The Grandeur of God

"The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious to you! The Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace!" Numbers 6:24-26

Here is the prayer that the priests of Israel would pray over their people. We can claim this for ourselves because Jesus is our High Priest. So this is my prayer for you and me for a blessed 2025! 

This blessing is the oldest known biblical text that has been found. Amulets with these verses have been unearthed in graves dating from the First Temple Period. This is how God instructed Moses for Aaron to bless the Israelites. 

During the Old Testament times, only adult males descended from Aaron could perform this priestly blessing. But as Christians, we are all priests by virtue of baptism, and we can give this benediction to each other!

These words can be so familiar to us that we can take it for granted. However, if we study the original Hebrew, the blessing would read like this:

“Yahweh will kneel before you presenting gifts and will guard you with a hedge of protection. Yahweh will illuminate the wholeness of His being toward you bringing order and He will beautify you. Yahweh will lift up His wholeness of being and look upon you and He will set in place all you need to be whole and complete.” 

Isn't that amazing? Why should the Lord, King of the Universe kneel before us? Quite absurd! But not if we realize He is our Father who loves us. When we were small, our daddies would kneel down before us, go down to our level, to talk to us. When our dad saw us approach, his face would light up. So does our God appreciate it when we approach Him and spend time with Him. 

For the start of this new year, let us claim this blessing for ourselves and those close to us! Like a little child, let us greet this brand new year with excitement, without fear or anxiety, because our God is in control. He is our Father, and we can expect Him to kneel down, and smile, hold out His arms, and show us His favor! 

Here is an excerpt from Ronald Modras’ “Ignatian Humanism”  which reads:

“…we can have an experience of union and familiarity with God no matter the distractions of our work or the banality of our lives. Here is the basis for finding God not only in all things but in the flurry of everyday life. Nothing human is merely human. No common labor is merely common. Classrooms, hospitals, and artists’ studios are sacred spaces. No secular pursuit of science is merely secular. Like Ignatius after his experience at the Cardoner River, we see things differently. The world is charged with the grandeur of God.”

Indeed, if we find God in all things, even in the distresses and banalities of every day life, truly we will see the grandeur of God. 

Thank You Father for favoring all creation with a ceaseless, relentless flow of blessing and grace. For being with us in our ordinariness and ultimately uniting us with You in splendor. 

A blessed 2025 to you all!