[Broadcast as a ‘Midday Meditation’ on Radio Cayman, January 2016]
Do you know what it’s like to be chosen for something? Maybe you won a random prize competition, or you’ve been chosen for a sports team or for a promotion at work. If you are married then you have chosen each other to be partners for life, even if you can’t always remember why you made that choice!
One of Jesus’s names is ‘Messiah’ which means ‘anointed’. To be anointed means to be chosen, and in the Old Testament pouring a small amount of oil over the person’s head – often by a prophet of God – signified the choosing of kings and prophets. Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the anointed one was chosen by God the Father to be the one who would save his people from their sins.
It’s comforting to know that with everything Jesus had to do: his perfect life, his obedience to the point of death; that he was chosen because he was the only one who could – and would – do that for his people.
Paul T Reynolds 