekiel 47). In that vision the water gushing from the temple heals the earth and, "every thing shall live whither the river cometh." (v. 9) I think that in this vision the cleansing power of water and the life giving power of water are united in one symbol. 

I am not sure exactly where I am going with this, only that women in the Bible are associated with water, a symbol of life-giving power, and that is why wives are often found at wells.  The life-giving power that women have in these stories pertains to mortal fertility, since they allow their husbands to be fruitful and multiply, changing dust to soil. Jesus is also associated with life-giving water, but his water does not bring mortal life, but eternal life. That ability to bring eternal life is connected with the cleansing power of water and the life-giving power of water, and is possible through the atonement and the shedding of His blood for us. It is also associated with the temple, where God's promises of eternal life spread throughout the world, cleansing and healing the world.

Covenant Relationship in Genesis 18-23

 In Genesis 12 Abraham enters a covenant relationship with the Lord, which we discussed in my pervious blog. In the chapters we read in Come Follow Me this week we get to see what it means to be in a covenant relationship. One of the insights I gained this week is that a covenant is more than just an agreement--if you do this then I will do that.  Instead it is a relationship with God that grows as you and God learn to trust each other. 

There is a modern way of talking about relationships that deals with “bids” and how someone responds to them.  A “bid” is when someone does something to seek your attention or involvement in their life. How you respond to the bid largely determines how good your relationship is with that person. You can respond in three basic ways: you can turn toward them, away from them, or against them.  When you turn toward the person, you are acknowledging their need and offering some kind of support or aid. Turning away is when you change the interchange from being focused on the person, to being focused on something else, or on yourself. Turning against a person means that your reply to the bid with some kind of comment or action that feels like an attack. 

In Genesis 18-23 we see several short vignettes which involve either the Lord or the covenant family member putting out a "bid" and what response to the bid comes from the other party. The stories demonstrate that when the covenant family of Abrahams reaches out to the Lord, he responds by turning toward them. When God puts out a "bid" to one of the covenant family, they mostly respond by turning toward him, but not all. Those who do turn toward the Lord are blessed, but those who do not are punished. 

I taught this principle to my class of teenagers today.  Here are the stories we considered. We made a chart that showed who it was who made the bid and what the response was. 

Genesis 18: 1-5 Abraham entertains the three messengers

The Lord makes the bid to Abraham. Abraham turns to the Lord by welcoming the messengers with extreme hospitality, The Lord blesses Abraham and Sarah with the ability to have a child. 

Genesis18: 22-33 Bargaining over Sodom and Gomorrah

Abraham makes the bid to the Lord by asking him to Spare Sodom and Gomorrah if some righteous can be found.  The Lord turns toward Abraham by actively bargaining and giving the concessions Abraham seeks. In the end, even the lowest concession is not met, but the Lord still tries to save Lot and his family from the coming destruction.

 

Genesis 19: 12-26 Lot’s family escapes Sodom and Gomorrah

The Lord makes the bid by sending messengers to save Lot's family.  Lot's son-in-laws turn away because they are not willing to leave the city.  Lot's wife turns away as well and is destroyed. The people of the wicked cities turn against the messengers, threatening to kill them, and are destroyed. 
Genesis 21:15-19 Hagar and Ishmael are cast out

After Hagar and Ishmael are cast out from the family of Abraham they are about to die of thirst.  Hagar makes the bid, asking the Lord to save their lives. The Lord turns toward Hagar by providing water, but also by blessing her to be the matriarch of a great nation through Ishmael.

Genesis 22:1-3 Abraham is willing to offer Isaac

The Lord makes the bid by asking Abraham to sacrifice his miracle son. Despite the horrific nature of the bid, Abraham turns toward the Lord by preparing to sacrifice his son straightaway. 

Genesis 22:9-14 Abraham is spared from offering Isaac

Abraham make perhaps a silent bid to the Lord to not have to sacrifice his son.  The Lord responds by turning toward Abraham and sending an angel to stop the sacrifice.  He instead provides a ram for the sacrifice, and accepts Isaac as the heir to the blessings of the Abrahamic Covenant. 

In each of these cases when the supplicant made a bid to the Lord, the Lord blessed them beyond what was strictly needed.  When the Lord made a bid from one of the covenant keepers, and the person turned toward the Lord, the Lord blessed him. The time when the covenant keeper turned away, the outcome was dire. Through these repeated experiences the relationship between the family of Abraham and the Lord grew stronger because each came to see that the other could be relied upon to maintain the relationship and the covenant. 

In real life, even the faithful don't get exactly what they want when they petition the Lord.  That is not because he is not keeping up his part of the relationship, but because he knows better than we do what we really need in the eternal scheme of things.  If we both keep making and receiving "bids" from the each other, we come to trust each other so that when, in a specific situation, we don't receive what we would like from the Lord, we have enough relational cache that we are able to trust that God actually does know what is best for us. That helps us endure our trials with faith. 

But it is not just about getting through trials. When we continually put ourselves in a state of humility to ask and receive communication from God, we become refined, gain capacity, and become more like the Savior. What I realized this week is the the Covenant Path our church leaders keep talking about is more than just checking of a list of ordinances we need to complete.  It is a path of relationship building where each time we respond to the Lord and he responds to us, our relationship gets closer and we become more like him.

 

The Abrahamic Covenant

 In Come Follow Me this week we read Genesis 12-17.  It has some interesting stories--some that are hard to understand.  In 2022 I wrote a blog about the story of Abram telling the pharaoh that his wife was his sister.  I still haven't heard anyone else put forward the idea I explained in that post, but I think it is an interesting one. 

This week I have been thinking about the Abrahamic Covenant and how I might teach it to teenagers. I blogged about the vision of the cut animals back in 2022. Although I found that interpretation fascinating, I think it is a little esoteric for 15-year-olds.

I have heard some teachers refer to the three "P's" of the Abrahamic Covenant: Priesthood, Posterity, Promised Land. The church's "topics and questions" article about the Abrahamic Covenant says that the covenant includes posterity and priesthood, and that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. 

The idea that priesthood is part of the Abrahamic Covenant is unique to the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price.  Nowhere in Genesis does the Lord talk about Abraham having priesthood, though it could be implied because Abraham is clearly the spiritual leader of his clan and receives revelation in various forms. 

In Genesis, Abraham is promised that he would become a great nation, that his name would be great, that the Lord would bless those who blessed him and curse those who cursed him, and that through him all the nations of the world would be blessed. (Genesis 12: 2-3) Elsewhere the Lord promises his decedents the land of Canaan as an inheritance. (Genesis 15:18-21)

So what here applies to modern Latter-day Saints?  In D&C 84:33-34 it says

"33 For whoso is faithful unto the obtaining these two priesthoods (Aaronic and Melchizedek) of which I have spoken, and the magnifying their calling, are sanctified by the Spirit unto the renewing of their bodies.
34 They become the sons of Moses and of Aaron and the seed of Abraham, and the church and kingdom, and the elect of God."

This implies that we, through the priesthood, partake in the Abrahamic Covenant. What does that actually mean for us?  We are not going to inherit the land of Canaan.  We are not going to be the founder of many nations, at least on earth. It is not through our descendants that all the nations of the world will be blessed (especially if someone doesn't happen to have descendants).

I think the best answer to this for Latter-day Saints is the sealing prayer in the temple. In that prayer we are promised all the things mentioned in the Abrahamic Covenant (though not Canaan specifically) not on this earth, but in the eternal world. 

So does the Abrahamic Covenant have any application for us in this life?  We have the hope of future blessings, and that hope is itself a blessing, but is there more?

I think that the Abrahamic Covenant, especially the version found in Genesis, boils down to the idea that God is our god and will take care of us and watch our back. If you think about it, Abraham was promised that things that were of most worth to people of his time period.  He needed a large posterity to ensure his safety and success as part of a large and powerful clan. Without centralized government, people were at the mercy of any clan that was bigger and more powerful than your own. In chapters that follow the Genesis 12 we see some examples of clan wars, and that Abraham was able to assemble enough troops from his own clan to defeat invading hostile clans. He needed a great reputation to deter those who might think of invading and conquering his clan. He needed land so his flocks and family members could farm, herd, and get enough natural resources to survive. Finally, he needed divine intervention if someone with a bigger clan did attack, or if there was a famine, or any of a number of trials from the time period.

Our needs are not the same as Abraham's.  We are not part of a nomadic tribe wandering around the deserts of the Levant. We don't need a large posterity to ensure our safety and security.  We don't need to own a large piece of land to ensure that we get enough food. We don't need fame to prevent others from attacking us. But still, we partake in the Abrahamic covenant because when we accept God as our God, he promises to watch our back.  He will give us what we need to survive and be successful (at least spiritually) on this earth just as he did for Abraham.  His blessings might look different for each of us, but they will come if we follow the Lord. 

Noah's Ark and the Temple

 Noah's story about the Ark may be one of the most symbolically rich stories in all of the Old Testament.  I discussed some of the symbols in 2022 and you can read about them here. I want to talk about one more symbol here that several of my podcasters, particularly Mike Day on Talking Scriptures, and Taylor Halverson on Scripture Insights, brought to my attention this week, and that is comparing the Ark to the ancient tabernacle and temple. Of course, Mike Day compares everything to the Temple, but I think this comparison has both good evidence, and good meaning. Here are some reasons someone might compare the Ark to the temple. 

1. Both are structures for which God gave exact measurement and instructions.

2. Both had three man sections: The tabernacle and temple had the courtyard, the holy place, and the holy of holies, while the Ark had three floors.

3. Both involved a cleansing sacrifice. The wicked were slain outside the ark in the flood to cleanse the earth, and the animals were slain outside of the temple for ritualistic cleansing.

4. Both were the origin of covenants, signs and tokens.  God made a covenant with Noah never to again destroy the world with a flood, and made a rainbow as a token.  The Israelites covenanted to be God's people in the temple, and offered sacrifices as tokens. 

5. The Ark eventually rested at the top of a mountain.  Solomon's temple was built on Mount Moriah, and temples in general have always been associated with mountains.

 6. As I discussed in my earlier blog in 2022, the flood story was a repeat of the creation story, with many of the same terms and events happening in both.  The temple also represented the creation. When the priest entered into the Holy of Holies, it represented returning to the garden of Eden and God's presence.

I like this symbolic interpretation because modern temples are places of salvation. The Lord commanded Noah to build the Ark to save his family from the sin and corruption of the world. Likewise we go to the temple to learn how to save ourselves and our families from the sin and corruption of the world. The difference between those who make and keep temple covenants and people who live by the dictates of worldly culture is so much more stark now than when I was a child. I believe the differences will become more dramatic as time progresses.  Temple covenants offer a real protection in the modern world.  Also, we don't know much about the state of those who are waiting for their temple work to be done, but we do believe that doing temple work for the dead provides some kind of saving opportunity to them that, if they accept it, will help them in their eternal progression.  

https://latterdaysaintmag.com/article-1-11639/
This image is from another article about the ark as a temple.

The Earth Will Rest: Moses 7

In Moses 7:48, Enoch is seeing a vision of his posterity who have become wicked.  In the vision he hears the earth cry out, "Wo, wo is me, the mother of men; I am pained, I am weary, because of the wickedness of my children. When shall I rest, and be cleansed from the filthiness which is gone forth out of me? When will my Creator sanctify me, that I may rest, and righteousness for a season abide upon my face?"

This chapter is full of references to the Earth mourning and being agitated because of the wickedness of the children of men.  It longs to be cleansed from a wickedness that is not its fault, but makes it suffer.  Then Enoch sees several upcoming events related to giving the world some "rest."  The first event is Noah and the flood.  The flood's purpose is to wipe the wicked from the face of the earth, leaving only righteous Noah and his family to repopulate. 

The interesting thing about this reference to the Earth resting and the posterity of Noah, is that Noah's name in Hebrew is very similar to the word for "rest." Noah's name is נח (pronounced Noach with a German ch sound like Bach) the word for rest is נוּחַ (nuach, the same word except the middle vowel changed from 0 to U). There is definitely a play on names here, which occurs repeatedly throughout the Old Testament. It is a very Biblical/Hebrew thing to do, but the reference to the Earth resting doesn't appear in the Biblical narrative. It is only in the Book of Moses. 

The Book of Moses was written by Joseph Smith in 1830 and 1831. It was a part of the Joseph Smith translation of the book of Genesis.  Later, Joseph Smith studied Hebrew, but in 1830 he was still a very young, rather uneducated, man. There is almost no way that: 1. he knew that the name Noah meant "rest" in Hebrew, and 2. he was aware that many of the names in the Old Testament were puns related to the person's life and mission. I believe the only way the name pun could have appeared in the book of Moses was through revelation. This is an strong evidence of the prophetic calling of the prophet Joseph Smith. 

We learn from the book of Moses that the rest of the Earth after the flood is short lived.  Noah's descendants would eventually fall into wickedness.  Later, Jesus' atonement is another step to the Earth finding rest, but the Earth won't finally rest until the Lord returns and reigns on the Earth. (Moses 7:64).