THE BENEDICTION

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26904, 16 October 1948, Page 2

THE BENEDICTION

ITS MEANING AND VALUE

For the Daily Times By the Rev. Gardner Miller

There is no more familiar part of a religious service than the pronouncing of the benediction. Even the Lord’s Prayer is less familiar for it is frequently omitted but the benediction is sacred to the close of every gathering for worship. I am positive that very few people really understand what it means and why no service is considered complete without it. I think it is said far too often; there is no need for the same people to hear it twice a day—and sometimes oftener. If it were not used to the point of being abused I am sure many worshippers would begin to ask for it and thus express a desire to know what it means. As it is, most people bow their heads and listen to a group of lovely words being spoken (for the most part) far too hurriedly and then leave their seats feeling that something mysterious has been asked and—maybe—given. With the benediction as well as with many other expressions and beliefs of our Christian religion there is great need for explanation; for the present generation, such of it as bothers with church, is quite out of touch with (indeed is quite ignorant of) most of the ideas and their interpretations which are common to older people. There are several forms of the benediction used, but the one that is simplest, to my mind, is “And now may Grace, Mercy and Peace, from God the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, rest and abide upon you, now and for ever more.” I rather think that many people feel that it is the reference to the Trinity that makes the benediction, frankly, meaningless. He would be a very bold man who would make any claim that he could explain the Trinity. It is beyond human explanation, and therein lies the basis of our understanding of the term. For it is only a term. Tne human mind cannot comprehend God, and it is most certain that there are not three Gods, as the benediction seems to imply. There is only one God, but the benediction expresses Him in His theefold activity as Father, Son and Spirit. In the days when the forms of the Christian religion were being moulded it was very necessary for this threefold definition of the Godhead to be cast. Do riot ever allow yourself to be tied up with definitions, for definitions are very terribly limited, but simply take God for granted, and your mind will open -to His varied approaches to you. The benediction, then, is simply something about God that is said to us when parting from one another. Threefold Bounties And what is that something? It is that we may know and, therefore, to have, God’s wondrous bounties. And these bounties are threefold. The first is grace. I wish I could tell you all that grace means. All that I could tell you would be what it has meant for me. But for the grace of God I would be a lost sinner. And that is just exactly what the New Testament tries to tell us, in a score of different ways, namely, that grace is redemption. I love to think of grace as love going the second mile; of grace keeping open the gate of heaven for a last-hour penitent; of grace stretching out the helping hand to men struggling in the bog of sin. “ Receive not the grace of God in vain.” The grace of God is Christ. Think of Christ in His utter self-giving and you see grace at work. So it is that the first lovely thing the benediction hopes you and I may know as a personal experience is grace. The second is mercy. And here again only those who have had mercy shown and accepted can lgnow its joy and relief. The mercy of God is all-embracing. No one is outside its scope. But what is mercy? It is something more than forgiveness. Forgiveness is the result, a lovely child, of mercy. Whenever I think of mercy, and that is daily, I think of that scene where some very religious men brought a woman to Jesus and asked Him to punish her deservedly for her open sin. But Jesus would not sign their dotted line (What a lesson to ecclesiastics!) but stooped down and wrote on the ground. What did He write? Nobody knows. Nobody will Don’t you see? Mercy keeps no records. What has been forgiven is divinely forgotten. And that is the second lovely thing in the benediction. Peace And the third is Peace. What Is Peace? It is many things; but one thing it is not, and that is absence of trouble. Jesus gave His disciples Peace when they were about to face Gethsemanae, Calvary and the hatred of men—and the possibility of a cruel death. But they would be maintained by inner resources. And these inner resources to meet every emergency spell Peace. There is nothing passive about peace. It is a thrilling assurance of ultimate victory. And that is the third lovely thing the benediction hopes we may have. To sum it up: when the benediction is pronounced it is the parting hope that these three bounties of God may be ours; in other words, as these bounties are the best we know of God, the benediction simply says, “ May GOD be with you.” Don’t you think that if the benediction was expressed in these five words that many more would, understand it?