The Spirit-Anointed Conqueror

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Good morning. My name is Stephanie DeGraff, and I'm part of the North Berkeley Thursday Night Community Group.

Today's scripture reading is from the prophet Isaiah, chapter 61, verses 1 through 11.

Isaiah 61 · chapter mention

A reading from the prophet Isaiah.

The spirit of the sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives,

and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor and the day of vengeance of our God,

to comfort all who mourn and provide for those who grieve in Zion,

to bestow on them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,

the oil of joy instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise instead of a spirit of despair.

They will be called oaks of righteousness,

a planting of the Lord for the display of his splendor.

They will rebuild the ancient ruins and restore the places long devastated.

They will renew the ruined cities that have been devastated for generations.

Strangers will shepherd your flocks.

Foreigners will work your fields and vineyards.

And you will be called priests of the Lord.

You will be named ministers of our God.

You will feed on the wealth of nations,

and in their riches you will boast.

Instead of your shame, you will receive a double portion.

And instead of disgrace, you will rejoice in your inheritance.

And so you will inherit a double portion in your land.

And everlasting joy will be yours.

For I, the Lord, love justice.

I hate robbery and wrongdoing.

In my faithfulness, I will reward my people

and make an everlasting covenant with them.

Their descendants will be known among the nations

and their offspring among the peoples.

All who see them will acknowledge that they are a people the Lord has blessed.

I delight greatly in the Lord.

My soul rejoices in my God.

For he has clothed me with garments of salvation

and arrayed me in a robe of his righteousness.

As a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest

and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.

For as the soil makes the sprout come up

and a garden causes seeds to grow,

so the sovereign Lord will make righteousness and praise

spring up before all nations.

The grass withers and the flowers fade,

but the word of our God stands for her.

Can you get out of here?

Well, I wonder how many of us know the first song

that was broadcast from outer space.

First song that was broadcast from outer space

was a song called One Horse Open Sleigh,

which is a song that we call today Jingle Bells.

Jingle Bells.

Jingle Bells was written by James Pierpont,

whose nephew was John Pierpont Morgan, J.P. Morgan.

And I don't know why,

but that song was first performed in a church

on a Thanksgiving service in Boston in 1857,

and it was never intended as a Christmas song.

I think I just saw a few minds just explode right there.

And while I'm shattering some of your Christmas paradigms,

do you know the most popular Christmas carol?

It's Silent Night.

The second most popular Christmas carol is,

we sang it this morning, Joy to the World.

But this was also not written as a Christmas song.

If you notice in the lyrics,

there's no mention of Christmas,

there's nothing about the birth of Christ.

It was written as a reflection on Psalm 98,

and at some point somebody said,

we should sing this at Christmastime.

And what's the focus of this joyful song?

The focus is actually about judgment.

The focus of this joyful song is about the Lord coming to judge the world in righteousness.

And we might say, well, that's strange for a Christmas song,

but actually it's perfect.

If you just think about the lyrics,

no more let sins or sorrows grow,

nor thorns infest the ground.

He comes to make his blessings known,

far as the curse is found,

far as the curse is found,

far as the curse is found.

The message of that song is that when God's King is ruling over us as Savior,

even the land itself, the environment will be restored.

It will be productive.

And people in society will live together in grace and peace without sin and without sorrows

because the Messiah is going to come,

and he's going to reverse all the effects of our fallen condition

as far as the curse is found.

And I bring up this non-Christmas Christmas carol this morning

because it has this great theme of reversal,

this great theme of exchange and substitution and total transformation

of sins being exchanged for righteousness

and thorns for roses and sorrows for joys and curses for blessings.

And we see that not only in the poetry of songs like Joy to the World,

but we also see it in the poetry of the prophet Isaiah,

and that's what we're looking at today.

If you want to take the Pew Bible in front of you and open it up,

I encourage you to open it to page 607.

These worship handouts we give you are great,

but they're limited in space,

and so we have to turn poetry into prose to fit it all on there,

but that's not how it's meant to be read.

So much of the Bible is poetic prophecy and prophetic poetry,

and I want to teach you how to read it as such today.

We know that this book of the Bible, the prophet Isaiah,

is one of Jesus' favorite books in the Bible.

He quotes it along with Deuteronomy and Psalms more than any other book.

We know that this text, Isaiah 61,

is one of his favorite texts in all the Bible.

In his first sermon in the synagogue of Nazareth,

he preached on this very, Jesus preached on this very passage.

And so the question today is, what does it mean,

and what does it mean for us at the end of 2022?

And what I want to say about this text is that

Christ comes to reverse our curse,

give us grace, and make us priests.

Christ comes to reverse our curse,

give us grace, and make us priests.

And first of all, Christ comes to reverse our curse.

Let me just read verse 1 again.

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,

because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,

to proclaim freedom for the captives,

and release from darkness for the prisoners,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

That word, anointed, he has anointed me.

In Hebrew is Mashiach, or Messiah,

and in Greek is Christos, or Christ.

And how is this one anointed?

He's anointed with the Spirit, the Holy Spirit,

that same Spirit of power that ordered the chaos of creation,

that same Spirit that divided the Red Sea

to lead God's people into freedom.

And who is it that's doing the anointing here?

It's the Lord.

It's Yahweh.

And we learned a few weeks back that that name of God

means the self-existent one.

I am who I am, the living God who comes down

to redeem his people from their bondage.

And we're told that this Lord, he's the Sovereign Lord,

meaning he rules and he reigns supreme

above all authorities and powers.

This Lord is the one to whom all peoples,

all presidents, all potentates must bow

before his eternal transcendent kingdom

and power and glory.

And this Lord is anointing this king

with chaos-ordering, life-giving power in the Holy Spirit

to work on the Sovereign Lord's behalf

so that this one who's anointed comes

as the Sovereign Lord's ambassador,

as his representative.

And what are the tasks that this anointed one

has been given to do?

Well, we're told three times that he's been sent

to proclaim, to proclaim the good news,

to proclaim freedom for the captives,

to proclaim the year of the Lord's favor.

So the first and highest priority and task

of this anointed one is to come proclaiming

and to come preaching.

He comes with this spirit-empowered word

of the Sovereign Lord

so that whatever this anointed king speaks

is accomplished and whatever he says

is what happens.

And what is it that he's proclaiming

and that he's come preaching?

Well, what's interesting is he doesn't come

proclaiming good ideas or good advice,

but he comes proclaiming good news, right?

He doesn't come proclaiming good ideas

like the philosophers of the West, right?

He doesn't come proclaiming good advice

like the mystics of the East.

He comes proclaiming breaking good news

about historical events.

And who is this news for?

Well, this is what's amazing

is that he's come with news

not for heads of state.

He's come with news not for the captains of business.

He's come with news not for the experts

in the arts and the sciences.

Who is he come with news for?

He's come with news for the poor.

He's come with news for the poor.

But of course, we know that poverty

is more than,

it's more profound than material want, right?

In Hebrew poetry,

you look at the parallel words

that come in the next lines

to define the words that have come above.

And so, when you just look at this text,

who are the poor?

Well, they're the brokenhearted.

They're the afflicted who need binding up.

The poor are the captives

and the oppressed who need freeing.

The poor are the prisoners in darkness

who need releasing so they can see the light.

They're blind and they need recovery of their sight.

And this text is telling us

that the sovereign Lord and His anointed King,

He's not ignoring material poverty.

It's just that material poverty

is always a signpost to something deeper,

something more profound.

Material poverty is a signpost

to spiritual poverty.

So, who are the poor?

Well, obviously, they're the socially poor.

Those of low status,

whose honor has been diminished

and whose dignity has been destroyed.

But more than that,

and deeper than that,

the poor are those who stand before

the riches of God's holy love.

And they realize the poverty

of their own spirit.

They realize that they are, in fact,

spiritually bankrupt

and that they have nothing to bring to God.

They have nothing to offer up to God.

Well, who then are the brokenhearted?

Obviously, these are people

who are grieving the misery of life

in this world.

But more than that,

and deeper than that,

these are people who are feeling

the spiritual pain

of their relationship with God

having been ruined by sin and death.

Right?

And because they know themselves

to be poor in spirit,

they mourn.

You see, Jesus loved this text.

Blessed are the poor in spirit

and blessed are those

who realize they're poor in spirit

and so they mourn.

This is the opening

of his greatest sermon.

Well, who then are the captives

and the oppressed?

Well, obviously, in this context,

these are the Jews

who are suffering

under the thumb of the Gentiles,

whether they're in Egypt

or Babylon

or whichever empire

happens to reign over them.

But more than that,

and deeper than that,

the captives are those

who are spiritually captive

to their own selfish desires.

It's people who are imprisoned

in their own pride and vanity.

It's those who are trapped

in their own independence from God,

those who find themselves

stuck as moral slaves

to their own self-sovereignty,

bruised, as it were,

by the shackles of the self.

And who then in this text

are the blind?

Well, obviously,

it's those who are physically

unable to see,

those who were considered

useless to society

and had to beg at the city gate.

But more than that

and deeper than that,

it's those who are suffering

from spiritual blindness,

those who are in the dark

about God,

those who need to be given

a new optic nerve

so that they can see God

and see the glory of God again.

And what this text is telling us

is that this sovereign Lord

is determined to come

and to intervene

and to come and meet the needs

of His fallen creatures.

And He's sending His Spirit,

He's sending His Spirit

to anoint this appointed king

to come and deal with

and to undo

and to rectify

and to reverse the condition

of the poor,

the brokenhearted,

the captive,

and the blind.

And we notice that

God did not choose

one of us in this room

as mere human beings

to reverse the curse

of this world.

And I'm a little disappointed

about that.

You know,

why didn't He choose me

to do this job?

Why didn't He put you

on the short list

of His candidates

to fulfill this mission?

Well, how in the world

would that have worked?

I mean,

how can someone like me

or how could someone like you

who is spiritually poor

and relationally brokenhearted

and morally captive

and theologically blind

do anything remotely helpful

to address the curses

of this world?

But you see,

this is the message

and the meaning

of Advent and Christmas

that our sovereign Lord

sent His Son,

His own Son,

to become poor.

That though He Himself

was not spiritually poor,

Jesus left behind

all of the riches

and all the splendor

of heaven.

He left behind

those golden thrones

and the sapphire-paved courts

in His Father's

holy presence.

And He came down

into that lowly manger,

that lowliest

of stable floors,

and He took our poverty,

and He took our bankruptcy

upon Himself.

This is what causes

the Apostle Paul

to say that we know

the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ,

that though He was rich,

yet for our sake He became poor

so that you,

through His poverty,

might become rich.

this is the message

of Christmas,

that the sovereign Lord

has sent His own Son

to become brokenhearted.

That though He Himself

had a perfect

and an unbroken

relationship with God,

He emptied Himself

of heaven's glory

and of heaven's peace.

Right?

And He stooped so low.

He stooped as low

as conception.

He stooped as low

as birth

to come and participate

in the misery

of our broken relationship

with God.

He became,

as we call Him,

the man of sorrows

to take upon Himself

the burdens of our sins

and our sufferings.

Why did He do that?

In order to reconcile us

to God

and to bind up our hearts

with His holy

and His healing love.

This is the message

of Christmas,

that the sovereign Lord

sent His own Son

to become captive.

That though He was

the most spiritually

and morally free

being in the universe,

He laid aside

all of His rights.

He laid aside

all of His prerogatives.

He laid aside

all of His privileges

and all of His freedoms.

And He was born

to come and take

upon Himself

our slavery.

He was laid

in that cradle

that from day one

was under the shadow

of His cross.

Knowing that

that newborn King

would one day

be bound

as a captive.

He would one day

be nailed

as a condemned criminal.

Why did He do that?

So that our chains

might fall off

and that our hearts

might be free.

This is the message

of Christmas,

that the sovereign Lord

sent His own Son

to become blind.

He left the light

of God's glory

in heaven

for the darkness

of Mary's womb,

for the darkness

of that cave

in Bethlehem,

for the darkness

of this sad

and weary world

in which we live.

He left all the light

of God's glory

for the darkness

of the Roman Empire

whose soldiers

would one day

blind Him.

They'd put a blindfold

on Him

and they'd spit on Him

and they'd curse Him

and they'd beat Him

and they'd mock Him

and they'd crucify Him

as if they could

snuff out the light

of the world.

And He, my friends,

became a prisoner

of the darkness.

Why did He do it?

So that we could sing

together,

I once was lost

but now I'm found.

I was blind

but now I can see.

See, He comes

to make His blessings

flow

far as the curse

is found,

far as the curse

is found,

far as the curse

is found.

And friends,

don't you long

for this anointed one

to come and

reverse every curse

in your life?

Aren't you longing

with me this morning

that God would come

and turn all the places

of cursing

in your life

into sources of blessing?

I want to remind you

today that He can do it

and that indeed

He has done it.

That's the good news

of the Spirit

anointed Son

of the Sovereign Lord

that we in Him

are no longer poor,

we're in fact rich.

And we are no longer

broken hearted

and broken

in our relationship

with God.

We've been made whole

and we are no longer

captives to sin

and to ourselves,

we've been set free.

And that we are

no longer blind,

but we can see God

in the glory

of God's Spirit

anointed Son,

Jesus.

Joy to the world.

The Lord has come.

Joy to all the earth.

The Savior reigns.

So Christ comes

to reverse our curse.

But He also comes

to give us His grace.

Christ comes

to give us grace.

What is it that we're

celebrating at the first

and the second coming

of this Messiah?

Well, it says that He came

in verse 2

to proclaim the year

of Yahweh's favor,

the year of Yahweh's grace,

the year of Yahweh's pleasure.

And what in the world

is this?

Well, this anointed King

is proclaiming

and He's preaching

from His favorite book

of the Bible,

our favorite book

of the Bible,

the book of Leviticus.

Right?

Because every Jewish kid

would have heard

this phrase,

the year of Yahweh's favor,

the year of Yahweh's grace,

and they would have

thought to themselves,

Leviticus 25

and the year of Jubilee.

And you're thinking,

well, what in the world

is that?

Well, when you turn

to the Torah,

the first five books

of the Bible,

Jesus' Bible,

and you look at page 1,

it says that God

blessed the seventh day

and He made it

a holy day of rest.

And that means

that the Sabbath day,

it's not the year

of the Lord's favor,

but it is the day

of the Lord's favor.

It's the day

of the Lord's grace,

the day of His pleasure.

And the Ten Commandments

tell us that one day

in seven,

not one day in 14,

not one day in 28,

that we are to worship

the Lord of grace together.

And then if you read

on the Torah,

it says one year

out of every seven years

is to be a Sabbath year.

That is when you're

to let the land

lie fallow

and the earth

build up its nutrients

and all the land

and the animals

and the workers

that have rested

during that year

will find themselves

flourishing and fruitful again

because they've had rest.

That's where we get

our idea of a sabbatical year.

But then if you keep

reading on,

you eventually get

to Leviticus 25,

which has one of the

most radical ideas

in all the Old Testament.

And it says this,

that one year

out of every seven

Sabbath years,

so that's one year

out of every 49 years,

you're to have

a Sabbath of the Sabbaths.

You're to have

the year of Jubilee,

the year of the Lord's favor,

the year of the Lord's grace,

the year of the Lord's pleasure.

And what in the world

is this?

Well, if you had

poor crops

or if you had

poor fortune

or if you had

poor judgment,

you might find yourself

in a situation

where you are

in really big debt.

You're in a debt

that you cannot

pay off yourself.

And so to deal

with that debt,

you might become

an indentured servant

to the one

to whom you owed

your debt.

Or you might sell off

some of your land

and lose your family

inheritance

in the promised land.

And so you can imagine

that over 49 years,

some people would come

to be very prosperous

and some people

would come to be

very poor.

And the question

as God was building

this new counterculture

in the promised land

is how do we make sure

that people get

a second chance?

How do we make sure

that no one gets stuck

in their poverty?

How do we guard

against monopolies

and dynasties?

How do we guard

against and protect

against this great

disparity of wealth

and freedom

and opportunity

in the promised land?

And how do we level

the playing field

among human beings?

Well, it said

the 49th year,

the year of Jubilee,

this once-in-a-lifetime

opportunity,

this once-in-a-lifetime

event was to be

the year of the Lord's

favor,

the year of the Lord's

grace,

where three things

would happen.

First of all,

every debt

would be remitted.

That if anybody owed

any money

to their creditors,

your debts,

no matter how large,

they were canceled,

the books were cleared,

all debtors

were declared free.

The second thing

that happened

in the year of Jubilee

is that every slave

was to be set free.

That if anyone

had become poor

and had sold themselves

as a slave

to someone else,

that they would be set

at liberty.

And the third thing

that would happen

in the year of Jubilee

is that every land

that had been lost

would be restored.

That everyone

would get back

that portion

of their family

possession

and their family

property

in the promised land.

And this ideal

of the Jubilee,

it was to make

the people of God

unique among

all the nations.

Nobody else

was practicing this.

Nobody else

was living like this.

But the biblical

scholars tell us

and the historians

tell us that

we don't think

this ideal

was ever realized

in Israel.

It was never practiced

and observed

in Israel.

So do we see

how the Old Testament

might be preparing us

for the New Testament?

Do we have a sense

of how God

might be giving us

an idea

of what His Messiah

will come to do?

This year of Jubilee,

it was to be proclaimed

on the Day of Atonement.

And they would,

on that day

of bloody sacrifice

where all the sins

of the people

would be wiped out

and forgiven,

they would sound

the trumpet.

Everybody would hear

the blast of this trumpet.

And all who found

themselves in poverty,

all who identified

as debtors

and slaves

and dispossessed,

they would listen out

for the sound

of that trumpet

and they would listen out

for the sound

of the glorious year

of the Lord's favor,

the glorious year

of the Lord's grace

and His pleasure.

And friends,

I wonder if today

even you can hear

the trumpet blast

of Jubilee.

If you can hear

the trumpet blast

of the grace

of God

that the sovereign Lord

sent His Son

at Christmas

to begin

the year

of the Lord's grace.

He emptied Himself.

He disguised Himself.

He came

undercover

as a vulnerable child.

And though He was rich,

He became a debtor.

Though He was free,

He became a slave.

Though He was the maker

of heaven and earth,

He became dispossessed

of everything He owned.

And why did He do that?

Well, this baby

grew up to be a boy

and this boy grew up

to be a preacher.

And one day He walked

into a synagogue

on the Sabbath day

and He preached

His first sermon,

His inaugural address,

His messianic manifesto.

And what was His text?

His text was Isaiah 61.

And when He preached

that sermon,

He was sounding the trumpet,

proclaiming the year

of the Lord's grace,

declaring to everyone

that that year of grace

had begun in Him

and reiterating

to all who were gathered

and all who would ever hear

this text again,

that same message

on the night of His birth,

sung by the angels,

Gloria,

in excelsis Deo,

and on earth,

peace to those

on whom God's favor

and on whom God's grace

has come to rest.

And so my friends,

I ask you this morning,

are you a debtor to sin?

Do you find that you owe

to God

and owe to your family

and owe to your neighbors

a deep debt of love?

So the message of Jubilee

is that without doing

anything at all,

your debts can be canceled

and your ledger can be erased

and your past sins

blotted out

and though your sins

be as scarlet,

you can be as white

as snow,

freed from all that it is

you owe to God.

And have you come here today

a slave to your own self-interest,

a slave in bondage

to your own desires?

Well, the good news

is that you can be freed

from those iron bars

of your flesh

and of the world

and of the devil,

all those chains

that are holding you back,

you can be freed

to love God

and to enjoy God

and to serve God

and you can be freed

even to become

like the Spirit-anointed servant,

Christ.

Are you here today

and you find yourself

dispossessed?

Someone who has lost

their precious property.

Jesus said,

what does it profit a man

to gain the whole world

but to lose his very soul?

Our soul is that

which enables us

to have a relationship

with God

and maybe you're here today

and you've lost

this precious possession

of your soul

that gives you life

with God

but the Jubilee,

the message of Christmas

and this year of grace,

this year of Jubilee

is that all of us

who have lost

our character,

all of us who have lost

our integrity,

all of us who have lost

our purity,

all of us who have lost

our soul

and our life with God

can get back

all it is

that we've lost.

Christ's child of Christmas

has come

to make you

a child of God.

He's come to bring you

back into a reconciled

relationship with God

and get you back

into the family,

back into the status

of a son

or a daughter

who has an infinite

and eternal

inheritance in God.

And that's the good news

that if you believe

in Christ

and you've surrendered

yourself to Him,

you're not only going

to get your soul back,

that one day

you're going to be

owners of the whole

universe,

that you're going

to be walking

on the face

of this renovated

earth

and a resurrected

body changed

into the likeness

of Christ

and sharing

in the family property

and the family

possession,

the family inheritance

that belongs to Him

which is everything.

And so I wonder,

friends,

can you hear

this trumpet blast

of the year of Jubilee,

the trumpet blast

of the year of God's grace

can you hear it?

Can you feel it

in this Christ

that's come among us?

Christ comes to reverse

our curse

and to give us grace

and finally comes

to make us priests.

He comes to make us priests.

Why is it this

sovereign Lord

and His Spirit-anointed Son

and His King

has come to reverse

our curse

and to give us

and to give us

this grace

of Jubilee?

Is it so that

we can live

for ourselves?

So that we can live

like our neighbors?

So that we can

live out

this expressive

individualism

of the Western world?

So that we can live

as self-actualized people

of the secular age?

No.

He's come

and made us free

for this reason.

Verse 6.

You see,

Isaiah tells us

that the church

is not made up

of one priest

or even two priests.

The church

is made up

of all of you

who are His priests

and ministers

of the Lord.

You've been set free

to serve

the sovereign Lord

and to carry out

the will

and the work

of the Lord

in the world.

And what is that?

I want to encourage you

that it's to do

for one person.

Maybe one person

here today.

Maybe the person

that's sitting

in the pew

beside you

or the pew

in front of you.

It's to do

for one person

this Christmas

what the Lord

has done for you.

And what is that?

Verse 3.

He's come

to bestow

on them

a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of joy

instead of mourning,

and a garment

of praise

instead of a spirit

of despair.

The Christ

of the cradle,

the Christ

who came.

He came to exchange

His love.

He came to exchange

what He has

for what you have.

He came in this

great act

of substitution

and saying,

I'll take what you got

and I'll give you

what I've got.

So I see

that you have

these ashes

of sin

and suffering,

but I'll take that

upon myself

so that you can wear

my royal crown

of beauty.

and I'll take

your mourning

over all the misery

and sin

and brokenness

of this world

so that you can be

anointed with the oil

of my joy

and my gladness.

And He comes to us,

Christ comes to us

and He says,

I'll take your depression

and I'll take your despair

and I'm going to have you

wear my garment

of praise instead.

Do you see this?

what our minister,

Christ,

what our priest,

Christ,

has come to put

upon us?

He's come to give you

a crown of beauty.

He's come to give you

the oil of joy.

He's come to give you

the garment

of praise.

And so the question

for us is that

this is what He's done

for us as our priest

and our minister.

What are we to do

for one another

as priests

and as ministers?

And I would just

encourage you

to think about

one person

here today

who's got ashes

on their head.

Somebody who's got

mourning in their eyes.

Somebody who's got

despair in their heart.

And you don't have to go

across the world

to find that.

You don't have to go

across the city

to find that.

There's plenty

just right here.

And your task

as a priest

and as a minister

is to get to know

this people

and to say

I want to apply

to you the remedy

of Christ

that's been applied

to me.

I want to give

to you

this crown

of beauty.

I want to give

to you this oil

of joy.

I want to give

to you this garment

of praise.

Who is it

that the sovereign

Lord is sending

you to this Christmas

to be a priest

and to be a minister?

Priests are people

who pray.

Ministers are people

who meditate

on the word

of God.

And through

this,

these priests

and ministers

they experience

the power

of God

to begin

living out

the principles

of Jubilee,

the principles

of grace

so that we

become a whole

community

that's proclaiming

good news

for the poor.

A whole community

that's binding

up the broken

hearted.

A whole church

community

that is setting

the captives

free

and a whole

church community

that's releasing

people that are

in the darkness

of their own

blindness to God.

A whole community

living in this year

of grace,

this year of God's

favor,

this year of His

forgiveness

for debtors,

for slaves,

for the dispossessed.

Friends,

I pray

that God would

enable us

to do this

because Christ,

He comes to

reverse our curse

and to give us

grace and ultimately

to make us His

priests in a world

that so desperately

need His love

and His care,

His crown of beauty,

His oil of joy,

His garment of praise.

May He do this

for us in the name

of the Father,

Son,

and Holy Spirit.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.

Amen.