Living Benediction: The Lord Make His Face to Shine Upon You

Todd Hunter latest book Giving Church Another Chance gives us a brief look at the Aaronic blessing of Numbers 6 that should be the direction for our daily actions and motivations. Bishop Hunter's responses are rich but brief. Taking the opportunity to expound upon them should help us practice them to the fullness of what lies at the core of the Benediction. For the next several blog posts, we will look at one of the six clauses, Hunter's response and the depth and practice of that part of the blessing. We looked at the first clause last week and the second yesterday.

"The Lord make His Face to Shine Upon You"

Bishop Hunter's explanation: "May you sense the favor of your Creator God, that he is pleased with you."

Talking About It

I think the reality here is that this parallels with the favor of our parents, except on a significantly grander scale. Consider how proud we are of the work that we create, whether it be Lego or Playdoh as children to projects in school, all the way to theses, dissertations and work accomplishments. Creating is an incredible source of pride for humans. We are often please with our own handiwork.

Expanding that to God, imagine the joy and pleasure He must feel looking down on Creation (our own messing-up of it notwithstanding). And sensing that he is pleased with You and I as individual parts within that Creation should, at the very least, strike us with awe.

Practicing It

As reflections of Christ, we too must reflect the Creator God and his favor onto our neighbors. This doesn't mean, of course, wholesale acceptance of behavior (we're not expected to applaud murderers, for example) but that God does love us and made a sacrifice for all of us. We're no better/worse than the persons next to us. We're expected to reflect the Glory of God in what we do, and part of his character is the joy he takes in his creation. Do we do the same?