REFORMED CHURCH, BELLVILLE: SUNDAY 27 APRIL 2003: EVENING SERVICE

For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be the glory forever.
Amen.

Psalm of praise: Psalm 31:5,15,17.

Scripture reading: Luke 1:5-25; 24:50-53.

Scripture text: Luke 1:8-11,22; 24:50b
Theme: Live joyfully as people blessed by the Lord!

Psalm 33:11.
Prayer.
Psalm 72:3,10.

Beloved in the Lord

A student once said to me that to miss one service was to him something fatal. When I asked him about what he had said, his words were: But then I miss the blessing of the Lord! How could I live without that?

In these few words this young man verbalised something of the tremendous comfort which believers get from the blessing in the church service.

To enable us to understand something more about this grace we have read two reports of events in the temple from Luke's gospel. One comes right at the beginning and the other at the end of the gospel. These are two passages which, in fact, frame the entire Gospel of Luke and, for that reason, have a most pertinent message.

1.A blessing which could not be conveyed

Luke 1 is the story of God's blessing which could not be conveyed. What happened here?

For 400 years, until and including the event narrated in Luke 1, God remained silent towards His people. There was also silence in respect of revelation: no angels, no more prophets, no further visions and dreams. There was deathly silence.

However, when He decided, after this silence of 400 years, to speak to His people once more, He first sent Gabriel to the place of prayer, to the incense altar in the temple. He also began speaking again at the hour of prayer. The people were just then at prayer outside the temple and the priest, Zacharias, was engaged in the incense offering within the temple.

God directed His first words to Zacharias, the man of prayer. Oh, he and his wife had beseeched the Lord most earnestly for a child. This was to them a serious subject of prayer, because childlessness was regarded at that time as a break in the line from which the Messiah was to be born.

When God informed Zacharias that a child would be born to him and Elizabeth, yes, that the time for this most glorious and sublime answer to prayer was at hand, the priest did not believe it. While God remembered his prayer, he forgot God's omnipotence to awaken life in the shrivelled maternal womb of Elizabeth.
The wonder of God's grace was too good to be true. This is a typical tendency among sinners: if God's gracious word does not fit in with your logic, it is difficult to believe it. As punishment for his unbelief, Zacharias was temporarily struck dumb.

Now just put yourself in that situation! On that day Zacharias was the priest who would enjoy the privilege of a lifetime. It was accorded to him to pronounce upon the people the priestly blessing of Numbers 6:24-26:

The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.

However, when he went out of the temple to bless the people, he stood dumb before them. No blessing was conveyed to the people. The service could not be completed. They had to return to their homes without receiving a blessing.

That is what unbelief does: God's blessing cannot come through, cannot be conveyed. That day a dumb Zacharias was a mighty call of urgent emergency directed to the Priest, to the Liturgist, to the Minister of God's blessing. Someone who could make it possible for God's blessing to reach us. Is there someone who is able to accomplish that?

2.Blessed by Jesus Christ

We find the answer to this question twenty-three chapters later in the Gospel of Luke.

While ascending to heaven, Jesus raised His hands and blessed His disciples. Yes, He was borne aloft while blessing them. God's blessing once again came to His people. What had been left incomplete was now completed, and the disciples were continually in the temple praising and thanking God. With the ascension of Jesus the heavens opened and God let His blessing fall upon His children.

How could this be? It all happened because - and this is the crucial "because" - between the two reports of events in the temple there were thé place of prayer, thé hour of prayer, and thé Man of prayer. Gethsemane and Golgotha with its place and hour and Man of prayer. Jesus Christ our Lord.

There He experienced in His own Person what it means when God's blessing does not get through to one. The wrath of God at our lack of belief in His promises fell upon Him. He had to pay for a broken and fossilized priesthood which could not really bring men to God and to His service. As our High Priest He made this sacrifice so that He could enable us to live and work under the rich blessing of the Lord. His outstretched hands, lifted in blessing during His ascent to heaven, testify to this.

Christ has never withdrawn His blessing. It still falls daily from His High-priestly hands upon everyone who believes - upon everyone who lives in the light of God's promises.

3.Then live now with joy before God!

What rich significance have our worship services now gained! Can one still ask: Why must I go to church? Why, every time - morning and evening - when God calls His children together?  Surely that is where the blessing of the Lord Jesus Christ is pronounced upon His people.

Will I ever wish to be without the blessing of the Lord in my life? You remember the remark of the young student! No, never! Without it our life is a poor barren thing, my dear brothers and sisters. Without it our lives are empty and in disarray.

No, a child of God will joyfully seek the blessing of the Lord. He will look when the blessing is pronounced and drink it in. He will see God's hands raised in blessing and know it is meant for him. He will rejoice at this and be filled with gladness.

In this way, beloved, the blessing becomes a vantage point for the believer from which I can look high and far and deep, from which I look back and ahead and upwards.
Can you live without the blessing of the Lord?
Amen.

Closing prayer

Closing Psalm 134:1-4

The Lord bless you, and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine on you,
And be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance on you,
And give you peace.
Amen.

Rev. Reinder Kingma
Reformed Church, Bellville
27 April 2003.
Scripture quoted from NASB