The final blessing in our worship services, also called “the Benediction” is a piece of Scripture from Numbers 6. That piece of Scripture repeats God’s instructions to Moses, who is to hand down instructions to Aaron to bless the people by saying: ” The Lord bless you, and keep you.
The Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. The Lord look upon you with favor and give you peace.”

God follows this up with an interesting line, He says “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” We maybe don’t quite catch how this blessing “puts God’s name on us”. The words “the LORD” in the blessing is the name “YHWH,” God’s personal name. So three times in that blessing, we hear God’s personal name applied to us in blessing: 1. To bless us and keep us. 2. To make His face shin upon us and be gracious to us. 3. To look upon us with favor and give us peace. If you look, you’ll notice that each of those three times, you have a couplet – two things that God is blessing us with, six total blessings.

Interestingly, when we begin our worship service, we begin by a remembrance of God “putting His Name on us.” In the beginning of the service, we say, “In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” This is to remind us that God has put His Name on us in our Baptisms, as those are the words said in Baptism. Likewise, here at the end, we have a three-fold speaking of God’s Name in a blessing that He Himself says is “putting His Name on us”.  So we start with putting His Name on, and we end with putting His Name on.

As you go out into this day, and especially at the end of this Sunday’s service, remember that God has put His Name on you. He has put it on you in Baptism, and He puts it on you in this blessing every Sunday – and that this putting on of His Name blesses you, and it keeps you, that your God’s face shines upon you and is gracious to you, that He looks upon you with favor, and because of Him, you can have peace knowing that your sins are forgiven and You have been given a place in His Kingdom.