Mar 5 2021 Day 35 Numbers 5:1–7:89

The LORD bless you and keep you; the LORD make his face to shine upon you, and be gracious to you; the LORD turn his face towards you, and give you peace.



This is a blessing I’ve heard for years in church settings. It’s frequently accompanied by a priest raising his hand towards the congregation, and offering the sign of the cross, as the blessing is offered. It’s been nice, but not spectacular.

Today, reading this section of Scripture, I’m reminded that these words are recorded in the book of Numbers, amongst other really boring bits. Finding it felt like coming upon a beautiful perfect rock on the beach, after walking for miles amongst boring, monochromatic pebbles. I was both surprised to find this pearl and surprised that it had previously grown old to my ears.

Clearly, I’m not a biblical scholar, or I would have known the source of this blessing. I’ve never claimed to be one. I’m not remorseful in any way about that, but it is nice to spend a year reading through the Bible to place all of these pearls in their respective shells, or at least know which shells they came from.

Clearly one cannot do the same thing for 56 years without it eventually feeling old, whether it’s hearing the same blessing, or kissing your spouse good night. How is it that we keep things new, or at least continue to marvel at the sometimes mundane things in our lives that are actually spectacular?

This Blessing actually provides insight for what I need. There’s a contemporary Christian song originally made famous by Kari Jobe called The Blessing. During these months of the pandemic, The Blessing has been recorded throughout the world in living rooms and hallways, with socially distanced symphonic accompaniment, in Hebrew, in New Zealand and by children.

The first time I heard the song was in a video made as an ode to New York, in response to the social injustice of the summer, and the crushing impact of COVID. One hundred churches coordinated to record and the parts were compiled beautifully. As the video states in response to all of this turmoil, “But the Church rose up united to lament, listen, learn and lead in this crisis”. The music, the images, the message, it made me weep. I sent the video to my son who normally lives in Manhattan but was in England trying to go to college while quarantined. He wept too.

I’d seen images of NY. I’d seen choirs singing during the pandemic. I’d heard the words of this blessing. But put together in this new way, in this new context, it was brand new and to me overwhelming.

So today, coming upon the old and tired words, they were infused with new images, new meanings, and a new sense of weight.

This morning, I’m thinking about how I need to occasionally break out of my norms, to see things in a new light. I will likely always be a liturgical worshipper, but I love contemporary Christian music, and sing loudly, in the car and in my office. Each one can make the other new, and richer, just by mixing things up. Whenever things are feeling old and tired, particularly scripture or spiritual practices, I need to remember that the things just need to be looked at from a different perspective, a different tradition, a different background. The Lord bless you and keep you.