Meditation on Psalm 20: Anointed
Reading 6: Psalm 19-21
Psalm 20
focal phrase: “The Lord will help his anointed.”
focal word: anointed
Psalm 20 might not be the first psalm you think of on a list of messianic psalms. But that word ‘anointed’ stopped me in my tracks. The Hebrew is MShYH, from which we get messiah. The Greek is christos. (The Hebrew for “help” or “save” here, by the way, is YSh’—from which we get “Joshua” and “Jesus,” which mean “savior.")
Everybody knows the name “Christ,” but few people know, or at least dwell on, what it means: “anointed.” That might not be the first word that comes to your mind when you think of the second person of the Trinity. But when we learn to hear the echoes of the Old Testament word “anointed” and “anointed one” when we hear the name “Christ,” we can get to know more deeply who Jesus Christ is. (It can also help us make sense of the word “the” in the title ”the Christ,” which sounded strange when we heard the title of Mel Gibson’s movie: The Passion of the Christ.)
“‘Jesus’ was the name given to the child at his circumcision (Luke 2:21); when the title, ‘Christ,’ is used, that ... should be understood as a specific reference to the Savior’s office as Mediator, the agent of reconciliation between God and [humankind],” says The Eerdmans Bible Dictionary. “The appellation ‘anointed one’ derives from the ancient Near Eastern custom of consecrating with oil persons who undertake the responsibilities of a high office.”
Israel did this for prophets, priests, and kings. But as the EBD notes, “Because these Old Testament figures were anointed for only a short time and discharged their offices imperfectly, Israel anticipated the arrival of the Anointed One, who would be anointed ... by God, with the Holy Spirit.”
We no longer install leaders by dumping oil on their heads, and so it’s harder for us to fully appreciate these roots of the name “Christ.” (It helped me to learn that some linguists think the English word “cream” derives from the archaic English word “chrism,” for a substance used for liturgical anointing, which comes from the Greek “christos.” The theory is disputed, but I cherish the picture of whipped cream on a piece of pie as a sort of anointing.)
But we do still christen, or baptize. We are anointed to join Christ in his baptism. And Paul says in Romans 6, “Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” His death. That will echo more deeply in our souls over the coming week.
It’s a mistake to read the royal psalms as primarily messianic prophecies, as find-the-messiah riddles, as only retroactively operative. Psalm 20 wasn’t written for the immediate purpose of foreshadowing Jesus; it was written for worshipers to sing to and about their king, their commander-in-chief, on the eve of a big battle, a pep rally for war (with the healthy reminder, often ignored by modern superpower nations, that military might is not a source for faith and hope).
But it would also be a mistake to miss the Psalms’ clues of the coming Christ, as the travelers did on the road to Emmaus in Luke 24. Jesus tells them, “Everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.”
And so it’s fitting to arrive at Psalm 20 on the eve of Holy Week. Our king, the Anointed, Christ, rides on a donkey tomorrow into a battle like we’ve never seen. He will win by losing. He will conquer by dying.
The battle will be brutal. But God will give his Anointed the victory. When we cry, “Give victory to the king, O Lord,” God will answer with Easter.
More Meditations on the Psalms
Related Resources
Psalms for Holy Week
The Biblical Psalms and Christian Worship
Next entry: CCEL Times - new issue
Previous entry: Worship Planning Idea: Baptism and Easter - A Festival Service for Eastertide