Greetings and Blessings

 Read Genesis 47

There is much protocol in the beginning of this chapter. Even though Joseph was the top dog in all of Egypt, the Pharoah was still the Pharoah.  He was to be accorded the honor and respect due to a head of state.

Joseph schooled his brothers and his father and presented them to the Pharoah.  Note that when Jacob—Israel—met the Pharoah, he blessed him.  When the conversation was over, Jacob blessed him again.

Some of your Bibles might say greet or greeted the Pharoah.  That’s ok and that’s what we will talk about. In formal settings, greetings are often blessings.  Within families, greetings take the form of blessings.

Jacob was deceitful when he received his own father’s blessing, but Jacob also gave blessings as well.  These are different sorts of blessings, but important all the same.

For now, let’s consider the blessing of the Pharoah by Jacob in terms of a greeting.  What happened to that? Where did those sorts of blessings go?

Today, our greetings go like this.

What’s up, Bru?

Dude!  There’s no other verbiage with that one.  It’s just dude.

I won’t even venture into the way that veterans greet each other.  I will only say those seemingly harsh words translate to nothin’ but love.

But where did our greetings of blessing go?

I’m going to jump to the New Testament for a moment, Ephesians 5.

Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.  Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the Lord’s will is. Do not get drunk on wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another with psalms, hymns, and songs from the Spirit. Sing and make music from your heart to the Lord, always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the ways that we can be wise is in how we greet others.  We should make the most of the opportunity.  We should greet with a blessing.  Our hearts should lead the blessings.  We can use psalms or hymns or just let the Spirit lead us.

Do you know who has this down pat?  The Muslims.  How do they greet?

Shalom aleichem are Hebrew words.  They mean peace be upon you.  The Arabic is as-salāmuʿalaikum. It means peace be upon you.

The response is Wa alaikumus-salaam. It means peace to you as well.

It used to be commonplace to say the peace of the Lord be with you, and to respond with and also with you.

We blessed each other in our greetings.

When did we stop greeting people in this way?

Perhaps that’s the wrong question.  When did our language start to sour in our culture?  It could be about the same time that our greetings withdrew from being godly for fear of offending someone.

You only get one chance to make a first impression.  I hope the impression that I make these days is one of being godly and kind and generous.

The Lord be with you.

May God bless you.

Peace to you.

May God bless you and keep you.

I started using May God bless you in the year to come instead of Happy Birthday on Facebook.  I didn’t remember your birthday, but Facebook did, so you might get that greeting.

I think that we all need to be conscious of the fact that there are numerous opportunities in our days to make godly greetings.  It doesn’t have to be a protracted conversation, just a God bless you, peace be with you or something along those lines.

And we can end our conversations in much the same way.  I sometimes end my online chats with Blessings instead of Later Knucklehead.

Our godly greetings can set the tone for what follows or be an apt conclusion to what has transpired.

We should think more about bookending our conversations in person, online, or however they come these days with godly greetings. It’s a thing that we can do at no extra charge.

So, to wrap up this morning…

“The Lord bless you

    and keep you;

the Lord make his face shine on you

    and be gracious to you;

the Lord turn his face toward you

    and give you peace.”’

 

Amen.