Numbers 6:22-27 | Trinity Sunday | May 30, 2010
We hear these words spoken at the closing of almost every worship service. In fact, the speaking of this benediction, this blessing goes back thousands of years. You just heard the words our Lord wanted Aaron and his sons were to speak over God’s people. 24The Lord bless you and keep you; 25the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; 26the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.
Well ever since that time, in the tabernacle and temple, in the synagogue services of the Jews, and in the churches of the New Testament, this blessing has been spoken over the people.
It may have been spoken over you hundreds, if not thousands of times. With that comes a danger. The danger that it becomes just words that close out the service. How many times have we been thinking of something else when those words are spoken.
But they are precious words to be treasured.. So let’s take some time to appreciate this benediction so we welcome it when these words are spoken over us.
It also turns out to fit quite nicely with this Sunday of the Church year – Holy Trinity Sunday. You see, the Christian church is sometimes accused of coming up with a new teaching about God. My Jewish friend Jim would say that. But look carefully at this benediction. It more than hints at the divine mystery we call the Trinity. That’s why I say to you this day:
GO HOME BLESSED BY THE TRIUNE GOD.
I. He reveals himself as the Three in One God.
II. He comes with a three-fold blessing.
My Jewish friend is totally correct when he says there is one God. It couldn’t be any clearer than these words spoken by the prophet Moses: Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. (Deuteronomy 6:4). Yet when we listen to God describe himself, we see something that goes beyond our understanding. This one true God is three persons. The Lord Jesus taught this very clearly when he sent us his church to baptize in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. In few short verses of our gospel lesson for this morning, Jesus names those three persons again.
And this was not something new. More explicit yes, but nothing new. God revealed this long before to his Old Testament people. God is One, yet more than one person.
Look at this blessing the Lord commanded. The LORD…The LORD…The LORD. Three times the Lord’s name is used. Now if that was the only place the Lord spoke this way about himself, we really couldn’t say that much. Yet even in the first book of the Bible, Genesis God said this. Let us make man in our image, in our likeness. If God was only one person, he we would have said, Let me make man in my image.
Then think of the vision the Lord gave his prophet Isaiah. Isaiah was going to have a tough assignment so the Lord wanted him sure of his calling. He saw the Lord seated on throne with awesome angelic creatures calling to one another. What did Isaiah hear? Holy, Holy, Holy is the Lord Almighty. Again one, yet three.
Years ago there was a Lutheran missionary to the Jews in New York City. His name was Nathanael Freedman. He had been a Jew himself before becoming a Lutheran pastor. He used the Old Testament to show his fellow Jews that the true God is three in One. He also showed them that the ancient Jewish teachers believed that there were three persons in God. For every pious Jew begins his day with this prayer: Hear O Israel the Lord our God, the Lord is one. One Jewish rabbi who lived a short time after Jesus, said this: “There are three names mentioned here. How can three be one?
You and might say the same as that Rabbi. How can 1+1+1= 1? Well they don’t in math class. But when it comes to the Lord, three are One. That’s what the Lord tells us about himself in his Word. And God does not lie. And so we confess this mystery in the Athanasian Creed, the Father is God, the Son is God, the Holy Spirit is God and yet there are not three gods, but one God.
Well this blessing of the triune God was given long ago to speak over God’s people. And here all these years later, God comes to you in these words. He comes to you with a three-fold blessing. So when you go home, know this. You go home blessed by the triune God.
The Lord bless you and keep you. This first blessing reminds us of God the Father. He made us. He cares for us and protects us. Only a few of us now can remember living through the depression. Times were very tough. Many were out of work. My grandfather lost his hardware store. But my mother also told me this. We always had what we needed. We ate stew instead of roast. We ate the moldy bread at times that nothing should go to waste. But we ate. The Lord provided as he promises.
And God the Father protects us. The Bible says, He will command his angels concerning you, to guard you in all your ways. A man once told me how he and his wife were driving on the interstate. They both fell asleep and woke up on the side of the rode, the car turned off, mystified how they got there. The Lord bless you and keep you.
Yet things don’t always turn out that way. The Lord does allow tough times to come our way. Things that tear us up and leave us down. Yet here I think of the lady who told me she was grateful for her heart problem. She saw how the Lord used it to bless her. She told me how the Lord made even that work for her good. For that too is the Lord’s promised blessing.
So when you hear, the Lord bless you and keep you, know this. This is not some kind wish. It’s not even a prayer. For what does the Lord say here? I will bless them.
So go home blessed by God the Father. He will bless you as you go about your work, even if that work is finding a job. He will bless as you face those problems. He will care for you and meet all your needs.
Yet when we think of our sin, when we think of how often we have broken God’s commands, we realize that we don’t deserve one good thing from God’s hand. Not even a morsel of blessing. Yet this benediction continues. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you.
It’s pretty amazing. If God would treat us as we deserve, his face would never shine on us. Rather he would turn his face away in anger. But when all these sins are washed away by the precious blood of Jesus, God turns to us in his grace and love. So we see that this is a blessing that comes to us from God the Son. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. For that could only happen because Jesus went to a cross where God laid on him all our sin and turned his face away from his own Son instead of us.
So as you leave this church today, know this also. You go with the blessing of God the Son. In fact, Jessu goes with you. For he has promised never to leave you. And he walks by your side with the same love and devotion that moved him to lay down his life for you.
For today we remember those who have lost their lives serving us and our country. And I don’t mean to diminish that in any way. Yet God the Son didn’t lose his life. He laid down his life for you. So that now his forgiveness covers you. It covers every sinful stain on our life. His forgiveness covers you so that when this life is finished you will see the Lord face to face where he will shine on your forever.
Finally the benediction says: The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace. This is the blessing that God the Holy Spirit brings – peace to our souls. For it’s the Holy Spirit who brought us to faith in Jesus. It’s the Holy Spirit who came to our hearts in the gospel so that we believe that Jesus is our Savior from sin and death. And when we have this faith that knows we are God’s forgiven children, we have the peace that surpasses all understadning. We have that peace that can rise above all the hurts and troubles of this life. A peace that could bring a man named Jeremiah Denton through a horrible ordeal in a Vietnamese POW camp. He had that peace A peace that says to our hearts, no matter how things look, all is well. IN Christ all is well, even when our body is broken.
This is the blessing that God the Holy Spirit gives as he comes to us in Word and Sacrament. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace.
How wonderful then to hear the words of this benediction. For if we believe and understand what God says to us here, we will know that these are not just some words to end the service. And these are not the words of some man. These are God’s promised blessings. Hear them. Treasure them. Know that you go home today blessed by the Triune God. Amen.