The Beatitudes: Blessed are...you. Matthew 5: 1-12

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Seeing the crowds, Jesus went up on the mountain, and when he sat down, his disciples came to him. And He opened his mount and taught them…”

I wonder if, while Jesus began speaking the words we know as the Beatitudes, He was looking at the crowd gathered around Him. They had come out from Galilee and the Decapolis, from Jerusalem and Judea. They had been struggling with sicknesses, diseases, aches and pains, demons, leprosy, and paralysis. Jesus healed them. Who was this Man who could heal like this? They wanted to know more, they wanted to hear more. So, they followed Jesus out into the countryside.

Matthew doesn’t tell us the size of the crowd, but there must have been plenty of people – Matthew says it was “crowds” of people. As He looked around, was He was identifying them, not by physical characteristics – the tall, the strong, the wealthy, the popular, the beautiful, the handsome –but by what was in their heart or, rather, what was missing and, as He saw them He spoke about the spiritually bankrupt, the grieving, awaiting God’s rescue, showing God’s mercy, extending peace and restoration, and those who had been persecuted for holding the faith in the promises of God instead of the work of man. The world doesn’t have much place for people like that, instead preferring health, wealth and happiness.  But as Jesus saw them, He spoke to His disciples and identified them as blessed.

It is important to note that Jesus says these are blessed, not happy. Some translations try to make this read “happy,” but that’s not right at all. Happiness is a feeling, an emotion. There’s nothing wrong with happiness. A cup of coffee makes me happy; watching my dog race around the yard makes me happy; my wife’s smile makes me happy; finishing a sermon Thursday morning instead of during the sermon hymn makes me happy. While we often associate happiness with being a Christian, Christians are not always happy. Thankful, yes; joyful, yes; blessed, yes; happy, not necessarily. So, let’s read and understand Jesus’ words the way said it: Blessed. That carries a much deeper and richer understanding than merely happy. A blessing is a gift of God, a declaration, a statement that announces to the world, “This is true.” In the Beatitudes, Jesus declares His children are blessed in the situation, not from the situation.  In fact, when Jesus uses the word in Matthew’s Gospel, it almost always means “Saved” or “Redeemed.[1]” It’s as if Jesus is saying, “The poor in spirit are saved, therefore the kingdom of heaven is theirs!”

Who might Jesus have seen? What led them to that hillside to hear Jesus? What was their story? What did they hope to hear? What did they need to hear? I don’t know. I wish I had been a fly on the shrub brush, watching and listening. Perhaps Jesus saw the First Century version of people like this:

Sue sat in her living room, weeping. It was the thirtieth anniversary of the day that her ex-husband took her to an abortion clinic, threatening her with all sorts of unpleasantries if she didn’t get rid of “it.” She knows that she is forgiven, but still, every January 29, she is haunted by what she did.  To her, Jesus declares, “Blessed are those who are poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Rick’s wife died ten years ago. Well, actually nine years, ten months and three days ago. Yes; he counts. Every afternoon since then, he sits in a chair at her graveside, sometimes for hours at a time. Last week, he buried their only son; well, actually five days ago. Now, he sits between the graves of his wife and son. He knows there will be a resurrection reunion, but for now, he sits there with a heavy heart as the sun goes down and darkness sets in. To him, Jesus declares, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.”

Lou and Vi are retired and have a small, fixed income. Every month, before they spend a dime on their personal needs, they give away almost half between their church, a pregnancy crisis center, and a food pantry in town. They don’t have much left, just enough, but they are happy and content with what the Lord provides. To them, Jesus declares, “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

In a far-off country, a traitor alerts authorities to a secret, underground Christian church. The service is raided and the pastor and six members are hauled into the street and forced to kneel in front of their community while masked men scream at them to apostatize, deny Jesus as Savior, or else they face a certain and painful death. Quietly, they begin to pray the Lord’s Prayer together. To them, Jesus says, “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

These are the kinds of people Jesus speaks about. They, these people who seem to have so little in way of earthly blessings, whom the world would look right past and go right by without a second glance, Jesus describes them as being in the present state of blessedness. Some of the particular gifts of blessing are present tense. The poor in spirit are those who realize they cannot save themselves. The burden of their sins is simply too great, too heavy, too damnable to be humanly overcome. They are humbled, realizing how desperately they need Jesus, they need a Savior, and just how willingly and lovingly Jesus went to the cross to save them from their sins, from satan’s guilt, and from the grave’s depths. The poor in spirit find their richness in spirit in Christ and, in Christ, as baptized children of God, their present tense reality is that the Kingdom of heaven, with all of it’s eternal riches of forgiveness, life and salvation is theirs, right now, even if they still struggle with memories and suffer from earthly consequences of what was done. The fact is they are blessed and heaven is theirs now.

Other beatitudes are still to come, a promise now for a future consummation. For some, this side of heaven, mourning may never turn into dancing until Jesus raises them from their own grave. Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for the rightness of God to be manifest on earth, it may not come until the day of judgement when God separates the faithful from the unfaithful, rewarding and punishing, setting right what was so often wrong in this lifetime. The pure in heart and the peacemakers may never know the fullness of their desire until there is a restoration on the last day and we see God face-to-face through the death and resurrection of Jesus. But the promise is there. And, for God’s children, by grace through faith, all of God’s promises are yes and right now in Christ, even if we have to wait for the consummation of that gift until we see Jesus with resurrected eyes.

So, Jesus has spoken to the disciples about the crowd, but He wasn’t done. He speaks to you as well. You, the 21^st century disciple, the baptized believer, the child of God, the kids of the Kingdom - He speaks to you as well. “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets before you.”

Blessed are you when others revile you, persecute you, slander you because you bear the name Christian. Blessed are those Christians in the Middle East whose worship services are interrupted with bombs and gunfire at the hands of Muslims. Blessed are those Christians in communist lands who are driven deep underground. Blessed are those who are mocked and ridiculed by the “woke” people of this world. Blessed are you when people laugh at you for believing in Christ, when people exclude you for being a Christian, when your own family or friends or coworkers mock you for speaking the name of Jesus. Don’t be sad, be glad! Rejoice! You are walking in prophetic sandals and you are blessed, even as you journey down the valley of the shadow.

I said it a minute ago, but let me say it again: Jesus blesses you in the situation, in the need, in the brokenness of the world, in the moment in which you find yourself. He does not bless you by separating you from it, snapping His fingers and teleporting you to a safe place with a warm blanket, a cup of coffee or tea, surrounded by friendly and loving hands. He blesses you in the moment with the reminder that He has saved you, even in this.

How is it that Jesus can proclaim such blessings, such eternal promises of salvation to us in the midst of our struggles this side of heaven? Because first and foremost, these beatitudes are about Him. He is the Blessed One from whom all blessings flow. He is the One who became poor in spirit, though He was rich. He is the One who mourned over our Sin, the man of suffering, acquainted with sorrow. He is the meek One, who turned the other cheek, who gave His back to the whips of this world, who went as a Lamb to the slaughter. He hungered and thirsted for our righteousness, and in His hunger and thirst we are filled. He is the Merciful One, whose mercy knows no bounds. He is the pure-hearted One, innocent of Adam’s sin, whose heart overflowed with nothing but love. He is the peace maker, the One who did our peace to death on a cross that we might have shalom, peace that surpasses our comprehension, peace that that world cannot give. He is the persecuted One, who absorbed this world’s hatred and buried it in His death.

Jesus is and does all these things. He is the Blessed One. And you, baptized into Him, are blessed.

 

 

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[1] Gibbs, Jeff. Matthew vol 1, Concordia Commentary, p. 234, 239.

Satan Divides, Christ Unites - 1 Cor. 1: 10-18

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Epistle lesson, 1 Cor. 1: 10-18.

Although it was used militarily for thousands of years before, Julius Ceasar was the first to have the phrase “Divide and Conquer” documented as a political and military strategy. While humans have used the technique in battle and in politics, satan has been using it since the Fall. He loves division and the chaos and fighting that ensues. It’s been said that every time the Holy Spirit gathers Christians into a new Christian congregation, the devil builds his chapel next door. He likes being close to the action so he can drive a wedge between Christians and divide congregations. His ultimate goal, of course, is to break up the body of Christ but he’s content to start with one Christian. He’s a wolf looking for the lone sheep, the isolated Christian who is wandering by himself in the wilderness away from flock and Shepherd. Ask a rancher: there is nothing more vulnerable than the solitary animal away from the herd. Ask a pastor: there is nothing more vulnerable to crafts and assaults of the evil one than the individual believer all by him- or herself. He or she is easy pickings for the old evil wolf.

The devil’s strategy is deceptively simple – use your sin to isolate you. He does it one of two ways. He attacks internally. He tempts you to doubt that you are a child of God or that you are forgiven. He stirs up guilt and fans the fire of shame so that you begin to think God doesn’t want to have anything to do with you. What happens? You stop praying; stop hearing the Word, stop communing. At first, the change is so subtle you think it’s no big deal; you made it just fine through the week. Eventually it doesn’t matter to you any more. And the devil’s got you right where he wants you.  

If he can’t get you internally, he attacks you externally. Again the devil uses sin to get the job done. You sin against your brother; your sister sins against you. It may be something big that causes offense or, in my experience, something trivial that is taken offensively. Someone said something you didn’t like or did something you disapprove of. And then he stirs up anger and resentment and before you know it, you’re at each other’s throats. Or he puts this bug in your ear that things aren’t going the way you want them to go, and so you take your toys and go somewhere else. Or just stay at home so you don’t have to deal with “those people” anymore. And now you are in the perfect place for the devil. All alone in your own little world. Isolated from the flock, isolated from the shepherd. Just the sort of sheep a hungry wolf is looking for.

There were divisions within the Corinthian congregation. There was quarreling and dissension. There were disagreements. They were talking in terms of “we” and “they.” Some followed Paul, their first pastor. Others followed the smooth-talking Apollos. Others followed Cephas, Peter, the great disciple. Some even dared to boast, “I follow Christ,” as though they were the only ones who did. Those were likely the most dangerous ones of them all. There is nothing more dangerous than Christians who think they are more spiritually mature than everyone else.

Into all this nasty division, dissension, and party pettiness, Paul fires the arrow of his apostolic appeal. “I appeal to you, brothers, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree and that there be no divisions among you, but that you be united in the same mind and the same judgment.” Unity is the way of Christ and His Spirit; division the way of the devil.  

Every single picture of the church in the Scriptures is a corporate image. There is no notion of the isolated, individual believer. Nowhere is there a “Me and Jesus” image.  The church is a priesthood of priests. The household of God’s children. Spiritual temple built out of living stones. Even the word church is plural, “the called-out and brought-together ones.”

Later, Paul will use the image of a body with many different members. “We, though many, are one body in Christ, and individually members of one another.” A body consists of a variety of parts or members, each one different and serves its own special purpose. Head, shoulders, knees and toes, and all the rest. One is not more important or indispensable than the others. I had a man in my first church who lost his little toe to diabetic gangrene. I visited him before surgery, He thought it was no big deal; it’s just the little toe. What he didn’t know until after the fact, that little toe is key to maintaining balance and stride. He had to learn to walk again at 78 years of age.

God made the body to be an incredible wonder, and a body can function (more or less) without some of its parts, like an appendix or gall bladder or a toe, but not without a certain amount of hardship and suffering. But the parts cannot exist without the body and without each other. A severed toe or ear will die apart from the body. I had another man tell me that if the church is the body of Christ, he thought he was the appendix – useless, just taking up space, and no one would miss him if he left. My answer to him was, maybe (but I didn't think that true), but he certainly would miss the church. Parts of the body need each other in order to function. And they all need to be joined together as a body and not some random collection of individual parts.

If we are going to be guided by the Scriptures and see the church as God sees it through the lens of the Word, we need to adjust our thinking when it comes to the congregation. While we are many individuals of different opinions, ages, skills, perspectives, etc., we are all members of one body and members of one another. We share the same baptismal bath. We eat the same Bread that is the Body of Christ; we drink the same Cup that is the Blood of Christ. We are literally “bodied” and “bloodied” together in a unity that transcends our individuality. The church is much more than the sum of its parts.

One of the great heresies against the church is the notion that the church is a gathering of “like-minded individuals,” like a spiritual country club where people who agree with each other get together to agree with each other. That’s what political parties and social clubs do. While Paul urges the Corinthians toward agreeing with each other and be of the same mind and judgment, this is not what makes them the church. It’s the other way around. In other words, you don’t become a member of the body of Christ because you agree and have the same mind; you have the same mind because you are a member of the body of Christ. Unity is God’s doing, the work of the Spirit working through the Word, calling, gathering, enlightening, sanctifying, and keeping the whole church with Christ in the one true faith. God works unity. The devil, together with our own sinful natures, is what divides the church and isolates its members.

It’s tempting to think divisions are simply sins of church member against church member, Christian against Christian, one-on-one. Wrong. Divisions are sins against the entire body of Christ, the very body that was nailed to the cross to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under His lordship. To perpetuate division and discord is to be an instrument in the hand of the devil, to be the knife in his hand hacking away at and dismembering the body of Christ. You don’t want to be in that position, I assure you. If you ever find yourself referring to fellow members as “those people” or “that group” you need to stop, drop, and repent. You’re playing into the devil’s hands.

The antidote is not compromise or some phony version of “playing nice,” but the cross of Jesus. Paul squares the divided Corinthians up to the cross of Christ. He preaches “nothing but Christ and him crucified.” He literally holds before their eyes Jesus, dead, hanging on a cross, taking away their sins, rescuing them from sin, death, and devil. He holds Jesus against their division and says to them, “How do all your divisions stack up against this?” How do your cliques and quarrels look when viewed against the cross of Jesus?

We read about how the disciples bickered over which one of them was the top dog on the night Jesus was betrayed and we shake our heads over how silly they are. Didn’t they hear Jesus? Didn’t they realize what He was about to do? He was talking about His death on the cross, and they are arguing over which one of them is the greatest! We’re appalled by their lack of hearing and understanding, yet we ourselves do the same thing. We can go from the altar directly to each other’s throats in just a few short steps. The same mouth that eats and drinks the Body and Blood of Christ and sings His praises can curse and slander a brother or sister in the next breath. One body can quickly become many scattered members if left to our own devices, amputated by sin’s razor-sharp edge.

The answer lies in the cross of Jesus. Not the symbol but the fruits. In Baptism, where we die to self and rise as members of Christ’s body. In the Word that kills Sin and the sinner and raises up the Church. In the Supper where we partake of the one Body of Christ and are made the one Body of Christ. There are many members, but one Body. God does this, we don’t do it. God is doing this here too, among us. By the Word of the cross, which is utter foolishness to the world but the power of God for salvation to all who believe, we are being made one.  

You are one Body in the Lord. Baptized with one Baptism. Forgiven by one Word. Fed by one Body and one Blood. You are one in Christ. And when you agree with one another, and strive to work together and are united in mind and judgment, when divisions are healed instead of perpetuated, you are being the Body of Christ that you are.

In the name of Jesus,
Amen

 

Behold: Jesus is Baptized - Matthew 3: 13-17

 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

“Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John to be baptized by him.”

Why? Why does Jesus need to be baptized? John didn’t understand it. His baptism was for repentance, for sinners. We baptize for the same reason. You read it from the Small Catechism: “It works forgiveness of sins, delivers from death and the devil, and gives eternal salvation to all who believe this.” Lest anyone think Luther was merely playing in a water fountain, he cites the word of Christ: Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned.” In the gift of Baptism, water and word are combined by the power of the Holy Spirit to kill the old Adam, the old Eve, the sinful nature that is within each of us, and bring a new, spirit-filled child of God, to life. Baptism drowns; Baptism births new life; Baptism buries; Baptism raises.

John baptized sinners who were reptant because the Holy Spirit was at work through John’s message, but there stood Jesus, wanting to be baptized. John was right: Jesus is the sinless Son of God, the Lamb of God who has come to take away the sins of the world, but He is asking to be baptized? John argues that he should be baptized by Jesus, not the other way around; John realizes he’s not worthy of untying Jesus shoes, yet Jesus comes to him to be baptized?

Jesus says it is necessary to fulfill all righteousness. Isn’t that an interesting phrase, “to fulfill all righteousness”? If you were to chase the word “righteousness” through the Scriptures, you would discover that righteousness is not something that is demanded or commanded by God of His people. It is in fact that exact opposite: righteousness is a declaration, something given by God to His people. In the Old Testament, and especially in the Psalms, righteousness is the saving deeds of God that HE does on behalf of His people. The Germans have a wonderful word for this – heilsgeschichte – that loosely means the story of salvation. Over and over the story of salvation is grounded in the righteousness and saving acts of God. These are so closely related that it’s as if Jesus is saying, “Do this, John, to fulfill my Father’s plan of salvation.”

Jesus must submit to John’s baptism, not for Himself, but to save the very people John has baptized, that the Church has baptized, that have been baptized in this font. In that Jordan river moment, you see a picture of how Christ will save His people from their sins: He stands among us, with us, and for us. He takes our place, and in receiving the sinner’s baptism from John, Luther says it’s as if all of the world’s sins that have been washed away from us are washed onto Him. For us, Baptism is “a washing of renewal and rebirth by the power of the Holy Spirit, but for Jesus, that in that moment, “God made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us.”

This baptismal picture is a foretaste of what is to come. Jesus doesn’t stop standing among us, with us and for us when he leaves the river. He continues in our place all the way to the cross. Ultimately, that is where all righteousness is completed and fulfilled, where and when the innocent Lamb of God is offered as the once-for all, one-for-all sacrifice in the place of many. That is why it is fitting for Jesus to come to the Jordan and be baptized to – literally and spiritually – stand in the place of many.

Still dripping from the baptismal washing, Jesus climbs out of the water. The first word is “Behold.” That’s the Gospel writers way of saying, “Look at this! Pay attention! This is important!”

“Behold, the heavens were opened to Him and He saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming to rest on Him.” We speak of once-in-a-lifetime event; usually those are milestone firsts – a first kiss, a first step, a first child’s birth. This isn’t as much a first, but an end-times event: the heavens are opened, the Spirit descends as a dove. It’s as if the Father is answering any questions even before they are answered: “Who is this guy, and what’s all the fuss from John about baptizing him?” Jesus, who is the perfect Servant of God, having now received the Spirit of God, will perform the work of bringing righteousness to the nations, ministering to the crushed reeds and smoldering wicks – the repentant, contrite and faithful - remaining in Israel.

A second call, “Behold,” this time alerting us to the Father’s voice: “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The voice of the Father identifies Jesus as His Son. I think this is a bit of a Divine play on words here. Not only is Jesus God’s Son by virtue of the Virgin Birth conceived in Mary by the power of the Spirit, but He is also the entire summation of all of God’s people reduced into one. In other words, Jesus, the Son, embodies all of God’s people. Christ, the sinless Son of God, stands in the place of God’s son, the Church, that needs saving. The One who has come to be baptized in the place of sinners does so as God’s sinless Son by right, so that He can save God’s sons and daughters that are lost in sin. Jesus is truly the Son of God who fulfills all righteousness for His Father’s people.

Matthew used the word, behold, two times. Behold means to look at something, to see something, and to do so with great attention for detail. So, let’s do that very thing: let us behold what this means for us. Close your eyes for a moment: Behold! See Jesus, standing in the river with water cascading down his face. Behold! Look closely – look at features, face, hands, body. Zoom out just a bit. Behold! Do you see the Spirit descending, the dove alighting? Behold! See the heavens parting? Now, zoom back in at the face. Do you see Jesus? Now, I want you to let His face morph and change so that you see your own face. See your own face standing in the Jordan. Behold! Christ stands there for you! Behold! Christ stands in your place! Behold! Christ takes your sins onto and into Himself and, in your baptism, His holiness and righteousness is washed onto you. Behold! You are made holy. The transformation is so complete that – Behold! – as you look upwards, even with water dripping in your eyes, the heavens are opened for you. Behold, the Spirit of God comes upon you and delivers all of the blessings of God upon you, the baptized, creating, strengthening and enabling faith to believe these gifts of God. Behold! The Father speaks, this time to you, “You are my beloved, my Son, my Daughter, and with you I am well pleased.” Hold that picture, for just a moment.

Behold…  Now, open your eyes.

There is one unfortunate thing about your baptism: the water has long left your head. There is no tangible evidence that remains. For most of us, who were baptized as children, there isn’t even a memory. Yet, Baptism remains. It never needs to be re-done, renewed, or remodeled. The cleansing, saving water of Holy Baptism never evaporates. The sign of the cross, made on your forehead and over your heart, stands as a sign of Christ’s eternal victory. The water, once poured over your head, continues to give life. The Triune name of God, spoken over you, does not fade into history. Any time, every time, you doubt; any time, every time, you are repentant; any time, every time you feel the devil’s hot breath and hear his lying words; any time, every time you wonder, “Is Christ for me?” return to God’s promise in your Baptism. With the sign of the cross, with the words of absolution, with bread and wine, with the Word preached and read, Christ returns you to your Baptism.

Behold: the word of your heavenly Father: You are His beloved. With you, He is well pleased.

God Blesses with a Good Word - Numbers 6: 22-27

 

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The text is the Old Testament Lesson from Numbers 6.

True story…and, for the record, it wasn’t my wife or kids. 

A mom came to church with her two young kids, probably 2 & 4 or 5 & 3, something like that. They had done pretty well throughout the service, but I saw that the kids were about done and so was mom. After the prayers was the offering and, soon after that would be the conclusion of the service. While the offering was being taken, I saw that the mom was gathering her things and the kids toys, ready to head out the door as soon as possible. Then, just loud enough that I could hear, one of the kids shushed mom and told her to stop because church wasn’t done yet. The mom, slightly chagrined, stopped to wait for the service to finish. As the pastor turned and began to speak the benediction, “The Lord bless you and keep you,” one of the kids loudly announced, “Now we can go, Mom; the Pastor said depart down the aisle, first that side goes and then our side.”

For many, the words of the benediction aren’t much more than the signal that the service is mere moments from being done freeing worshippers for another week. Depart down the center aisle, this side first and then the other, indeed.

A benediction is much more than final instructions on how to leave a worship service. Benediction is a compound Latin word meaning “good word,” or to be a little less literal, a word of blessing.  That begs the question: what is a blessing? Of course, it’s used in church, but we hear it elsewhere, too. Ask someone how they are doing and you hear back, “I am so blessed.” You wonder what they mean, since you know they don’t go to church, but you’re a bit embarrassed to ask. It seems to be connected with wealth, wealth and happiness – people are blessed to get a new car or a nice home, or a good medical report, or when everything is going swimmingly. On the other side of the coin, you hear me say it in hospital rooms, “May I offer a prayer and a blessing?” Is a blessing just a fancy, pastoral way of saying “Adios”?

Benedictions and blessings deliver exactly what they proclaim. Specifically, in the Biblical context, through these “good words,” God gives good gifts to His people and empowers His people to act on His behalf with others. God’s blessings frequently invoke His name as He places it on His people. In the case of this benediction from Numbers 6, this deliver God’s name in triplicate. Where God’s name is, He is. Because there are several different blessings and benedictions in the Bible, this one from Numbers 6 is usually referred to as the Aaronic Benediction because, in context, God gave this benediction to Moses to deliver to Aaron and his family. As priests, they were to speak this benediction over the people of Israel. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel and I will bless them.”

It's also worth mentioning what a blessing is not. A blessing isn’t God accepting or condoning something. For example, God cannot bless an abortion clinic nor will He bless medical professionals doing such things; but He can and will bless those who gently, lovingly stand outside the clinic, pray for the women and unborn children entering, speak truthfully and lovingly to them, and seek to softly redirect them from committing murder.

So, what are these words God gave to Aaron? And, if they were to be spoken over the Children of Israel, why is it that the Church still speaks them today?

“The Lord bless you and keep you…” The benediction begins with the declaration of what this is – a blessing. This is almost an invocation with His greeting His people. It’s God’s promise. The verb, bless, is unique in its grammar; it means not only is the Lord blessing presently, but He will continue to do it every time this blessing is spoken. That’s how God’s Word works. When He says it, it happens. It’s not “May the Lord bless you,” as we might say in a prayer, nor is it “the Lord will bless you,” as Jesus says in the Beatitudes, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted.” It’s declarative: The Lord bless you. It is spoken and it happens in the immediate with an ongoing, continual gift. That sounds like it's just an academic exercise, but there is some wonderful theology going on here in this verb tense. It happens with God’s Word and we don’t even realize it. For example, in the absolution you received this morning, when God’s Word is spoken by the pastor, forgiving sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, you are forgiven immediately. Or, when the pastor speaks over a newly-wed couple, “I now pronounce you husband and wife,” that declaration makes it so. So, as the Benediction is said by Aaron and the priests of the Old Testament, or a Christian pastor in the New Testament era, “The Lord bless you,” the Lord continues to bless those who receive it in faith.

The blessing itself is most extraordinary. The Benediction is three lines, with two parts in each line. The first item in each pair deals with God’s engagement with His people. First He greets them, then He looks upon them with approval, and finally pays close attention to them. The second item in each pair covers the result of those engagements: keeping safe from evil, access to His grace, and the gift of peace and restoration.  Not merely a one-time gift, the gift is repeated by God each time His representatives speak it. And, each gift is connected with His Name. In our English Bibles, this simply says, The Lord, and the name Lord is printed in a unique way: with a large, capitol L and slightly smaller, subscript capitol ORD. Anytime you see this in an English Bible, this is the editor’s way of telling you this is the Divine name of God, Yahweh. This isn’t just some God, this isn’t any Cannanite God, this is Yahweh, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob speaking, the God who called Israel into existence as His people and gave Himself to be their God, the God who spoke to Moses from the bush and lead the people from Egypt toward the Promised Land, and He is placing His name, with the gifts the Name delivers, upon His people.

I have to wonder, though, what Moses thought as he delivered these words to Aaron, especially the Lord making His face shine and His countenance lift up on the people. This reading is from Numbers. Back up to Exodus for a moment. When Moses went up Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments, his one plea was to see the face of God, but God said that no one – not even Moses – could see the face of God and live. Sinful man cannot survive the sinless holiness of God. What God allowed was that He would pass by and Moses would be able to see God’s back – not God’s countenance, not His face; that would remain hidden. All Moses could see was God’s back. God’s countenance must be hidden from the eyes of man, lest sinful man be destroyed. So, did Moses wonder about this word of God? Did he wonder how on earth and when God’s people would ever see God’s countenance and live?

Today is known as the Circumcision and Naming of Jesus. On the 8^th day of His young life, Mary and Joseph took Jesus to the temple where He was circumcised and given His name. Circumcision was the mark of flesh that separated the people of Israel, identifying them as people of God. It was a physical mark that they had the name of Yahweh, the Lord God, placed on them. They were also given their name. Usually the name was a family name. In Hebrew, boys often named in conjunction with their father. Simon Peter, for example, is named Simon Bar Jonah, literally, Simon son of Jonah. But Jesus’ name was different. He would not be Something, son of Joseph. He was given the name of Jesus by the angel. Names mean things: Jesus means Savior.

If you want to see the countenance of God, the face of God, and live, then look no further than that 8 day old Baby whom Joseph and Mary obediently named Jesus. There, in flesh, was God dwelling with His people, becoming a human to live among and like us; remaining God so He could be sinless and perfectly resist the temptations we face. Later, one of Jesus’ disciples would ask of Him, “Show us the Father” – we want to see God! Jesus would reply, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” And, what the disciples saw, what the world saw, what you see is the love and mercy of God. Through His ministry, Jesus will continually show the Father’s countenance of grace as He restores sight, as He heals the lame, as He strengthens the weak. He shows the Father’s face as He looks into the eyes of sinners and calls people to repentance, as He proclaims forgiveness, and as He brings life to the dying and the dead. He reveals the Father’s countenance as His own baptism, where the Father’s voice thunders, “This is my beloved Son whom I love; listen to Him.” But the one place where you do not see the Father’s countenance through the Son is at the cross. There, having become sin for us, Jesus was so repugnant, so repulsive that the Father turned His back on His own Son who pleaded, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” The Father turned His back against the sin of humanity. That’s the opposite of a benediction, a blessing, a good word: a curse. The greatest, or the worst, curse of all is the curse of death and that is what Jesus received: death.

Through Jesus’ substitutionary and saving death, the world would again know the Father’s countenance through Jesus. On Easter morning, Jesus made His face seen again, speaking words of grace, peace, and mercy – first to Mary, then to the disciples journeying to Emmaus, then those in the upper room. Again and again, the resurrected face of Jesus showed the Father’s love for His own.

And, so there is no doubt of God’s countenance shining brilliantly and lovingly over you, just as God gave His name to Israel, He gives it to you as well – a name you know more fully and wonderfully than Israel ever did. To Israel, God was Yahweh, hidden in fire and cloud and behind veils. You know God as the Father, revealed in the Son, whom you know through the Holy Spirit. A mysterious Trinity, in that we will never fully understand this side of heaven, yet wonderful in Divine fulness. That Trinitarian name, foreshadowed over Yahweh’s three-part benediction to Israel, is delivered to you when you were baptized in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. As God’s people, we gather in His name and by His command. It’s repeated as we begin worship, when we hear sins forgiven, and when we hear the blessings of His Word read and preached to us. Over and over, in the Lord’s House, the name of God is spoken over us and we receive His blessings through His name.

But why, if we are New Testament people, who know God through Jesus’ live, death and resurrection, why do we leave under an Old Testament benediction?

In English, we call the 4^th book of the Bible, the 4^th part of the Torah, the book of Numbers. In Hebrew, the name of the book is actually Ba Midbar, “In the Wilderness.” It’s taken from the first sentence of the book, “Then the Word of the Lord came to Moses in the wilderness…” It’s in the wilderness that the Lord spoke the Benediction; it was in the wilderness that the people received God’s blessings. The wilderness was a difficult place then, and it is a difficult place today. To use wilderness as a metaphor, God’s baptized people, the church, continues to journey through the wilderness of this world, constantly under attack by the devil, the world, and yes, even our own sinful flesh. We should expect no less. When Jesus was baptized, literally with water still dripping off of Him, the Spirit lead Him into the wilderness to be tempted. We follow in His footsteps from the font to the wilderness. In the wilderness, we need the blessing, the Good Word, the benediction of God. So, God delivers His blessing to us. The Church is the New Israel. We receive the same blessing as did Israel of old, from the God whom we know more intimately and fully through Jesus by the power of the Holy Spirit. And the blessing still does that which God said it would do.

It does mean that it is time to go, but not merely go home. We go as His people with His name is placed on us. He sends us from this place out into the wilderness, armed and protected, sealed, covered, and baptized in His name. He pledges to bless us and keep us in His love. He promises to place His Divine pleasure upon us, to look upon us favorably with grace and forgiveness. He promises to look upon us with peace. Amen.