“The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with all of you.” – 2 Corinthians 13:13
My first service after I was ordained was in my home church in Lake Ainslie, Cape Breton. With our Celtic roots, I wanted to “pronounce the Benediction” in Gaelic. My grandfather took me to visit John Angus Collins. He reached for a well-weathered Gaelic Bible and looked up 2 Corinthians 13:13. He read it aloud. Then he took a pencil and transcribed the words into English and coached my pronunciation.
These words foreshadow the Doctrine of the Trinity, but in this Second Letter to the Corinthians, they are offering blessing to a community of faith that irked and distressed Paul. In the verses before this verse, Paul argues and cajoles, defends himself, and urges the new community to get it together and live in peace.
He closes his Letter with this verse. He calls forth the best gifts he can imagine to surround and to support them. He pronounces a benediction with words calling on the Divine Energies of God’s Whole Self to spill over into their daily lives.
The Grace of Jesus spilling from
the Love of God
flowing into the Spirit-in-community.
The gifts from One God are always flowing,
spilling over,
and we are caught up in the splash.
Grace spilling into grace
and Love spilling into Love
and in the Spirit of this overflowing, we live and move and have our being.
Through us, through community, the spilling continues.
It is beautiful — and it remains a favourite blessing,
and I am learning to say it in Gaelic again!
Imagine this blessing surrounding and supporting you. Take out crayons or markers. What colour is grace? What colour is Love? What colour is communion? Imagine the colours swirling and spilling into one another. Feel the blessing. Write the blessing in your own handwriting (or in your first or a beloved language) and place it where you see it often.
[2 Corinthians] Blessing, Spilling Over
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