BLESSING: A Scriptural and Theological Reflection (part III)

by Ephraim Radner, Wycliffe College

part III of V (read parts I & II)

5.  Blessing in the New Testament

Everything we have said about barak and berakoth in the Old Testament – and Judaism – pretty much applies to the notion of blessing in the New Testament.  As I noted earlier, the New Testament word for blessing is less compelling or mysterious anyway – eulogia, or “good speech,” that is, saying something good about another.  But this was the word taken up by Jewish translators of the Scriptures into Greek, and so it acquired more or less the full depth of the Old Testament meaning.

(So as to avoid confusion, let me point out that the word translated in the Beatitudes as “Blessed” – blessed are the poor and so on – is a different word altogether, makarios, which refers to a state of bliss or happiness, and has nothing to do with the subject at hand.)

But eulogia itself does stress something central from the Old Testament’s understanding of blessing:  the sense, as God creates, that “it is good.”  To bless something, in the New Testament, is to disclose its goodness as from God, as from God’s creative hand for God’s life-giving purpose.

• So, we see that God “blesses” –  not, in fact, a common usage in the New Testament, but where it comes (Acts 3:26) and (Hebrews 6:14, etc.) it is applied to God blessing the people according to his promises in e.g. Abraham and the prophets.

• Which, of course, is linked directly with the original Old Testament sense of divine blessing as life-extending.  So, in Hebrews, the point is that God’s blessing is to “multiply” his people (6:14).  God blesses with life and its extension.

• Now, however, this blessing is given and revealed in the life of Jesus – life, mind you, as something created by grace in the resurrection of the Christ from the grave:  “God, having raised up his servant, sent him to you first, to bless you in turning every one of you from your wickedness.” (Acts 3:26).  God blesses through the redemption in Christ of fallen life as it moves into death.

• So, in the New Testament, Jesus himself now, of course, becomes the center of this blessing.  Here is the focus of “blessing” language in the Gospels and elsewhere: “and [Elizabeth] exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!’” (Luke 1:42); “Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’” (Luke 13:35); the crowds on Palm Sunday say “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38); and Paul writes, “that in Christ Jesus the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:14).

• In this light, Christ’s own blessings of people and “things” becomes central, as in the Eucharist itself, and earlier in the feeding of the Thousands, because these are acts that flow from his own divine person, like “living water” (John 7:38).  Here we find the blessing of life and its redemption brought together in his person:  “And taking the five loaves and the two fish he looked up to heaven, and blessed, and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all” (Mark 6:41); “And they had a few small fish; and having blessed them, he commanded that these also should be set before them”  (Mark 8:7); “And as they were eating, he took bread, and blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them, and said, ‘Take; this is my body.‘“ (Mark 14:22).   The Risen Jesus turns this blessing to those who follow him quite directly:  “Then he led them out as far as Bethany, and lifting up his hands he blessed them.  While he blessed them, he parted from them, and was carried up into heaven” (Luke 24:51).

And now, when the followers of Jesus “bless,” they do so by gathering into his life, and into his form, and into his commandments – through Eucharist, discipleship, and particularly sacrificial love:

• a.  Eucharist:  So Paul writes of the Eucharist:  “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16).  “Participation” – koinonia or “communion in” – is now an issue of discipleship, as for instance where Jesus asks his disciples if they can “drink his cup,” that is, the following of the Cross through the baptismal commitment to death to sin and new life (Mark 10:38-39).

• b.  Discipleship:  the life of the disciple is now a matter of the fullness of God’s life – sometimes seen in terms of the gifts and fruit of the Spirit:  “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:3) – “spiritual blessing” (eulogia pneumatike) referring, in the context of Ephesians here, to the knowledge of God’s will in Christ and the means of living in the light of Christ.

• c.  Sacrificial Love:  this indicates, obviously, that the disciple will live as Jesus lives, sharing God’s life and extending it in the special form that sacrificial love embodies:  “bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you” (Luke 6:28); “Do not return evil for evil or reviling for reviling; but on the contrary bless, for to this you have been called, that you may obtain a blessing” (1 Peter 3:9).  To be blessed, as a Christian, is to share in the very form of Jesus’ life and truth.

Summary:  What a blessing is in the New Testament is wholly congruent with the Old Testament’s views, only now the character of creation and life-giving and extending is centered in Jesus, in his own flesh and acts, in his teaching and the sharing of his life with the Church and world.  It is only on this basis that the re-evaluation of the Law’s particulars makes any sense – that is, the Law now read through the lens of Jesus’ own life-giving.  But there is no template that says “this and that is old and this and that is new”:  there is Christ, who is God in the flesh and to whom and in whom the whole Law is given and taken up.  The life of the Law is not overcome, but now shown its force in him.  And thus the blessing of obedience is given in him as the Obedient One.  The question of what can or should or will be blessed is not altered now; it is disclosed in its fullness through the words and life of Christ Jesus and his Spirit amid his apostles. 

6.  Blessing in the Christian Church

Mostly, in our tradition, blessing “things” is something whose form we have inherited from the Latin Church, and the language derives from the Latin as well:

We speak, in general, for instance, of “benediction,”  which is a literal rendering, in Latin, of the Greek eulogeo:  bene/dicere, or speaking well of something.   To give a benediction is to pronounce its goodness from and before God; and it may also be, as in Jewish usage, to pray for its proper sustenance within God’s will and purpose. 

One development, given Roman Catholicism’s evolving sense of the Mass in terms of “transubstantiation,” is the confusion of blessing with consecration, a danger we noted earlier in terms of the Old Testament and, for example, in the use of objects at the Temple.  Latin theologians spoke in terms of “consecrating” the elements of the Eucharist, but this came to take the place of Jesus’ “blessing” and Paul’s “blessing” of the bread and cup, as described in the words of Scripture.  So that “blessing” or benediction came to be appropriated into the sphere of sanctification and particular service, even transformation of substance.  Dare we speak in terms of a “magical” rendering of “blessing” here?  The answer is “yes,” with respect at least to popular usage.  And when, in medieval practice, the consecrated host itself was used as a means of “benediction” – as in the devotion of the same name, still used in some Anglo-Catholic congregations, but more particularly as an apotropaic to be carried about publicly in order to ward of such things as illness and violence, the two meanings are clearly merged. 

This is the place to point out the etymological peculiarity of the English word “blessing” itself:  it is an unusual word, used in its early forms in Britain only as far as we know, and appears to derive from the word for “blood” (bledsin) – hence, it was a term used precisely for blood sacrifices in pre-Christian Britain.  It is perhaps not surprising, then, that the act of Christian “blessing” in English was thereby more easily confused with the powers inherent to sacrificial consecration.  As with the word “priest,” which in English was used to translate both pagan and Old Testament priestly offices, as well as the New Testament Greek “presbyter,” two distinct and perhaps conflicting meanings are rolled up into one.

So we may also note the way that “water,” once blessed, becomes “holy water” – this is true in terms of the water used to cross yourself as you enter a church, or for the asperges, or, more oddly, the baptism – where the blessing of the water actually makes use of the sursum corda of the Eucharist, as if the water itself is going to be subject to the “consecrating” transformations analogous to those of the Eucharistic elements.  Unless one realizes that this is precisely not what is going on – from an Anglican perspective, anyway – the confusion is enormous.  Indeed, the notion that a “sacrament” is an act that “changes” created nature has meant that blessings themselves have become drawn into a sacramental orbit:  the water of baptism, ordination, and, of course, marriage.  I am not arguing that baptism and ordination and marriage are not sacraments.  But I am very clearly saying that what makes them sacraments is not the fact that there are blessings said in their celebration.  To mix talk of “blessing” and “sacramental” character – as some of have done (such as the group “Claiming the Blessing”) – is to confuse matters:  blessings are not “mediators” of grace.  Blessings are statements about what is the case, or prayers for what one knows is promised to be the case – they are a form of worship of the One True God.

In general, though, the Western Church simply made use of a parallel set of “benedictions,” or blessings,” similar to Old Testament, Talmudic and Rabbinic benedictions, as, to cite but a few examples, an episcopal or priestly blessing at the end of the Mass (Trinitarian in form); benedictions at meals; blessings for the crops and so forth on Rogation days, blessings of women after childbirth in the English Reformation; blessings for this and that aspect of the common life of the Church or Kingdom.  On the popular level we just referred to, many of these benedictions were viewed as functional petitions and protective charms or even spells.  But many were more deeply bound to the theological recognitions to which we have already alluded.  For instance, the Rule of Saint Benedict is filled with references to the Abbot “blessing” the monks in this or that situation, or one monk “blessing” another or receiving a blessing from a guest, and so on.  But what is the meaning of such a personal blessing?  At one point (c. 38), the Rule explains how the week’s appointed reader during meals is to behave:

Reading must not be wanting at the table of the brethren when they are eating. Neither let anyone who may chance to take up the book venture to read there; but let him who is to read for the whole week enter upon that office on Sunday. After Mass and Communion let him ask all to pray for him that God may ward off from him the spirit of pride. And let the following verse be said three times by all in the oratory, he beginning it: Domine, labia mea aperies, et os meum annuntiabit laudem tuam (Psalm 50[51]:17) – Lord open my lips, and my mouth shall proclaim thy praise –, and thus having received the blessing let him enter upon the reading.

It is the recitation of the Psalm verse, of the Scripture itself, that here represents the “blessing,” said by all together (something, obviously, that stands at the center of the monks’ common life every day).  To speak God’s word is itself a blessing; to praise God with one’s lips and mouth is a participation in that blessing; to do so as a people is to live this blessing; to gather for food and meal with this in mind and body is to be blessed wholly.  We lay out or declare in common what is the case with God.

This tells us something about the meaning of the ecclesial and priestly blessing of a marriage (leaving aside the particular question of blessings as tied to specific offices in the Church).  For when the Church blesses a marriage it is in this kind of context of Scriptural word, enunciated, in common: 

• The marriage blessing speaks God’s own command and promise, as it were, just as Jesus does:  “But from the beginning of creation, ‘God made them male and female. For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh.’ So they are no longer two but one flesh” (Mark 10:6-8).  And so the word of life is given in the marriage itself.

• And in this fact God is praised:  “my heart overflows with a goodly theme” (Psalm 45:1) – that is, with speech (dabar) that is “good” – eulogia:  this is what the Psalmist utters in the face of a marriage.   

• And all the people are gathered together thereby, within the scope and shadow of this blessing:  So the Song of Solomon, for all its intimate speech held within the heart of the lovers, is actually enunciated before the city of Zion as a whole, its watchmen, its towers, the “daughters of Jerusalem,” the King arrayed before the populace.  The blessing touches all, and is meant to be displayed.

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