God Puts His Name on You

“The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in the knowledge and love of God, and of his Son Jesus Christ our Lord; and the blessing of God Almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be among you, and remain with you always. Amen.”

These are words of blessing, spoken over the people near the end of the service, before they are sent out.

Notice what the blessing is not. It is not advice. It does not say, “Go and find some peace this week.” It does not tell you to try harder or to muster serenity from somewhere inside yourself. A blessing is not good advice. It is good news.

The trinitarian half follows the Latin blessing of the Roman rite, “Benedicat vos omnipotens Deus, Pater, et Filius, et Spiritus Sanctus” (“May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit”). What Thomas Cranmer and his fellow compilers did in 1549 was set something in front of it. They placed Paul’s words from Philippians, written from prison, ahead of the older blessing.

When the blessing is given, it is not a wish. It is a covenantal act. The pattern goes back to Numbers 6, where God gives Aaron the words his sons are to speak over Israel. What is striking is what God says afterward. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them” (v. 27). When blessing, presbyters and bishops add nothing of their own. They speak God’s name over the people, and God does the blessing. The words are effective not because of the one who says them but because of the one whose name they carry. That is why a blessing can be spoken by flawed priests and bishops over flawed congregations.

The words of blessing are indicatives, not imperatives.

Hear the first line again. “The peace of God, which passes all understanding” (Phil. 4:7). Paul writes this from a prison cell. The peace he names is not the absence of trouble, not a feeling you manufacture. It surpasses understanding precisely because it is not anchored in your understanding, not in how well your week went, not in how strong your faith feels at a given moment. It is peace with God, secured by the finished work of Christ, and it stands guard. The word Paul uses is a military one. This peace garrisons your heart and mind like soldiers at a gate.

You do not keep it. It keeps you.

And the blessing does not leave that peace anonymous. It names God as he is: “the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.” Almighty God is Trinity. The peace you are given is not an impersonal calm. It is the life of the triune God turned toward you. The Father who planned your salvation, the Son who accomplished it, the Spirit who applies it and dwells in you, all of it, “among you,” and “with you always.”

Guilt says you have not done enough to deserve this. Shame says you are not enough to belong here. The blessing answers both, and it answers them from outside you. It comes as a promise, spoken over you, grounded in Christ.

Then, and only then, the people are sent. The Book of Common Prayer gives four dismissals:

• Let us go forth in the name of Christ.
• Go in peace to love and serve the Lord.
• Let us go forth into the world, rejoicing in the power of the Spirit.
• Let us bless the Lord.

Every one of them is a command. Every one of them comes after the blessing, never before it.

The order is the argument. The people are not sent out to go find peace. They are sent out under a peace already given. The blessing provisions them for what comes next, and that is Monday. And whichever dismissal is used, the people answer the same way. “Thanks be to God.” Gratitude is the response to a gift, not to an assignment.

So receive blessing. Let it be placed upon you. And then live in gratitude under the shadow of Almighty God’s blessing.

The peace of God keep your hearts and minds. The blessing of God Almighty remain with you always. Amen.

This article first appeared at www.justinholcomb.com.