You Are A Blessing

This first week of Advent we remember the angel Gabriel who appears to Mary and proclaimed that she is a blessing and God is going to give her a blessing. In the New Revised Standard version they use the word “favored.” The gospel of Luke says “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you. Do not be afraid Mary for you have found favor with God….” In the Bible, Mary’s blessing is that God is giving her a baby. The Bible is full of stories of women whose wombs are barren or unable to have children who are then given a child by God. We don’t typically think of offering a blessing to someone as hoping that they will conceive a baby.

We use the word bless or blessing in lots of ways. As children we are taught to say to people “Bless you.” when they sneeze. But why we do that is debated. In a traditional sense, blessings are paired with curses. These are your two options in relating to others. You can bless them or curse them. A blessing would show favor where the curse hopes that something bad will happen to them in the future.

Most of the origin stories of the offering of a blessing to a sneezer are based in superstition. The most popular story is that during the bubonic plague, sneezing was a common symptom and Pope Gregory 1 at the time encouraged folks to offer a short prayer to others to ward off death. “God bless you” was that prayer. Southern Living has an article that reads “Another, more superstitious theory is that the practice is a response to the ancient belief that a sneeze might accidentally expel the spirit from the body unless God blesses you and prevents it. Other cultures thought that sneezing forced evil spirits out of the body, leaving others exposed to wandering spirits. A blessing was aimed at protecting both the sneezer and those around him or her.” I have also heard that some people believed that our hearts stopped when we sneezed, and that the blessing was a way of welcoming someone back from the dead. Since we live in the south and have been taught good manners, we simply say it to be polite -but isn’t it fun to learn the history of the habits that are engrained in us?

I often end an email with the word “blessings” but others don’t like this word because it perpetuates a theology that God is doling out or with holding favor from people. This Sunday we will be reminding you that you too are holding God’s favor. You are blessed and you are a blessing. You are favored by God and created by God and loved by God and that is a free gift that you do not need to earn. This gift of grace has already been given to you and won’t be taken away. That seems like a pretty great gift compared to the things that you could buy on this black Friday.

Be safe out there and embrace being blessed!