The benediction, the Latin word benedictio, meaning “blessing.” is God’s good word to us. The practice of the pastor pronouncing God’s blessing upon God’s children originated from the old covenant blessing of God found in Numbers 6:22-27. When God rescued His children from their slavery in Egypt He brought them to His Holy Mountain to dwell with Him. There at Mount Sinai, God organized His band of rag tag slaves into a nation under God’s power.

To help His children learn how to have an interactive personal relationship with their God, our Lord commanded Moses to build a Tabernacle where God would dwell and to place that tent of meeting in the center of God’s people.

God then commanded that all of the dwelling places of the people were to be organized by tribes based on the twelve children of Jacob and the doorway of each tent was to face the tabernacle.

God did this so no matter where the person’s tent was located, each day when the people arose and stepped out of their tent, they encountered the presence of God. Everywhere they looked; they could see the Tabernacle and know God was with them.

The Book of Numbers tells us that after God had organized his people in this way, the Lord commanded Moses to tell Aaron and his sons how they were to bless God’s children. God said. Tell Aaron to say to My people: “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 with favor and give you peace. In this way the priests will pronounce My name over the Israelites, and I will bless them.”(Numbers 6:22-27)

This blessing was to be pronounced upon God’s people every morning. The priest would raise his hands and form the letter “shin”, which is the first letter of the last word of the blessing – shalom (peace.) In this posture of peace the priest’s hands were empty sot the people could see that God was holding no weapon against them as He pronounced His blessing of peace upon them.

In the words of the Benediction God pronounces His final word to us just as we are about to leave this sacred place and go back out into our broken world. In this blessing, as we hear, “May the Lord make His face upon you and be gracious unto you.” we hear our Abba Father telling us that, because His Son, Jesus came to die for us, we are no longer under His judgement, but instead we are living under His grace because we are the objects of His love.

My dear friends in Christ, the benediction is not just random words some scribe wrote down one day because he thought they sounded good. The Benediction wasn’t written by Peter, or John, or the Apostle Paul because they thought we needed to be placated with empty promises. No the Benediction is our weekly reminder of God’s holy announcement that our whole life is covered by His grace.

For, we live in a world where things are uncertain and each day we know there are a myriad of tragedies that could befall us at any given time. So when we hear the sweet words of the Benediction spoken over us each week the Holy Spirit comes to remind us that no matter what may happen in your life, whatever set of circumstances we may face each day, we can be confident is our knowing that the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ will be with us. Jesus Himself stands before us and using the voice of the pastor says to us, “My grace is sufficient for you.”

Our Lord Jesus assures us that He will hold us, sustain us, and enable us to find joy and peace in our times of trial. In the Benediction Jesus says to us, “I will keep you! I will cause you to persevere to the end!” Jesus assures us He is with us always to the end of the age; Jesus will never abandon or forsake us; Jesus will never leave us alone to fend for ourselves! This is God’s Word to you in the benediction. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with you.