What’s Behind the Blessing?

Number 6:22-27

So, are the words I just read your very favorite part of the worship service? The Lord bless you and keep you. I’ve had a lot of people through the years tell me that that’s their favorite part, that they could skip the whole rest of the service as long as they hear the blessing, they’re at the end. Kind of makes sense. Are you one of those people? If you are, I kind of get it. I love the words of the blessing too. What do we hear when we hear the words of the blessing? Do we perhaps hear some sort of pious wish? Oh, I hope that God maybe blesses you. Is that what we hear? Do we hear something that’s maybe divorced from reality? Man, it’d be great if God would bless me, but I sure am not seeing it or feeling it. Is that what we hear? A better question, of course, is what did God want the Israelites to hear, which of course very easily spills into what does God want us to hear? Now, let’s be careful. These words of the blessing are part of God’s Old Testament covenant. So what we’re about to say has impact specifically to the Old Testament. Now, in the New Testament times, we have freedom. The Israelites were to use these words. Did you notice what God said to them? God didn’t say to them, “When you bless the people, say something like this.” He didn’t say that, did he? What he said was, “When you bless the people, say to them,” and then gave them exactly the words that they were to use. In the New Testament, we have freedom. Yes, we can use these words. Yes, it makes sense to use these words, but we also have freedom to use other words, and sometimes we do, and that’s just fine. But God wanted his Old Testament people to use these words and these words exactly. Why? Well, let’s first of all put ourselves into context. The Israelites are only about a month removed from the passing through the Red Sea. Remember, they’d been in slavery for generation after generation after generation. They’d come out through the virtue of the 10 plagues, the Passover, the crossing through the Red Sea. God had started bringing them along. It started feeding them with manna from heaven. God had already given them one victory over some enemies but made it very clear that it was a victory that came from God, because when Moses’ hands were up in blessing, they would win, and when Moses’ arms got tired and his blessing hands went down, the Israelites would lose. That’s when Aaron and her held up Moses’ hands so that he could continue to pour out God’s blessing upon the Israelites. They had come to Mount Sinai, and God had spoken in thunderous cloud and fire and with thunder and lightning and had given them the 10 commandments as well as the rest of his covenant that he wanted him to keep. The Israelites had eagerly and zealously said, “Yes, we will be the people of God.” Then God brought Moses up on Mount Sinai to speak to him, and Moses was up there for quite a while. The Israelites said, “Well, you know, maybe this Moses guy just wasn’t who we thought he was, and let’s worship the Bales instead, and we have the whole golden calf incident.” Seriously? It’s like one day we’ve got the Israelites going, “Yeah, we’ll be God’s people. Yeah, we’ll follow God. Yeah, we’ll be faithful to God in a month later.” We’re going, “Yeah, you know, we were just kidding about that. We’ll follow Baal instead.” What? So you’ve got this people, this people group whose national psyche is probably incredibly beaten down. They’ve known nothing but slavery for generations. You’ve got this people group who doesn’t seem to have much as far as stick-to-itiveness, who’s quick to complain, who’s quick to become afraid. What do they need? They need to know that they have a great big God who’s standing behind them. They need to know that that great big God is blessing them. And so God said to Aaron, “When you bless the people, use these words.” Let’s unpack the words a little bit. The Lord bless you and keep you. In the Hebrew, that’s three words. The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you. In the Hebrew, that’s five words. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace. In the Hebrew, that’s seven words. Now, numbers don’t always mean something in the Bible. In fact, people often stretch that way too far. But this would seem to be an instant where it makes sense. The number seven was often used as a number of completeness. And as God says to them, “Speak these three, then these five, then these seven words.” Oh, is there a thought of completeness there? Oh yeah, I think there is. Did you notice that the word the Lord is used three times? Is it a hint of the fact that their God was a three in one God? Maybe. It’s certainly consistent with the fact that God is a three in one God. That name, Lord, you notice it’s spelled in all caps. That’s the NIV’s way of cluing us off. That that’s the Old Testament name for God that emphasizes that God is absolutely independent. There’s no one and nothing that can control him. There’s no one and nothing that can ultimately stand against him. It also emphasizes that God is absolutely faithful. That is faithful to his justice. He’s faithful to his love. And that he loves to forgive wickedness, rebellion, and sin. Oh, kind of sounds like exactly what the Israelites needed to hear, doesn’t it? They needed to hear that they had a great big God who no one and nothing could control or stand against and win. They needed to know that they had a God who was going to be faithful. They needed to know that they had a God who is going to be willing to forgive them richly and graciously and generously. Can we understand why God said to the Israelites, to the priests, “When you bless the people, say these words. Say this.” Let’s explore some of the some of the verbs. “The Lord bless you and keep you.” That word that’s translated to keep has the idea of to protect someone or something. That it’s like a shield. “The Lord make his face shine upon you.” That plays on an Old Testament custom. If you came into the courtroom of the king and the king had not summoned you, the king had not invited you, but you came and unannounced, if the king’s face brightened, if he smiled towards you, that meant you got to live. On the other hand, if the king turned his face away from you, that meant the death penalty. The Lord look upon you with favor has a similar thought. Why say it twice? Probably because what we humans need to know more than anything else in the world is that God’s face is smiling, shiningly at us. He is happy to see his children. Well, let’s be clear. He may not always be happy to see what his children are thinking or saying or doing, but because of Jesus’s forgiving love, he is happy to see you. And he’s happy to see me. Oh, and then the last word in that line of seven words is the word in English, peace. In the Hebrew, it’s the word shalom. It could mean hello. It could mean goodbye. But its best sense of understanding is that it’s a word that means everything is an unbroken sphere. Everything is in balance. No, it doesn’t necessarily mean that we’ll always be happy. But what it does mean is that things will stay in balance. It’s kind of the thought of our Romans five reading. What is suffering, produce, character, and hope, and hope does not disappoint us. The suffering isn’t easy. The suffering doesn’t make us go, “Oh, sweet, I’m suffering.” But it produces fruit in us so that we stay in balance. And that’s the last word in the blessing. Shalom. The Lord give you balance. That you know you’re right with him. And because you’re right with him, you’re all right. And that word starts with the Hebrew letter sheen. This is the Hebrew letter sheen. And for those of you who are old enough to remember Dr. Spock, yes, this is his sign. Dr. Spock was Jewish. Okay. This was basically what he used. I think he did this, didn’t he? But this is basically his sign. He was Jewish. And he took this from the blessing in the temple, the tabernacle. It’s the Hebrew letter sheen, which is both the first letter in the word shalom. It’s also the first letter in the word shadai. Shadai is one of the Hebrew words for God being almighty, all powerful, all glorious. And so when the priests lift up their hands to bless the people, they were reminded that their shadai was giving them shalom. How cool is that? Oh, and one last detail from the words of the blessing. The Lord bless you and keep you. In the Hebrew language, there’s a different, I’ll say word, it’s actually a suffix in the Hebrew language, but there’s a different word for you singular as opposed to you plural. In English, we just have you. In the South, we had you and y’all. That was a good way to do it. But here we just have you. And we have to figure out from context, do you mean you or do you mean you? In the Hebrew, God makes it very clear. And so now you’re saying, okay, pastor, which one is it? Is it you singular or is it you plural in the blessing? It’s you singular. That God is not saying, I’m going to toss a blessing out there and if you get lucky, go grab a chunk. No, he’s saying the Lord bless you, Chuck, and you, Christina, and you, Milton, and you, Kurt, and you, Jim, and you, Tyree, you, Linda, you, Shante. And you say, with your particular hopes, joys, hurts, dreams, goals, that God is speaking directly and personally to you. Just a quick aside, that’s why when we who are up here speak the blessing, we do our best to try to make eye contact with as many of you as we possibly can. We’re trying to accentuate this beautiful aspect that God is saying, the Lord bless you, Carolyn, with whatever it is that’s on your heart and mind. The Lord bless you, Kevin, with whatever it is that’s on your heart and on your mind. Can we understand why God said to the priests when you bless the people, use these words. Because they’re just rich and full of meaning. Oh, and then God adds one further thought. “Thus I will place my name on the Israelites and I will bless them,” and in the Hebrew, the word I is emphatic, that God is saying each time I speak these words of the blessing, I am renewing my relationship with my people. And I am reminding them that they are my dear children and I am their dear father. And on this day set aside for fathers, could there be anything more important that any one of us could be reminded of than the fact that we are the children of God? If you are a father, what an incredibly important reminder that God loves you dearly. And what does he want you to do to reflect that exact same love to your children? Some of you had great fathers, some of you had, eh, fathers, some of you had really bad fathers. But no matter what, you are the children of the heavenly father. Because even as he put his name on those Israelites, so he has placed his name on you. And every time you hear the words of the blessing, you get to be reminded that I am a child of the heavenly father. I have a great big God. I have a great big God who loves me dearly and who has claimed me as his own. Could there be anything better than that? Amen? Amen.