Hey everyone, welcome back to our Faith and Beliefs segment. In this episode we're
gonna be looking at another temple ceremony that latter-day saints consider
very sacred so please be respectful in your comments and let's learn a little
bit more about what we call the washing and anointing ordinance.
Now technically, the washing and anointing is the first part of the endowment ceremony
which we talked about in a previous episode but you'll find that we often
refer to it as its own thing. This ordinance like all others has been
revealed line upon line, a bit at a time over many years. The process has been
refined many times but as the name implies the gist is that the person
participating in this ordinance is symbolically washed with water and
anointed with oil. This is called an initiatory ordinance because it prepares
you for the rest of the endowment. The washing with water represents a
cleansing and the anointment is symbolic of being made holy.
While this ordinance takes place, the person officiating over the ordinance
blesses you along with several parts of your body.
If you're a guy, the officiator is a guy. If you're a girl, the officiator is a
girl-- which is really cool because these women are technically using the
priesthood which normally only the men are authorized to use but I digress.
It is after this ceremony that latter-day saints start to wear the
temple garment as an outward symbol and reminder of the promises they make with
God in the temple. The temple garment is that magic Mormon underwear you've heard
about. "Magic underwear." "Magic underwear." "What does it look like?" We've talked about it
multiple times on the show, it's not magic, stop that. What does any of this
have to do with Christianity? And the answer is it has everything to do with
Christianity. The washing and anointing are referred to all over the place in
Christian and Jewish history. In Exodus 40 we read, "And thou shalt bring Aaron
and his sons unto the door of the tabernacle of the congregation and wash
them with water. And thou shalt put upon Aaron the holy garments and anoint him
and sanctify him that he may minister unto me in the priest's office." Similar
scriptures appear in Exodus 28, 29 and Leviticus 8. Also, many prophets and many
kings are anointed with oil usually initiating them into their role. A
similar ordinance also shows up in many historic or pseudepigrapha works-- by the
way I'm stealin a lot of this stuff from our friend Brett McDonald, go check out
his channel. 2nd Enoch 22: "Go extract Enoch from his earthly clothing and
anoint him with my delightful oil and put him into the clothes of my glory."
From the testament of the 12 patriarchs: "The first anointed me with holy oil and
gave me a staff. The second washed me with pure water and put on
me a holy and glorious vestment." From a second century jewish text whose name I
cannot pronounce, "And Gabriel and Michael stand over them in that hour and wash
them and anoint them with oil and heal them of the wounds of Gehenna and
clothed them in beautiful and good garments." If you've been through the
temple, read the rest of that. The last quote we'll look at is from about 350 AD
from a lecture given by Cyril of Jerusalem. He's now a Catholic saint and
for those who are familiar with the washing and anointing ordinance, you'll
recognize this as significant. It's a bit long but take a second to pause and read
over this. You'll notice that he mentions the mystical chrism which is an
anointing associated with baptism in the Catholic Church. It would seem that over
time, the washing and anointing were merged with baptism which is especially
evident in the pre-baptism ritual outlined in the 1962 Catholic Santca
Missa where we see similar blessings outlined. I would assume that at some
point the early church understandably considered baptism to be the washing but
don't quote me on that. We also see other examples of anointing in Catholicism so
it's a fairly common practice used for a variety of purposes. Now, one of the
things many critics don't like about the Latter-day Saint washing and anointing
is that for a long time the person being washed and anointed would be naked
and I'm with you there, that'd be super uncomfortable. It was never with anyone
of the opposite gender, it wasn't some kinky thing, but still I get it.
That said, the fact that that's how they used to do it doesn't bother me a whole
lot because as we've seen from these quotes anciently in this or some other
forms of anointing, you would have been naked. The good news is that you don't
even have to worry about it because the ordinance has since been totally modest-
ified. you will see a total of zero naked people in latter-day saint temples. The
washing is a symbolic washing, literally one or two drops of water and
consecrated oil are used for this whole ordinance. There's not some old guy
waiting for you with a loofah stick, I just want that to be clear. When you are
washed and anointed as part of your own endowment ceremony, normally you'd
proceed from this ceremony straight into the rest of the endowment which we
covered in this video but again the endowment, including the washing and
anointing, is an essential ordinance for exaltation which means we also do them
vicariously for ancestors who have died that never had the opportunity,
similar to baptisms for the dead which maybe you're more familiar with. That's a
quick rundown of this ordinance, check out the links in the description for
more info and have a great day.