Bible Passage: Numbers 6:22-27
Pastor: Joel Jenswold
Sermon Date: June 12, 2022

Bulletin June 12, 2022

In the name of, and to the eternal glory of, Jesus,

How old do you think the oldest part of our worship service is?  Would it surprise you if I told you there is a part of our service that is 3500 years old?  Well, there is!  It is the blessing spoken to conclude our service. It is a blessing that dates to the time of Moses.  It is the blessing the Lord gave to Moses to give to Aaron and his sons, the priests, to speak upon the people.

As we look at this blessing, we might call it “the three-in-one” blessing.  Its structure is three separate and distinct sections, each beginning with “The LORD…”  Three times we hear in this one blessing, “The LORD…the LORD…the LORD.”  And of course, we know the LORD is the three-in-one God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  So truly this blessing is the three-in-one blessing from the three-in-one God.

Let’s just look at the three sections.  The first one says, The LORD bless you and keep you.  People really don’t know what “blessing” means nowadays.  The person with the Rolls Royce gets vanity plates that proclaim:  “Ble$$ed.”  As if having money equates to blessing.  To be blessed by God means that God has something good to say to you.

God promises to “keep” you.  To understand the idea of “keeping” we might think of what Cain said when the Lord asked him where his brother, Abel, was.  Cain sassed God, Am I my brother’s keeper? (Genesis 4:9)  What was Cain saying?  “Am I supposed to keep tabs on my brother and take care of him?”  The answer is, of course, yes.  What Cain didn’t do for his brother, the LORD promises to do for you!

The next section of the blessing begins:  The LORD make his face shine on you.  This way of speaking may be lost on us.  A shiny face in our culture means someone has oily skin.  But to the Hebrew, hearing that the LORD’s face was shining on them was good news.  It meant the LORD was with them and watching them.  This makes me think of the story I once heard.  A little girl was scared in the middle of the night and she called out to her dad.  He came into her room and soothed her.  The little girl said, “Daddy, will you sit by me until I fall asleep?”  He said, “I will.”  A few moments later she said, “Daddy, are you facing this way?”  “I am,” he said.  It comforted her to know her dad’s face was toward her.  The LORD promises to shine his face on you.

…and be gracious to you.  Ah, the promise of grace!  Grace…God’s undeserved love for sinners.  God promises not to treat us as our sins deserve.  What if he did?  What if the last words you heard before you left this place each week went something like this, “The LORD is going to keep careful records of all your sins and will get even with you.  Now, off you go”?  Who would want to step outside?  I would want to curl up into a ball in the corner and hide!  I don’t want to go out there if there will be no grace!  I cannot live without grace!  He promises grace.  He promises to love you even though you aren’t going to be all that loveable!  That’s grace!

The last of the three sections of the blessing goes like this:  The LORD lift up his face on you and give you peace.  Ah, there is the face of the LORD again!  This time being lifted up on you.  This is a look of approval and favor.  This is a father lifting his head, beaming as he watches his child.  It is the look of love and affection.  The way the LORD promises to look at you.

And give you peace.   Shalom.  This is not a promise that everything in your life is going to be easy.  But this peace is the peace the Holy Spirit pours into our hearts.  This is the peace that steps out into the world and knows, If God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31).  This is the peace of the psalmist:  God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble…therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea. (Psalm 46:1)  That’s peace.

This three-in-one blessing from God is not just a pious wish, breath spoken into the air.  This is God’s promise!  So they will put my name on them and I will bless them.  This is the Word of God.  This is the Word that speaks light into existence!  If God says, “Let there be light,” there is light!  If God says, “I will bless,”  there is blessing!

And how can we be so certain?  I want you to think about what happens when you hear this blessing at the end of the service.  The pastor lifts his hands, the same gesture as the sons of Aaron when they spoke the blessing.  Hands uplifted until…they begin to trace the sign of the cross in the air.  This benediction is spoken through the sign of the cross!  Why will the LORD bless you and keep you?  Why will he make his face shine on you and be gracious to you?  Why will he lift up his face on you and give you peace?  The cross, that’s why!  Because of Jesus.  Because the curse that should have been spoken upon us because of our sin has been spoken upon Jesus.  Paul wrote to the Galatians: Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us. (Galatians 3:13)  Imagine, God curses his Son so that he can bless us!

There is but one more thing we might say about this three-in-one blessing, and it is something we won’t notice about it in English.  You see, English only has one pronoun “you.”  When I say “you,” you don’t know if I mean you individually or you as a group.  In Hebrew you can tell if “you” means just one or all of you.  We typically hear this blessing spoken to a group, so we may think it would be the plural “you.”  “All of you.”  But it’s not.  The “you” is singular.  The LORD bless YOU (sg)!  The LORD keep YOU (sg).  He’s not talking to the whole group; he’s talking to each one of you.  This is personal.  Just like in your baptism, “I baptize you in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit…” didn’t mean a whole bunch, it was meant just for you.  So also with this blessing.   It’s personal.  The Lord has put his name on YOU.  And so the LORD will bless YOU!

Amen.