Moore Thoughts....Robert G. Moore, Senior Pastor

The use of oil to anoint those who are suffering from illness, disabilities, or distress has come back into use by the church, especially the Lutheran Church. Your pastors and some lay ministers now go to the hospitals and homes equipped with the oil of baptism to anoint those who face very real threats to health and life.
Most of us still associate anointing with “giving the last rites” in which the pastor would come at the time of death and make the final anointing (extreme unction). When I was a chaplain in the Texas Medical Center, we had to be very careful with anointing, lest patients thought that the doctor had forgotten to tell them something. But the pastoral reforms made since Vatican II have changed the placement of the sacrament of unction. Anointing should be done up front, as it were, so that the one anointed receives the comfort of the baptismal promise, that God is with us even when we are down and struggling for life itself. How else can we be faithful to God in Jesus Christ if we do not return to our baptism for the strength that is gives?

It is the rediscovery of baptism that has made these reforms possible. Baptism is the foundational event by which our relationship with God is sealed. After being washed in the baptismal waters signifying the forgiveness of sin, the newly baptized is anointed with oil signifying the calling that every member of the body of Christ serve God not by one’s own power but by the power of the Spirit that raised Christ Jesus from the dead.

[Name], child of God, you have been sealed by the Holy Spirit and marked with the cross of Christ forever.

This promise comes unconditionally to the baptized. To be anointed by oil is to seal us with the promise of God’s presence and the mission that we all share in the church. We might be tempted to understand baptism as some kind of magic shield against the dangers of this world. We are reminded that the oil of baptism marks us with the cross and, thus, promises God’s presence with us through the exigencies of life but offers no exemption from them. This is enough to cause some to have second thoughts about baptism since we would rather have a magical charm to protect us than to have God’s presence to face these dangers.

In order to grasp the full significance of anointing we must return to the Biblical stories wherein anointing played a powerful role. The most important cases of anointing are when the prophet Samuel anoints first Saul and later David. (Cf. 1 Samuel 15 and 16). The stories communicate to us that anointing gives not only the gift (charism) of purpose and power but also the responsibility of serving according to the will of God as expressed through the Torah.

In the New Testament the anointing of Jesus is direct. The Holy Spirit descends on Jesus and a voice announces the Father’s love for the Son and commissions the Son for the work ahead, to reveal God’s love without contradicting that love. Jesus’ work will be a baptism of death and resurrection. The picture presents the vision of faith in which God recreates the world not by transcending evil, injustice, cruelty and wrong but “diving” into it in deep trust that God will vindicate Jesus, because God has anointed him. Jesus is the anointed one, the messiah, not because he is safe from harm but because he trusts God in spite of all danger.

When we anoint with oil, we remember the baptism of our Lord, the baptism of his death and resurrection and our own baptism. We know that we will die one day but we do not have to live in fear of dying. For the same God who vindicated Jesus will also vindicate us as promised in baptism. That is why we anoint with oil so that we may remember our baptism and cling to it with hope.

The next time you find yourself in the hospital or at home sick or in the need for hope, do what the writer of the letter of James recommends.

Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord. (5:14)

Last updated: 2008-11-03