Here is my sermon
from New Year’s Day based on the Aaronic Blessing from Numbers.
“The Lord bless
you and keep you; the Lord make His face
shine upon you and be gracious to you; the
Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”
Move
One: Blessings for the Journey
We have arrived.
Where? Well, physically you have
arrived in hard wooden pews. We have arrived at the time of worship where I get
your undivided attention for twelve minutes.
Spiritually, we arrived at the manager.
We have lit candles, sang about the Christ-child and welcomed him again
into our homes and lives. Yet, most of
the world is celebrating that we have arrived at a new year. 2012 has arrived. And whether or not we would like to repeat
2011 or prefer to go a bit further back in time, it’s here.
It seems weird to me that on the beginning of a new
year, at the arrival of 2012, our Old Testament reading is a benediction, a
blessing, a sending that has been used for centuries in Jewish and Christian
communities alike. Why such a reading at
the beginning of the year?
A closer look will reveal that for the Israelite
community, this blessing was giving at both an end and a beginning. The Israelites has been camped at Mt. Sinai
You see, although we see this blessing as the
ending of something, it is really the beginning of something else. It is not merely the close of our worship
service time, but a blessing for the journey of the next hour, day and
week. Just as it was for the Israelites
who would be leaving the relative comfort of Sinai, so it is for us who are
going to leave the relative comfort of a brick sanctuary for the “wilderness”
that is our world. So on second thought,
perhaps this reading is the best way to begin 2012. We leave 2011 behind, moving forward. What
could God possibly have in store for God’s people this year? If the scriptures are any indication…more
than we could dare, ask, dream or imagine.
Move
Two: Getting My Nerd On
This blessing is not only given to us, as
Christians on our journey, it was and still is an important part of the Jewish
community. Continuing in the great
priestly tradition of Aaron, Moses’ brother, our Jewish brothers and sisters
revive these words at the close of their worship as well. And just as pastors often raise their hands
to offer the blessing in our congregations, rabbis do the same…but their hands
look a bit different.
A little like this.
I know. I know what you’re thinking. Danielle, that isn’t from the Jews. It is from Star Trek. It is from a little bit of both. Leonard Nimoy, who played Spock on Star Trek,
took the Vulcan hand greeting from his days growing up as an orthodox Jew. Nimoy shares that receiving that blessing
from his rabbi as a child left quite an impression on him. When a hand greeting was needed on Star Trek
he knew just want to do.
So why? Why
does this blessing come with such spock-like greeting?
The Jewish community is known for what is called
Midrash. It is a form of interpretation
and explanation that allows the scriptures to shape each other and for filling
in gaps. In the Song of Songs, it talks
about the lover, God, looking upon his love through a lattice. And so the blessing was mediate in the
way. As if the lover behind a lattice
was speaking it through a small space in the fence to his lover.
It is a beautiful image, but one that begs a bigger
question. Why through something? Cannot
God just come to us?
Move
Three: Christmas Morning
The Israelites wondered the same thing. In fact, in Deuteronomy, which is the book
just following our reading this morning, they are as bold to ask, “Can’t you
just come to us? Do we need a priest in the middle?”
In the echo of the Israelites question and our own
human wondering about God’s willingness to come, we have Christmas. The in-breaking of God, the coming of the
Christ child. The answer to the
question.
Can’t you just come to us?
Yes!
And it changes everything. I can’t help but think that it is why the
shepherds went with haste to the manger.
Before they would need to go to priest or the temple to encounter, to
receive God. Could it be true that they
could see God for themselves? See the
face of God not through a small hole in a latticed fence but full-on, radiant
and with their very own eyes. In fact, Luke makes a point to note that they
went from the manager praising God for what they had seen—with their own
eyes.
Think about that for a moment. God—the creator, sustainer and redeemer of
the planet—has come to you. God is not
far off, kept at bay by a fence or mediate through a human, God comes to you, into
our mess, God is our Emmanuel, God with us.
Why does this matter?
Because we are not a people of faith who serve a
distant, disengaged
God. We are
not a people of faith who serve a God that only loves some and remains distance
from other. No. We serve a God who uses humankind to share
blessing, but God’s spirit is alive and on the move in each kind word spoke,
each hopeful promise, each act of justice.
Can’t you come to us?
“I have,” answers the voice from the manager. “I am here.”
Move
Four: I Verb You
So what does our ever-present, real and near God
blesses us with?
The Lord bless you and keep you…To bless testifies
to the work of God. It signifies a
divine gift. To keep is specific
blessing given to those with concerns for safety, focusing on God’s sheltering
people from evil and its effects. As the
Israelites were entering a new season of wilderness wandering, the words “keep
you” where likely more needed than ever.
Can you hear the Christ child whisper, “My dear
one, to whom I’m so close, I will bless you, I will keep you”?
Or perhaps you are hearing the Christ child
whisper, “I will make my face shine upon you and be gracious to you?”
God’s shining face stands in stark contrast to the
hidden face of God that many of the Israelites, and us, have felt throughout
our journey. One commentator
added, “You get to see God's face glowing, not glaring! This is a
gracious move on God's part to those who are undeserving. Moreover, the whole
world is brought into view to experience the effects of God's shining
face. In today's idiom, we might say:
God smiles on you.”
The Christ child whispers
once more, “the Lord lift up his countenance upon you, and
give you peace.”
This is perhaps the
hardest to believe and yet the most precious part of the blessing. In a violent world, peace seems a utopian
wish. Yet, the Lord offers it again to
us each day. The Lord gives peace,
shalom, that hopes that all creation will be at rest in God, one another and
with ourselves. This peace is not
man-made but passes all human understanding.
People of God,
welcome to the end of one journey and the beginning of another. As you journey through 2012, may you know
deep in your being that the Christ child has come. May the Christ child do more than sit on a
shelf in a nativity scene, may the you allow the Christ child to animate your
daily life, the Spirit of God to infuse your words and fill your actions with
love and justice. As you leave the
safety of this brick building, may you be buoyed by the blessing of God and
enter the wilderness of our world with boldness and fearlessness. And may you remember, that God is not fenced
into merely peering through a lattice at his loves, but right here, in our
midst.
