What's a Blessing For -- Jude 2

What gives strength to a person and to a community? Jude is about to enter into a hard conversation with people who have liars, deceivers, and destroyers of community in their midst. Living in this environment they need strength. Jude offers that strength in terms of a blessing:

May mercy, peace, and love be multiplied to you. Jude 2

A blessing of mercy, peace and love. A blessing is a prayer for God to give something to a person or to a people. But it is also much more than that. When done rightly a Biblical blessing is given by one of God’s representatives. This means that no one less than God himself stands behind the blessing. It is God who will bring to fruition the blessing that his spokesperson has pronounced. The Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament says, “In general, the blessing is transmitted from the greater to the lesser. Its major function seems to have been to confer (i.e. grant or bestow) abundant and effective life upon something or someone.”
Jude, as God’s representative, is bestowing an abundant life of more and more mercy, peace, and love. Mercy speaks of God’s loyalty and lovingkindness toward his people (in the Old Testament mercy refers to God’s covenant faithfulness). In the New Testament Jesus most often shows mercy by bringing all different kinds of healing into people’s lives. In a situation where the people are struggling God assures them of his loyalty to them and his tenderness toward them. The blessing is one of mercy and peace. Peace is about God giving his people security, safety, prosperity and happiness--it is the promise of a full life. In the Old Testament peace or shalom was pictured as each man under his own vine and fig tree. The New Testament does not shy away from giving a full-orbed picture of God’s shalom (both physical and spiritual fullness), but it always holds that complete peace comes only with the return of Christ and our concern needs to be first with God’s kingdom even if it means we have to sacrifice some physical fullness (see 1 Timothy 6 and Hebrews 10.32ff). But even in this sacrifice we can find the fullest life possible on earth as we live blessed by God’s peace. The blessing is mercy, peace, and love. Love is God’s unfailing giving of himself for his children.
This blessing gives strength to the community Jude writes to and to us. For the blessings we read in the Scripture are blessings that are ours. Ours not only because we read them and take the words in with joy, but because these blessings are spoken over us at the end of worship services. John Calvin once said it was worth going to worship just to hear the blessing given. Sometimes people make a dash for the exits during the last song in a worship service--it is a sad mistake, for they are missing the blessing of God conferred on them and the community. A blessing of mercy, peace, and love.

A little word, A Big Change

Jude 1.1 Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ...

When I was in middle school one of my favorite things to do was to play football at night under the lights that illuminated the front area of a local church. My friends and I would play until our fingers were cold and we had done too much damage to that church’s front yard. Somewhere in the midst of our game I was sure to hear the voice of my mom calling me to leave the game behind and head home (we lived next door, a good shout or three would get me home). When I heard that voice I knew (although I would not have put it in these terms in middle school) that I was being called out of one thing and into another. I was moving from playing a game and hanging with my friends to doing homework, getting read for bed, and being with family.

Jude in his tightly packed first verse tells us that we have been called. Like my calling on those cool autumn nights God’s calling calls us out of one place and into another (see also 1 Peter 2.9-10). What we may miss in this concept of call is that God is not simply calling us out of one state into another state, in other words, he is not calling us out of being unforgiven to being forgiven. Instead, God, like my mom, is calling us to a new place. Through the good news of Jesus Christ he is calling us out of our present way of life and into his kingdom, he is calling us out of the people we are presently a part of and into being part of the new people of God.

This calling changes us in dramatic ways. We now begin to live the values of the kingdom. When we are part of this kingdom we see far beyond our own salvation and into the great plan of God to redeem the cosmos. Our lives become part of this overarching goal of God’s redemptive plan. As N.T. Wright reminds us, “...in Scripture itself God’s purpose is not to just save human beings, but to renew the whole world. This is the unfinished story in which readers of Scripture are invited to become actors in their own right.” Not only do we begin to live the values of the kingdom we become part of a new people, the people of God, the church. We become committed to this community where we strive to love, honor, and care for one another. And we discover that our commitment to the community we were called out of calls for our commitment in new ways. We are committed to that community and the people in it to help them see the wonders of God’s kingdom, to serve them in ways that enhance the kingdom, and to invite them to hear God’s call.

“Jude, a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James, To those who are called...”