Category: Benediction

Humble Yourself

After going through my recent foot surgery and hospitalization, an old praise song from the 1970s started going through my head. The song*, based on James 4:10, begins with the words:

“Humble thyself in the sight of the Lord . . .”

The song’s message seems appropriate for a number of reasons, all centered on how my recent hospital experience has humbled me.

  1. I was humbled by the nature of hospital life. It began with what they euphemistically call “a hospital gown.” As far as I can tell, they must have bought them at a half-off sale,  because they were, well, half off. The backs were missing, as were the supposed ties to hold my gown together. As a result, my backside was visible to all who unfortunately looked in my direction. Not that I was embarrassed, but I’m sure the staff ran to eyewash stations after every visit to my room. Add to that the times the staff would come  in while I was using my bedside “jug,” and you get the idea.  The ultimate was when they had to shave a hitherto unshaved area of my body for my angiogram. I gave up my last shred of privacy, and pride, as the trimmer went to work. Hospital stays are humbling because there is no privacy whatsoever. You are at your worst, and the least presentable possible. Any illusion of pride gets carried out in the first bed pan.

2. I was humbled by losing control of the situation. Normally, we control what happens to us. We decide on something, act on it,  arrange our surroundings to please us,  dress as we wish, eat what we wish, and go where we want. We are in charge of our lives (right?). Although I kept control of how I reacted to what was happening, I lost control of everything else that was happening to me. I was told where to go, what to wear, what to eat, when to wake up (every two hours for blood work or shots), what was done to my foot, what medicines to take, when I could go home, etc. I was totally dependent on a team of other people who made decisions for me. I depended on them to know and do what was best for me, and depended on them to tell me what I now need to do to heal. Considering what can happen to any of us at any time, I was reminded that our idea that we control our own lives is an illusion. Things happen to us that we do not control; we do the best we can to manage what is in our control, but we cannot boast in our health, prosperity, or life situation. Ultimately, God is the one who is sovereign over our lives. He brings down and lifts up; he heals and sets the number of our days, and he redeems us beyond any ability of ours to add or subtract. As Jesus said in Matthew 6:27, “And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life?” It is humbling to give up control to other people, and humbling, but proper, to relinquish control to God.

3. I was humbled by the change in roles. As a pastor, I was the one visiting people in the hospital, hearing about their illnesses, praying with them, and hopefully giving them comfort and encouragement. I was the hero, the rescuer, who rode in on my mighty steed (sometimes my wheelchair) to bring them the Church’s loving concern and God’s blessings. Though I truly cared for each person, I felt good to walk in as their pastor, usually in my collar, doing the work that God had called me to do. Then, after each visit, I could leave and go back home. But now, things were different. Now, I was the one in the hospital bed undergoing surgery. I was the one suffering a physical ailment, lying there, hoping to heal. Only now, there were no visitors allowed, even Karen or my pastors. I lay there, understanding better how many of our members had felt over the years, feeling fear for their health and hoping someone would come to visit them. Over the years, I  should have done more.

Though humility is not our desired condition, nor natural for us human beings, humility – the condition of being humble – pleases God. Scripture is full of passages teaching that we should be humble before God and toward our fellow human beings.

Toward God:

      1. As above: James 4: 10, “Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord . . .”
      2. In Daniel 10:12, an angel who appears to Daniel  says to him, “Fear not, Daniel, for from the first day that you set your heart to understand and humbled yourself before your God, your words have been heard, and I have come because of your words.”
      3. In 2 Kings 22:19 and 2 Chronicles 34:27, God hears the king of Judah’s prayers because “your heart was penitent, and you humbled yourself before the Lord.”
      4. Proverbs 16:18 warns, “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall.”
      5. “For though the Lord is high, he regards the lowly, but the haughty he knows from afar.” (Psalm 138:6).
      6. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matthew 5:3).
      7. Psalm 147:6 says, “The Lord lifts up the humble; he casts the wicked to the ground.”
      8. In Isaiah 66:2,God proclaims, “But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.”

Toward each other:

      1. Jesus told a parable that we should not seek places of prestige over others, but approach them humbly: “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honor, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person,’ and then you will begin with shame to take the lowest place. But when you are invited, go and sit in the lowest place, so that when your host comes he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at table with you. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” (Luke 14:8-11).
      2. Paul wrote in Philippians 2:3, “Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves.”
      3. 1 Peter 5:5 says, “Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for ‘God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.'”

Humility before God and each other is only right, because the greatest and most exalted person of all eternity, the One whose Name is now exalted above every name, humbled himself by coming into the world as one of us, to die on a cross and save us from our sins (Philippians 2:5-8). So how can we be prideful? Who are we compared to him? What have we done, compared to him? What teachings should we follow regarding our attitude except those in God’s Word?

Humility is right, and it shouldn’t take a stay in the hospital or half of a hospital gown to check our pride and bring us back into line with what God desires. And when we do humble ourselves in the sight of the Lord, James 4:10 concludes with the promise found in the rest of that 70’s song: “and he will lift you higher and higher.”

Now may the Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read:  Philippians 2:3-11; James 4:6-9; Matthew 8:4; Matthew 23:12.

*Humble Thyself in the Sight of the Lord, (c) 1978 CCCM Music (Admin. by Brentwood-Benson Music Publishing, Inc.).

Say to the People

If you’ve been reading my blog for any time at all, you’ve certainly noticed that I close each time with a benediction that starts with, “May the Lord bless you and keep you . . . ” And if you attend church, you’re familiar with that benediction, because we always close our worship services with the pastor saying those same words.

But why those words, and not something else, like “Y’all take care now,” or “See you later, alligator!” or “That’s all, folks!” or even some other actual biblical parting phrases, such as, “May the Lord watch between you and me when we are absent one from the other” (Genesis 31:49)?

That’s the question a pastor named Mal, who was visiting from Australia, asked me one Sunday morning after the service. He knew the answer, of course, but was curious what I would say. I could have told him, “Because that’s what’s written in our book of worship for us to say,” but I knew he was probing deeper: he wanted to know what I thought about why we use that particular benediction. I answered, “Because that’s what God told us to say,” and he smiled in agreement.

God indeed did give his people that blessing. In the book of Numbers, we read,

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying,”Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, ‘Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, “The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.”‘ So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them” (Numbers 6:22-27).

n 1979, archaeologists excavating a tomb near Jerusalem discovered two small silver scrolls that recorded this priestly blessing. The scrolls were dated to the 7th century B.C., making them the oldest written Scriptures found so far.

Because the Lord commanded that Aaron and his sons give that blessing, it is called “The Aaronic Benediction.” That’s its origin; but why do I choose to use it, other than by force of habit from 22 years of pastoral ministry? I’ll get to that in a moment, but first, let me share some thoughts I have about the benediction itself.

1. What is a benediction? The word comes from two Latin words bene (good) and dictio (speaking), so a benediction is a good saying, or speaking something good, a blessing, to someone. The opposite is malediction (bad speaking = curse). This use of these words can be seen in Luke 6:28 where Jesus tells us to “Bless those who curse you”; the Latin version reads, “Benedicite maledicentibus vobis.” Or, as I would translate it, “Benedictize those who maledictize you.”

2. Second, notice who created that blessing: God himself. It was not just some nice-sounding greeting that Moses or Aaron thought up to score points with the people; rather, God himself composed and commanded the  actual words of the blessing. This makes it a “God-authorized” blessing.

3. The text says that “the LORD” gave the command and included “the LORD” in each part of the blessing. When the word, “LORD” is written in all capital letters in English, it signifies that the original Hebrew word was YHWH (Yahweh), the four-letter word which signifies the revealed and personal name for God. Modern translators follow the Jewish tradition, which substituted LORD for Yahweh in the reading of the text, to avoid the possibility of using God’s name in vain. But the text shows us that God is putting his personal identity into his blessing. It’s not some vague, impersonal “May the Force be with you” kind of well-wishing; God has invested himself and given his personal promise of good for his people.

4. The command was given to Aaron who was Israel’s first high priest, the one authorized to offer sacrifices to God for the people, and to proclaim God’s forgiveness in turn back to the people. Therefore, he was the one to properly proclaim God’s blessing on his people. The Book of Hebrews in the New Testament teaches that Jesus Christ is the new and final high priest forever, the one who offered himself as the sacrifice for our sins, and who proclaims to us forgiveness of our sins and eternal life. In Christ we become God’s people (whether Jew or Gentile) and receive God’s own benediction. By faith, all believers become God’s priests, and therefore we are authorized to pass on this special benediction to each other.

5. The blessing proclaims that God will bless you and keep you. To bless is to pronounce and deliver good for someone; to keep is to watch over, protect, and save from bad or evil. When we pray in the Lord’s Prayer, “deliver us from evil,” we are basically asking God to protect and keep us from danger, from death, and from “the evil one,” or Satan himself. While everyone is susceptible to earthly dangers, hardships, and death, God’s promise and blessing is eternal, for he will never leave or forsake us (Hebrews 13:5) and nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:38-39).

6. To make one’s “face” to “shine upon you” is to be present with you, to look upon and see what you are going through, and to be favorably disposed toward you. It denotes power applied in your favor and to your benefit: for example, in Deuteronomy 4:37, Moses tells the people that God’s face brought them out of Egypt. The phrase is paralleled later in the benediction when it says, “The Lord lift up his countenance upon you” (or “look upon you with favor”). Hebrew often uses parallel statements for emphasis, as we do in our mealtime prayer, “God is great, God is good . . .”

7. God says he will be gracious, which in ancient times meant be will be protective and will include you “in the camp,” that is, where food, shelter, and the tabernacle (God’s presence) were found. As Christians we recognize that we too were lost in the desert until God, by his grace, delivered us, and brought us by faith “into the camp,” that is, into Christ. In him we have provision, safety, and God’s presence. As Lutherans, we understand the distinction between God’s Law (what he commands and what we must do, and what the consequences of our sin will be), and Gospel (what God has done for us to benefit us); in fact, the entire benediction is a Gospel message. There is nothing in it that requires anything from us nor that warns anything against us. It is pure blessing that announces from start to finish what God will do for us. Even the act of giving this benediction to Aaron was a sign of God’s grace. Sure, God gave plenty of laws in other places, but here he tempers it with merciful grace (as per Habakkuk 3:2).

8. The benediction concludes with, “and give you peace.” Most Christians and Jews recognize that the word here translated “peace” is shalom. While the Hebrew word can be a pleasant word of greeting or parting (sort of like aloha in Hawaiian or wassup? in American slang), and mean the opposite of war (milchamah in Hebrew), its full meaning is much deeper. To wish someone shalom is more than hoping they don’t get drafted. It means absence of strife, but also contentment, joy, well-being, wholeness, and so on. You are wishing them safety, security, soundness and health. All told, shalom is a powerful blessing that extends to every area of life, including one’s relations with other people and with God himself. The wonderful blessing here, is that the God of the universe wants all this for you!

Earlier in this blog I said I would tell you why I use Aaron’s benediction at the end of my articles. There are several reasons. First, it is a God-ordained way of blessing his people. Second, it was something I said thousands of times as a parish pastor, and I felt the connection with what the Church has proclaimed in God’s name ever since it was given some 3500 years ago. Third, it keeps me from having to come up with my own ending each time! But fourth, primarily, it is because I am actually praying and asking God to extend his blessings to you, for your benefit. As a priest of God (by faith, rather than by official ordination), I am reminding all believers who read my blogs of the gracious promises of God fulfilled in Jesus Christ for them. And for non-believers who may happen across one of my articles, I want them to know there is a God who has done everything for them, that they may have the joy of knowing true shalom through faith in the only one who can make it possible, Jesus Christ, or Lord. I want to say to the people, what God wants them to hear.

For all these reasons, I therefore pray for you:

The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Amen.

Read: Numbers 6, Hebrews 4:14-5:10, 7:23-26, Isaiah 9:6, Romans 15:13