Numbers 6:24-27 may be the most common benediction in Christian worship. "The Lord Make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you" is at its center. What do we make of this? What does it mean for a deity to "turn his face toward you?" Is this a good thing? Is God's grace all that we need?

This lovely parable of Jesus has a simple message of living life with all that God provides for each of us for His glory and honor. No comparisons are needed. Some are given more, and some are given less. Each of us can enjoy the Master's Happiness by using the best we can, that which He has given to us for His pleasure. We do all of this in the power of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, we can work with what He gives us and wait upon Him as we work to bring the increase and results as He sees fit.

Psalm 23:4-6 highlights the core of Psalm 23 with the statement of David that he knows, The LORD, his Shepherd is always with him . David proclaims that it is The LORD who is with him in the Valley of The Shadow of death. It is the LORD who comforts him with correction and instruction. And it is the LORD who guides and directs him through life and unto eternal life in Jesus Christ by the almighty power of the Holy Spirit.

In Psalm 23, David describes the reality that Yahweh, the One true and living God, revealed in Jesus Christ, is the Shepherd of His blessed people. He is our Creator and He is our Sustainer. He provides all that is needed for His people, "His sheep", in this world and in the next. He is the One who enables us to be at peace with ourselves, with Him and with others. Out of this relationship in Jesus Christ as our Good Shepherd, we are useful in His perfect care to be His lovely instruments in showing His love and speaking His truth to our world.

The Scriptures of the Old and New Testament are the foundation of our Christian faith. If surveys are correct, Christians spend little time in the Scriptures, let alone delighting in them, yet they are our foundation and “rule faith and life”. We learn to delight in the Scriptures by letting go of needing to have all the answers, accept the mystery of the ambiguities and difficulties of Scripture and through meditation and delighting in the things in the word of God we affect of our own hearts and minds and encounter the living Jesus.

In the first chapter of Genesis, the very first book in the Bible God speaks and brings the world into existence. He places all things where he wants them. At the end of his creative work God makes us. He makes humankind, male and female. He makes us after his image. And what we read there, right at the very beginning, is that the first thing that God after making us is to bless us. “And God blessed them.” We are made for God’s blessing – it is what we each long for. It comes to us in Jesus.

After the long Emmaus road resurrection narrative where the Cleopas and his companion have burning hearts for God's Word and their eyes opened by the broken bread of Jesus, Jesus appears to the eleven disciples and he leaves them with a commission that they would take the news of Jesus from Jerusalem with the aid of the Holy Spirit, the "power from on high"! But what news of Jesus are they to take? What is the core of the message that they are to proclaim? Christ's death and his resurrection, his suffering and his glory! And because of that suffering on the cross and because of that glorious resurrection the door is open for repentance and the forgiveness of sins. When Jesus sums up what they are to say he sums it up with suffering and resurrection for the forgiveness of sins and it is to be proclaimed to all people!

It is very easy to get lost in the theological ramifications of Jesus’ death and miss the perspective of those who witnessed his crucifixion in all of its gory spectacle. As they walked home from Jerusalem, after Jesus’ death, Cleopas and Mary were most likely emotionally overwhelmed. Despair was their companion when they meet one whom they did not at first recognize. In describing Himself in the scriptures He would enter their despair, and showing them what a “body broken” means.