Blessed by the Triune God

Some Bible passages people just know. Most of us can recite the first line or two of Psalm 23. “God so loved the world” would rate up there, too. Because of our familiarity with the worship service, some rather obscure Bible passages have lodged in our heads, like, “the peace of God that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4.7).” But there’s one passage which everybody knows. It’s almost as eagerly anticipated as the umpire shouting “Play ball!” For many it signifies the service is almost over. For others, it is the clarion call to get ready to live the faith outside the walls of the church. It’s the Old Testament benediction and today we want to look at it on Trinity Sunday to see how it shows were are
Blessed by the Triune God.
1.The Father keep us (24).
2.The Son bless us (25)
3.The Spirit give us peace (26).
The Lord instructed Moses to have Aaron, the high priest, and all the members of his family who would succeed him, put the Lord’s name on the people for a blessing. It is a three-fold blessing, with that special name of God, the LORD. The LORD expresses God’s saving nature. This is the God who promised sinful human beings a Savior from sin, kept promising that Savior in spite of man’s wickedness, kept working on that promise of a Savior when we appeared to be doing our darndest to fight against that promise, and finally fulfilled that promise of a Savior when he sent his Son to die on the cross as payment for our sins and raised him to life again on Easter Sunday to show us we were really forgiven. Everything was right between us and God. That’s the LORD.
Now, for that three-fold part of the blessing. It certainly hints that there is a three-fold nature to our God, because God, the creator of language, does not waste words. The three-fold repetition is significant. From the rest of the Bible we know there is God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit. Just look at Jesus’ command to baptize in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, the same words we use as an invocation at the beginning of the service. Though there is only one God, our God is three (what should we call it)—persons. These three persons are not the same, like it could be the same mom who is mommy at one time during the day, wife another part of the day and employee another part of the day. They are different, but united in purpose, intent and action. God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit is our Savior God.
Now let’s see how each person of that Trinity blesses us.
“The Lord bless you and keep you.”
We think of God the Father as the Creator. The one who brought us into being and the one who keeps this world going. He’s like the young, good-looking dad teaching his toddler son how to walk. He’s always holding our hands high above our heads, supporting our weight and giving us the forward momentum so we can put those white baby shoes one foot ahead of the other with a big smile on our faces as our baby brains are thinking, “I’m walking.” Yup. We’re walking. All the Father has to do is let go of our hands and “We’re falling.” He doesn’t let go of our hands. “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you (Deuteronomy 31.6).” Not in good times and not in bad times. Not in the labor and delivery room, not in the ambulance. Not in life and certainly not in death. I will be there always for you and I will save you from everything and anything you need saving from.
That’s what God the Father is promising each of us every Sunday. With God the Father by our side, we can’t fail. Heaven is guaranteed. What could you do if you knew you couldn’t fail at something? The sinful human nature says we’d coast. We’d take it easy. We’ll come out on top anyway! That’s not the way it works. A few of our members here know of a young man who has never lost a race. I think his nickname is Zerk. At the state track meet, he got his toughest competition ever. Zerk was worried sick before the race. He had never been beaten. He wanted to remain unbeaten in his high school career. Coming around the final turn he was getting beaten as the northern Nevadan runner was running the race of his life and was about to beat the second fastest high school runner in America. Zerk dug deep, pulled out all the stops, lunged across the finish line and collapsed into a pile of arms and legs. I don’t know if he broke his sunglasses or not. He won. Because he knew he couldn’t fail, he gave it his best as every champion will. And as every Christian will. We will give God the Father our best every day, because we can not fail.
“The Lord make his face shine upon you and be gracious to you.”
Since this is Hebrew poetry, the same idea is expressed in two ways. When God the Son makes his face shine on us, he is blessing us with his grace. Grace is his undeserved love. Grace means you and I didn’t deserve to have Jesus die on the cross for us. That’s what the Apostle Paul says. “For a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5.8).” We were not the good man Paul talks about, the good man that somebody might die for. We were still sinners, the evil people that nobody would want to die for. Yet, Jesus died for us.
“Make his face shine on you,” has an interesting, military history. War was a lot more personal in ancient times. After a great battle, the ancient king, who had fought side by side with his men, would line them up and personally greet them. Those who did well in battle would be proud and be looking him in the eye. He would smile on them, give them a big bear-hug and reward them. Those who did not do so well in battle would hang their heads in shame that they had let down their leader. A tyrant would slice off their heads. But not a benevolent and generous ruler. He would put his hand under their chin and lift their face up, so they could see him smiling at them, forgiving them and encouraging them to do better next time.
All the times we have sinned against God, we should hand him our heads on a platter. But that’s not how God the Son works. By his death he did away with the guilt of our sin. No punishment awaits us. We can look our Savior in the face and be happy.
“The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”
We can see this last part of the Old Testament blessing as talking about the work of the Holy Spirit. The Spirit is the one who gives us that peace of forgiveness by making it our own through faith.
Good News isn’t good news until you receive it and believe it. I think it first happened to me while waiting to see a member at the Desert Springs ICU. They are very fussy about their visiting hours—15 minutes on the even hours (but don’t quote me). And I’d think it was on the odd hours, so I would wait in the second floor ICU waiting room. It was grim. Families there, not knowing whether their loved one would make it through or not. One time a doctor in scrubs came in the waiting room. Almost. He was stopped by a nurse at the door. They were quietly discussing something. There was only this other family in that big room, over in the corner on the other side, and me, by the door with my Bible on the table. It turned out he had good news to give the family, but the look on their faces before he turned his face to talk to them, a small smile on his face, showed fear, anxiety, terror. After just a few words peace and joy fell over them.
The Good News isn’t good until people receive it and believe it. That’s the blessing of the Holy Spirit gives to us, that he turns his face towards us to create that faith and trust in the Good News of sins forgiven. And through this blessing the Holy Spirit, we have a peace which knows no end, a peace that minor (and major) setbacks in life are not going to remove. “Peace I leave with you,” Jesus tells us. “My peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid (John 14.27).” The Holy Spirit makes that peace ours now and forever.
Every Sunday, in these ways, we are
Blessed by the Triune God.
1.The Father keep us (24).
2.The Son bless us (25)
3.The Spirit give us peace (26).
And when we hear it later on in the service, maybe it will mean even more to us. Certainly more than “get ready, church is about over.”