“This is the blessing that Moses the man of God pronounced on the Israelites before his death….”
Deuteronomy 33:1 (NIV)
This past Sunday I delivered the morning message among our local gathering of Jesus’ followers. At the beginning of the message I showed a photograph of our family gathered on New Year’s weekend, just a few weeks ago. The entire crew was gathered at the table for a meal in all the glorious mess of three generations.
The table, the dining room floor, indeed the entire house – they get messy when the whole family gathers. And, I’m not just referring to food crumbs. That was the metaphor that carried through my message. Jesus invites the whole family to the table. It gets messy, and yet He asks us to stay.
In family (both nuclear and spiritual), every individual part contributes to the love of the whole.
Today’s chapter is Moses’ final act. His role as leader-judge-prophet-priest will end with him. His is not a box on the org chart to be filled. A succession plan was never a consideration. There’s no favored son groomed for elevation. Moses does not pout or demand a severance of legacy. He foreshadows and embodies the sentiment Paul would later express when he wrote, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”
Moses’ final act is to bless the twelve Hebrew tribes one-by-one. As I meditated on the blessings. A couple of things stood out.
First, in Jewish tradition, blessings are less about forecasting the future and more about naming reality—calling forth what is already true beneath the surface. Moses is not predicting outcomes; he is bestowing identity.
Just as I look around the table from toddler grandchildren to adult daughters and sons. Each is unique. No two are the same. They each, in their own unique identity, bring themselves to the table and with each of them comes a part of the blessing of family.
And, this leads to the next observation.
No tribe is cursed. Even the complicated ones—and, honestly they each have their own “troubles”—are not shamed. Silence, yes. Erasure, no. Where earlier stories carried fracture, Moses now offers healing through words.
And, to me, most importantly: Israel is blessed together. No tribe receives fullness apart from the others. The blessing is communal—interdependent, embodied, shared.
In the quiet this morning, I find the chapter inviting me to do something wildly countercultural:
Receive blessing without scrambling to deserve it.
Moses blesses warriors and poets, priests and homebodies, the strong and the sheltered. Not because they nailed it—but because God chose them.
It’s easy for me to slip into “blessing is a performance review” mode. Others times, my Enneagram Type Four shame whispers to my soul that God’s blessing has been passed out and I was skipped altogether.
Moses says “no” to both lies.
I am blessed before I arrive.
I am carried even when I wander.
I am named even in the silence.
That’s the beauty, and the shalom, that I find in the Great Story. Moses exits stage left. The Story goes on, even to this.very.day.
The God who went before them…
is the God who goes before me.
Jesus invited me to the table, and asked me to stay.
If you know anyone who might be encouraged by today’s post, please share.
