Benediction (the Launching, Not the Landing

Tuesday, May 2, 2023

Now may the God of peace—who brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, and ratified an eternal covenant with his blood—may he equip you with all you need for doing his will.  May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him.  All glory to him forever and ever! Amen.  

Hebrews 13:20-21

A benediction is like the familiar words of Jesus when he called himself both Alpha and Omega, not just the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, but the beginning and ending of everything good, holy, and worthwhile. 

This letter of Paul the Apostle[1] to the Hebrew Christians ends with a launch.  It’s like the shuttle lifting off the pads at Cape Canaveral – there have been thousands and thousands of work hours to get to this point, but the journey is now beginning.  

Paul wrote this long explanatory letter, proclaiming to first century Jews exactly how Jesus fulfilled every part of God’s law, and then Paul offers a benediction of grace to fill the launch thrusters that will propel them into a mission to all mankind, of being God’s lighthouse to the lost.

If you’re at all like me, the benediction used to be a pause with a yawn; the worship service is ending, let the nap begin.  Not so in the real world.  A genuine benediction is commissioning…the training and planning done…now the work!

At our church we call it Commissioning and Sending.  Sunday corporate worship lifts our praises, prayers, and open hearts to the Lord’s throne.  The sermon lays out the Word to fill open hearts, and the final act is commissioning.  It’s the act of believers committing to the Kingdom work of spreading the Good News. 

I have this mental rodeo image of benedition (our commissioning and sending); it’s that last nervous moment when the bull-riding cowboy is tightening his grip on that flank rope attached to the 2,000-pound bull under him.  He’s getting ready for the launch on the wildest of rides.  The bull-riding event has been called the most dangerous eight seconds in sports.  When the gates are opened, man and beast are at 180°-odds about staying together.  Eight seconds later the journey is over. 

Unlike the lightning-fast ride and judging of bull-riding, the results of God’s Kingdom work will only be revealed in eternity.  However, the similarities end when you start to talk about value.  In bull-riding a cowboy can get instant fame and fortune, a wisp of a high (assuming he lasts the 8 seconds), and then obscurity or a footnote in rodeo lore.  In Kingdom work a witness of Jesus Christ will receive an eternal crown of glory from the White Throne in Heaven.

For You Today 

Let’s hear again from the Apostle as we begin this day in laboring for the Master:

…may he equip you with all you need for doing his will.  May he produce in you, through the power of Jesus Christ, every good thing that is pleasing to him.  All glory to him forever and ever! Amen. 

So…be commissioned…be sent…!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!

Go to VIDEO (read by author)

There are about 2,500 devotional posts and 400 sermons in the Rocky Road Devotions library.  To dig deeper explore some of these:   White Flag of Surrender  and  May He Produce in You   

Title Image:  via Pixabay.com   Images without citation are in public domain.

Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

---

[1] The author is not named, but most scholars place it in Paul’s hands.