Sermon of the Month - February 2009
Old Testament Hope – 1: Blessing
(Readings: Genesis 12:1-9; 27:18-40; Numbers 6:22-27.)
Introduction
We live in a subjectivist world, but the Bible proclaims an objective God, an objective truth, an objective morality. But we live in a subjectivist world, a world where people say that beliefs – moral beliefs and religious beliefs as well as others – are a matter for the subject to frame. In a word, when it comes to religion in particular, the prevailing attitude today is that religion is a kind of hobby, a hobby for those who like that sort of thing. And we Christians they see as pursuing one variation of this hobby. That at least has been the mood during the multicultural 1990s. Since about 2005, a new wave of evangelical atheists have been loudly campaigning that religion – all religion – is made of the same stuff that inspired Osama bin Laden to order the murder of thousands of people on 9/11. These new atheistic campaigners tell the world that all religious people are a danger, and they only fall a little short of saying that we ought to be suppressed.
We as Christians claim there is truth, and that the truth about ‘life, the universe and everything’ (to coin a phrase) is to be discovered through Jesus Christ, and a relationship with God through him. But it is more than an intellectual truth; it is also a practical truth – that in relationship with God through Jesus Christ, we know God in life-changing experience, we experience in our lives the truth of Paul’s exclamation to the Corinthians, which, translated literally runs: “If anyone is in Christ – new creation!” As we saw this morning, salvation through Jesus is far, far more than simply expressing intellectual agreement with the Christian message: it is turning to Jesus, and finding that Jesus saves us, turning our lives around from mess to brilliance!
But the non-Christians of our day assume that what we are about is expressing odd feelings and opinions. All the hostile atheists add to that is that while they also think our faith is a ‘subjective fantasy’ they say it’s worse; that religious people are as as anti-social as drug addicts, that we need anti-religious ASBOs! But at least that begins to repitch the debate where it ought to be: what difference does faith in Jesus actually make in real lives. Atheists admit that faith changes lives. They just get the nature of that change wrong. The truth is that real faith in Christ brings light into the world, changing people and socieites for the better.
Nicky Gumbel in his famous Alpha course tells of an American G.I. in one of the South Sea Islands turning his nose up when shown a Bible which the Islander treasured. “Oh we gave that up years ago!” the G.I. sneered. “Well it’s just as well we haven’t given it up,” replied the Islander: “But for this Bible and the change it’s made to our people, we would have cooked you and eaten you by now!”
Jesus changes lives and societies. And it’s no accident that the drive for education, health and learning, not to mention respect and compassion for people and even democracy, have grown apace in that part of the world most influenced by Christ, and then by those places affected by that influence.
We live in a subjectivist world, where people proclaim God is just a feeling, but the Bible shows a God who changes people’s lives, and lives of whole nations.
Tonight we start a new series in which we are going to look at various expressions of this biblical experience of God at work. You might think, from what I’ve said, that we would be looking at the New Testament and what it shows us of what God gives us in Christ. But the New Testament continues and completes what God has already started doing in the Old Testament. So over these next few weeks we are going to share in some aspects of biblical hope in the Old Testament. And tonight we start with something foundational: blessing.
1. God blesses Abraham, and us through him
In Genesis 12:2 God promises to Abraham (who’s still named Abram at this part of his story), I will bless you. That is the first promise to Abraham. But what this means for him is spelt out by the phrases that come before it and after it: I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great... God’s promise to Abraham is more than just feelings. He does not promose that as Abraham worships him, we will feel a great sense of release, he will feel a great man, or even that he will feel great about his future. This is a promise about the real world: that Abraham will be the father of a numerous people, and that people will not be a footnote in history, they will be a great nation. Four thousand years on and despite that attempts of Adolf Hitler, or the swaggering rhetoric of his current successor, Iran’s Ahmedinajad, the children of Abraham continue. God fulfilled his promise to bless Abraham not simply in giving him great feelings during wonderful times of worship: he fulfilled his promise in real space and time in the real world.
But that’s not the only promise to Abraham here. Verse 2 ends: and you will be a blessing; and verse 3 ends, and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you. As far as I am concerned this is fulfilled through Jesus: Jesus, the descendant of Abraham, Son of Man and Son of God, the Messiah, crucified for us and raised by God from death has told his followers to go into all the world, and proclaim the good news. And that is what has happened, 2 billion people or thereabouts claim the name of Jesus as Lord, and follow Jesus, and know the God of Abraham through Christ, rather than the old pagan gods, or the new secular idols. All nations are blessed with the knowledge of God. The call, the commission, the challenge continues, and some nations are of course far more resistant to the gospel than others. Our coffee bar behind the sanctuary has a poster showing the 50 countries with greatest restistance to the gospel, and unsurprisingly North Korea and Saudi Arabia head the list. Pray for those who turn to Christ in such places and face threats of torture and death. But despite all the resistance, the gospel wins through, and all nations receive God’s blessing given originally through Abraham, and now given to us.
2. Isaac’s Blessing
We are perhaps very familiar with the story of Jacob and Rebekah tricking the ageing Isaac into blessing Jacob instead of Esau. At the human level it is a memorable story of domestic skulduggery, and shows us that the themes of the soaps go back 4,000 years too! Maybe we are so familiar we overlook one very instructive, intriguing and even challenging feature of the story. Let us switch our attention from the colourful characters for a moment, and focus on the blessing itself. As far as all four are concerned: Isaac and Rebekah, Esau and Jacob, Isaac has the God-given ability to convey a real blessing to one son. And it’s not based on Isaac’s intention, it’s based on what he actually does. He intends to bless Esau, but he is fooled into blessing Jacob. And according to the Bible the effect is that Jacob does actually receive this blessing. He may not deserve it; the man blessing him did not intend it; but he does receive it. Isaac has blessed Jacob and he cannot unbless him, he cannot retract his blessing. See the anguish of Esau as he pleads for a blessing: Bless me too, my father! Isaac can bless, but only within the limitations of what he has already blessed. He can’t unpromise the blessing of God.
What does this mean? It doesn’t mean that Jacob is immune to problems, least of all problems from Esau. That’s certainly how Jacob and Rebekah take it. If we read the chapters that follow, first of all we see Rebekah guide Jacob to flee. She will never see her favoured son again. If you are looking for short-term immediate satisfaction in blessing you see the exact opposite. Blessing does not mean immunity from problems, and it does not mean immediate short-term well-being. Many, many years later, decades later, having married Leah and Rachel and now having eleven of his future twelve sons, and one daughter, he prepares to return home, and the narrative shows just how petrified he is of the possible violent response he might get from Esau. In fact in one of the moving reconciliation stories of the Bible his fears are not realised, and the two brothers are to a considerable extent reconciled.
But even this is not the fuilfilment of the blessing. The blessing is long term. It is through Jacob and his descendants (the nation of Israel) that God’s promises are to be fulfilled, not through Esau and his descendants (the nation of Edom). Edom became a great nation too; but in the end, Israel continued, while Edom faded into history.
3. The Aaronic Blessing
What God’s blessing of Abraham, and Isaac’s blessing of Jacob shows is that the Old Testament hope expressed in the promise of God’s blessing, is not a matter of feelings but of God acting in accordance with his promises. And the blessings express the promises of God.
But where does this affect us? Where do we enter into this world of God’s blessing?
For this we move forward to the most famous blessing of the Old Testament, perhaps of the Scriptures as a whole: the blessing Aaron is instructed to give to bless God’s people in Numbers 6:24. These words are of course familiar: 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 towards you and give you peace.
But it’s not just that these words of blessing appear here, they express a profound sense of God’s blessing, which became the characteristic expression of blessing. A few years ago archaeologists found a metal tablet – made of silver if I remember correctly – and dated to about 900 B.C. with these words of blessing on them. Already these words were recognised as special. This is, as far as I am aware, the earliest datable archaeological find with words of the Bible on them. The earliest writing on parchment or paper-like materials amongst the Dead Sea Scrolls and the rest goes back at most to 200 B.C. But these words were so special they were preserved in this way nearly 3,000 years ago.
From everything we have seen, these words are far, far more than the expression of a religious pageant, of feelings of well-being and the rest. Blessing expresses the delight of God to bless, and we are to bless one another. It is an expression of prayer and more.
One final thought. In the New Testament, in that memorable occasion, as Mark tells us, people wanted to bring their little chuildren to Jesus to have him touch them – and Matthew adds, and pray for them. But as we know the disciples assumed this trivialised their busy master’s ministry. Yet when Jesus discovered this he was outraged, and demanded they let the children be brought to him, telling them they must learn to become like little children towards God. And he took the children in his arms, put his hands on them and blessed them. Why did these people – mothers in the main no doubt – want to have Jesus touch their children? Not for a family photograph! Matthew’s talk of prayer makes their intention clear. And Jesus’ act, recorded in Mark, of blessing the children shows that Jesus recognised their full intention: as Isaac blessed Jacob, can this man, who touches the eyes of the blind so they see, the dumb so they speak, the deaf so they hear, the leprous so they are cleansed, and even the dead, so they are raised, can this man who clearly blesses also bless my child? And Jesus demands that his disciples and we hear that his answer is the firmest of Yeses.
In Jesus we hear and receive the blessing of God. And through his Spirit we are called to bless one another in return, in the same Spirit of Jesus. Pray for one another, bless and do not curse. Pray for those who might seem insignificant, bless, seek the blessing of God’s Spirit in through and amongst his people.