Blessings are God’s gifts and can be material or spiritual, while to bless is to speak God’s presence into a person’s life. Over the past few years, I’ve met people who’ve feel as if God has forgotten them, or is angry with them. It often feels like we live in a time more filled with curses than blessings, and as times have become more difficult, they feel like they’re falling further behind every month. They wonder how they can get back into God’s good graces and experience better times again. They’re expressing a feeling that’s not uncommon, even in biblical times: that if times are hard, it means that God’s unhappy and holding back his blessings.
They look at Abram whom God promises to bless, and then look at people whom Jesus offers blessings to, and wish God would bless them. The Lord offers to bless Abram, “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.” The Lord’s putting into action a plan to redeem and restore all creation, beginning with this old couple. This promise of blessing comes with fears. The blessing is powerful since Sarai is barren and children are a great blessing, but in the culture of Abram’s time, one of the big fears of people was to die away from home, away from your land and being forgotten. This is likely one of the reasons why Joseph, years later, asks for the people to bring his bones back to the Promised Land when he dies instead of being buried in Egypt.
Abram and Sarai choose to trust in the Lord and his promised blessings. They leave family and friends behind and leave for the land and blessings promised to them. The Lord does bless them as they leave everything familiar behind. This doesn’t mean everything was easy. In the Bible, those who God uses in his plan of redemption often find life becomes harder than expected. They face opposition and a life spent as nomads in this new land without a true home. Becoming a great nation begins with a false start and an Egyptian slave girl and a great deal of grief for everyone. About 24 years after leaving Haran, Sarai gives birth to a boy. Many of the promised blessings lay far in the future, after their deaths. It takes trust and faith to wait for the blessings to work their way out through following generations; sacrificing today for the generations yet to come.
God’s faithful to Abram and Sarai’s descendants, making them into a great nation. They experience both blessings and hard times. They know they’ve been chosen as God’s people; however, they often forget the second part of the blessing given to Abram, “I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” God’s chosen them to reveal to the nations who God is and how God calls us to live with him and each other. God blesses Israel with the Torah, all the laws given at Mount Sinai, including the 10 Commandments, to help them be a blessing to all people. They’re blessed to be a blessing, to reveal to the nations who God is.
We see a God who makes promises to his people, promises to impact all people. We see a God who keeps his promises even when his people fail to live into those promises. We encounter a God who remains present with his people, guiding them, chastising them, and allowing the consequences of their sinful choices to open their eyes and guide them back to him. God reveals himself as a jealous God, jealous for his people, for their faithfulness to him alone, a God who refuses to share his people with other gods. He's a God who punishes and forgives, a God who continues to bless and be with his people.
Hard times doesn’t always mean that God’s angry with us, or ignoring us. Often hard times come because, as God’s people, we don’t fit with the gods of our times. We’re not exempt from the hard times that all people face, like economic downturns, pandemics, natural disasters, wars, or poor government. We can trust that God’s with us through it all. The lack of the experience of blessings doesn’t mean a lack of God, sometimes it’s merely silence; it may also be that we don’t recognize how God is blessing us; many blessings are smaller daily moments, sometimes easily overlooked.
After many years of silence, an angel appears to a young woman who tells her, “Greetings, you who are highly favoured! The Lord is with you.” A new chapter in God’s relationship with the world is beginning, a new level of blessing is here. This young girl is Mary, the mother of Jesus, the Son of God; the one through whom God is going to bless all people; the promised Messiah who has come to save all his people, working out his plan of redemption as shown to Abram, “all peoples will be blessed through you.” It’s a great blessing to be the mother of the Son of God, but it comes with a soiled reputation for becoming pregnant before marriage, seeing her son rejected, watching Jesus die. Mary understood that those whom God uses in his plan of redemption often find life becomes harder than expected and accepts it.
Matthew records Jesus beginning his ministry by preaching, teaching, and healing people throughout the area of Galilee, and begins calling a number of disciples to follow him. These are the people in the crowd as Jesus preaches his great Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Jesus understands the people, having spent time with them, seeing and hearing what’s happening in their lives. He begins his great sermon with blessings for regular ordinary people; he sees them and their hearts, reaching out to bless the people in their places of need. The beatitudes are, as Dallas Willard writes, “explanations and illustrations, drawn from the immediate setting, of the present availability of the kingdom of heaven through personal relationship with Jesus.”
As Jesus looks out over the crowd, he recognizes the poor in spirit, those who are drifting spiritually, who you would never think of asking when it comes to spiritual things or knowledge, to say a prayer, or lead a Bible study. Many experience church as just religion, often feeling unseen or unknown by God. Jesus sees them and blesses them with a place in the kingdom of heaven, letting them know that God does see them, that they do belong and hears their often-quiet spiritual desperation. Jesus sees those who are mourning. They may have lost spouses, children, oppressed, or are struggling; so many things to mourn over. Jesus blesses them, revealing the presence of the kingdom of heaven. He sees the meek who never stand up for themselves and let others walk over them. Jesus blesses them with inheriting the earth in the kingdom as they’ve never been strong enough to claim it for themselves here. Jesus looks out over the people and sees those who burn for things to be right, to be the way they’re supposed to be. It may be that they know their own hearts and want to be who they’re supposed to be, or perhaps they’ve been wronged and want justice and Jesus blesses them in the kingdom of heaven with the fullness of righteousness.
Jesus recognizes the merciful, knowing how they are often looked down on because they’re not tough enough, but Jesus assures them that they’ll be shown mercy in the kingdom. The pure in heart, those who recognize how unpure they themselves are and turn to God to wash them whiter than snow, they’ll see God. Jesus sees the peacemakers and how they’re often not really trusted or respected by either side and he blesses them by calling them sons of God; maybe an echo to Jesus being the Prince of Peace. Then there are those who are persecuted because they stand for what’s right. We know that this can often be dangerous, but like the poor in spirit, Jesus offers them a place in the kingdom of heaven.
Jesus sees us and our hearts and reaches out to bless us where we most need his blessings; understanding our need for his blessings, having lived in difficult times, with difficult people. Paul recognizes God’s blessings even in suffering in his second letter to the Corinthians, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God.” Jesus is the source of our comfort and blessings, he’s with us through the difficult and joyous times, encouraging us through the Holy Spirit, equipping us to walk with others and letting God’s comfort and blessing flow through us. Jesus’ greatest blessing to us is found in the cross, in forgiveness and adoption as children of God, and a place of belonging in his kingdom. These blessings call for a response from us to be a blessing, using our life experiences to bless others, pointing to the presence of Jesus. In being a blessing, we also experience God’s blessings.
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