Christos

by Rev. Eric Folkerth

When I was a kid, I used to regularly oil my baseball glove. For those unfamiliar, baseball gloves are generally leather and it’s a longstanding player-ritual to oil them regularly. This softens the leather, makes the glove more flexible; helping everything from fielding to ground balls, to a good game of “catch.”

I mention this today because of Peter’s acclamation to Jesus that “You are the Christ/Messiah.”

What Peter is saying to Jesus is: “You are the anointed one.”(Christos).

All throughout Hebrew Scriptures, an anointed one is generally a king, a priest, or a designated leader of some kind. They weren’t always leaders who rose up because of family lineage or cultural training. Sometimes a Messiah was simply some leader who came out of nowhere…a wild card, if you will.

This declaration —right at the midpoint of the Gospel of Mark— feels like a transitional moment. A very similar moment happens in Luke 9 as well. In both cases, it becomes clear to everyone that Jesus is both “anointed Messiah,”and also is headed directly with a conflict with the “Powers That Be.”

In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus “sets his face to go to Jerusalem.” Here in Mark, the conversation is about how he will suffer and be crucified. In both cases, here at the Gospel-story midpoint, his Disciples generally either freak out, or start to fall away. Or both.

In my mind, these both indicate the beginning of Jesus’ intuition that he is headed for conflict with the aforementioned, “Powers That Be,” and not that he is claiming God has preordained his death. My sense is, this is a dawning intuition in his own earthly journey.

But a new insight about what it means to be “anointed” came to me as I dug into other ancient uses of the word “Cristos.”

As we’ve already said, the Biblical Hebrew meaning of “anointed one” is often connected to a person.

But! Generally secular Greeks and Romans often did not apply the word to a human being…but to an object…like a baseball glove.

Ancient Greeks might have easily “Christos-ed” their baseball gloves. (If they’d had any…)

Pushing even further, what leapt of the page at me was that a very common Roman/Greek usage of “Christos” was to anoint….a WEAPON.

A sword, shield, or armor was “anointed” (“Christos-ed”) before a battle.

I love the distinction then between the two meanings. The cultural one from Greece and Rome…and the Biblical one from our Bible.

The Powers that Be —the power of Empire in every age— will always seek to “anoint” the instruments of power, war, and control. They will seek to bless them and pretend they are somehow “holy.”

Jesus’ “instrument” —because he was an incarnational Messiah— is his own body. His body offered in sacrificial service to everyone. This is real meaning then of what Jesus says to end this scripture:

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

My sense of this scripture has always been that we don’t have to create our cross. If we are living out the teachings of Jesus, our cross will find us soon enough.

Because the Powers That Be —worldly empires of commerce and government, those who anoint weapons, not sacrificial service— will always see God-centered, selfless service, as a threat.

This is because…
You can’t SELL true service to God.
You can’t commercialize it.
You can only “embody it.”
And that, even in our day, is what makes it a threat to power.

Jesus came to earth to push all of humanity away from clinging to power for power’s sake. The irony, of course, is that the very Church founded in Jesus’ name, would soon make deal after deal with earthly power.

From the Roman Empires to White Christian Nationalism today, the deeply tarnished and compromised Church that bears Jesus’ name keeps trying to “anoint” (Christos) earthly power…despite the cautionary tale of Jesus’ own temptation to NOT embrace earthly power and his own incarnational, sacrificial, life of service.

Again, this is not to say that earthly, bodily incarnated things are bad. But it IS to say that the very human desire to “anoint” our weapons, our power, our control, our possessions…as if they are blessed, and in the place of the Holy God…this is dangerous.

Jesus tried hard to model for all of humanity that we are called to reject anointing guns or any earthly power, but instead to love and serve all.

And if that sounds like a tall order - well, it is.

But take heart in Jesus’ comforting words for all of us who in our own life-journey, choose a path of service, rather than a life of anointed earthly power:

“For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life?”