Numbers
The beginning of
a new year is an exciting time. It is often considered a new start. You can
resolve to do something to better yourself.
It's exciting. Who knows what will happen in this coming year? This could be the year you actually follow
through on your resolution. This could be the year you finally get your big
break, or break that bad habit.
But at the same
time, this sense of not knowing what will happen in the year ahead can be a
little frightening. At this time, much of the upcoming year is a matter of
uncertainty. So it is very appropriate that at the beginning of the year of
our Lord 2004 we consider something very certain. In Numbers chapter 6 we
hear the blessing of the Lord. Here we see that the blessing of the Lord
is
II. It gives God's name to us.
The words God gives to Moses to give to Aaron are very familiar to us. They are
known as the "Aaronic benediction," which
we use at the end of most of our services. This morning we will be using the
other benediction, the Pauline, or apostolic blessing. But most of the time we
gather here these are God's parting words to us, his blessing to us as we go on
our way.
That
is exactly the reason why this blessing is a blessing we can count on. It's his
blessing. The words of this benediction emphasize that very well. "The LORD
bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face
shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace." By repeating his name three times the LORD
reminds his people that he is the one who would bless the Israelites,
not the people who lived next door or their gods. Even their own hard work or
their own merit would not bring such blessings. God was the one who would give
every good thing--if they sought blessing from someone else,
that was idolatry. God gives all blessing. "The LORD bless you and keep you."
The Lord repeats his own name to do more than simply impress on us who is
blessing us. He does it to reveal his name to us. His name is more than a title
or a form of address. God's name is
everything that he is. The LORD wants to demonstrate to us who he is and in so
doing assure us that we can count on his blessing. He is "the LORD...the
LORD...the LORD."
The
Israelites were familiar with this name of God and what it stood for. In Exodus
34, God announced to Moses what this name stood for, "The LORD, the
Lord, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and
faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness,
rebellion and sin." Throughout the Old Testament Scripture, this name
of God is used to describe a God of love, of faithfulness to his promises. The
LORD desires to bless his people because he is the LORD, the God of free and
faithful grace.
But we don't actually need to go very far to find out what this name means. The
rest of each of the phrases expand on this same idea. "The
LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face
shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give
you peace." Notice God does not say, The Lord might bless you, or he
could bless you. Rather he simply states that this is what will happen. This is
what God does. The Lord blesses you because he is the LORD.
In these words, in the threefold repetition of the name of God, it is easy to
see an indication that God is three in one--triune. And so most people divide these verses into
three parts and say that the first part deals with the work of God the Father,
the second of God the Son, and so on. That's probably a
helpful division, but for now let's just consider the two kinds of
blessings we receive from God: physical and spiritual.
The
LORD is a God who blesses his people with everything they need for their body
and life. In his explanation to the first article of the Apostles' Creed, which
talks about the blessings God gives us by creating and sustaining all things,
Martin Luther wrote "all this God does only because he is my merciful
father in heaven and not because I have earned or deserved it." Even our physical blessings comes to us because of who our God is--gracious,
and merciful.
Beyond
this, these verses make it known what spiritual blessings God promises to give.
"the LORD make his face shine on you and be
gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you and give you peace."
I wonder if the Israelites were ever surprised to hear these
words. They knew that God was a just God who had given them strict demands on
how to live their life. They knew that they had not come close to keeping those
commands. Maybe it would have been more appropriate for God to speak as he says
in Psalm 34 "the face of the Lord is against those who do evil." Every sinner deserves wrath from God. He deserves to have God look at him in anger.
But instead, the Israelites heard that God's face does not bring harm, but
good. God's attitude toward them was not
one of anger or opposition, but a friendly face, a forgiving face.
In
these words God revealed his name to his people. That is, he told them who he was and what his
attitude was towards them. He is the LORD, the God who blesses his people with
physical and spiritual blessing--not because they've earned or deserved it, but
simply because of who he is.
But
when we consider God's name-who he is, we must also
consider the name given to the Christchild eight days
after his birth. This name really stands for the same thing as that Old
Testament name, but the name given to this child shows us how God, the LORD
could be gracious to us. The only way God could look on us with favor and give
us peace was the one who was named "Jesus"--Savior. He is the one who
would receive God's angry face and suffer the wrath of God. Because Jesus lived
up to his name we have blessings we can count on. We have favor before
God. We have peace with God.
In
the words of the benediction God makes it quite clear that he is the one who
blesses. The LORD is the subject, the one who acts to bring blessings upon man.
But notice what God says to Moses, "Tell Aaron and his sons, 'This is
how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:'" Even though the
LORD was to give his blessing, by revealing his saving name to
In
the benediction God gives his blessing by revealing his name. Yet he entrusted
men to "put his name" on them. Through the priest's words (which were
actually God's words) God promised to give to the Israelites the benefits of
the name that they proclaimed. The words the priests spoke were not merely
words of well-wishing, but words from God that gave God's name to his
people.
It
appears that this blessing was intended to be repeated. It was to be a blessing
that the priests would speak to the people on a regular basis, perhaps even a
number of times per day. Apparently, it was not enough for the Israelites to
hear this blessing once. The priests were to put the LORD's
name on them over and over again. The reason was not that they didn’t have
God's favor before or that it would somehow run out. The reason was not because
the LORD or his attitude toward them ever changed.
But
they changed. They were sinful people who would forget the LORD and his
promises. They were sinful people who needed to be reminded that they should
seek their blessing only from the LORD and not from themselves. They were
sinful people who needed to be reminded who the LORD was and what the LORD
does. They were sinful people who faced temptation, discouragement, and even
despair. They needed God's name and his
blessing.
Once
and for all God has demonstrated to us that he is the same LORD who gives us
all blessings. Once and for all, God broke into human history, "when
the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman, born under law, to
redeem those under the law." (Gal. 4:4) Through Jesus' birth, life,
death, and resurrection, God's face shines on us. Salvation is won. Peace is secured. In our own lives, the moment we were
converted--for many of us it was at our baptism--God put his name on us.
Yet
we live in a sinful world and are plagued with a sinful nature. To us God gives
us his name repeatedly so that we may have blessings we can count on. When our
sins seem to much for us to bear and maybe too much
for anyone to forgive, God gives us his name when we hear "I forgive you
all your sins in the name of the father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit." When the blessings of life
seem far away--when they all seem to be in the past, or somewhere in the
future, or perhaps they're just not by us; when sadness comes, when loneliness
comes, when hardship comes--then comes the LORD bringing to you his name "The
LORD bless you and keep you."
God
promises that by putting his name on us, by reminding us of who God is, what he
has done, and what his attitude is towards us, God actually blesses us. So these words are more than a wish. They are more than wishing someone a Happy
New Year. Because these are God's own words, they have the power to do what
they say.
When
you hear from your fellow Christian or from your pastor in church "your
sins are forgiven." They are
actually forgiven. And it's not that
your sins weren't forgiven before. But Jesus tells us plainly that when you
hear the words it is as good as if Jesus has spoken them to you himself. Your
sins are forgiven. So too, when you hear
these words of benediction, "The LORD bless you and keep you."
God is actually giving you his blessing, the same blessing you had before. But he gives it so that no matter what this new year brings, no matter what life brings, God's blessing
may be a blessing you can count on. And you can, because he has put his name on
you, and continues to give that name to you every time you hear his word
proclaimed to you.
I
do wish you a happy new year. But I
don't know what this new year will bring. I can wish
lots of things for you, but if I were you, I wouldn’t count on my wish. In
God's word of blessing, which he gives to us, he reveals his name to us--he
tells us who he is. In it he also gives his name to us. So, on this New Year's Day, let me announce
to you something you can count on, no matter what happens this year. The
blessing of the LORD--"The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make
his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face toward you
and give you peace." Amen.