My friends this morning I want to invite you to pause for a moment and think of someone that you deeply love and want nothing but the best for them. It could be a grandchild, or a niece or nephew, or a dear friend, or a beloved elder… someone that you want to wrap in love and comfort and care. Someone that you could imagine whispering in their ear “you, my dear one, are a blessing. I’m so glad you are in this world,” or writing them a note that says “thank you for being YOU.”
Now I want you to take that warm comforting message and imagine the Holy One whispering that to you. Whether it’s God as father or mother or parent, the Holy Spirit dancing through on her way to stir up creativity and inspiration in the world, or the Jesus that has been a friend since you were a kid offering a warm hug, let’s pause and sink into that feeling of comfort and grace and love. We don’t do this enough. (pause. Breathe.)
As we turn to the advent season, the fresh start of a new church year, things can feel chaotic and stressful on the outside world. Yes, there is a lot to look forward to at this time of year – family gatherings and Christmas parties and Christmas cookies and all the traditions that we love. But we gather here on Sunday mornings in advent as a reminder that even if we don’t get our house cleaned, or our baking done, or our cards written, or our shopping lists complete… Jesus is still coming. We will still celebrate that love was born into a broken world as a tiny baby 2000 years ago. We will celebrate love at Christmas, no matter what. And so as we spend the next four weeks together, pausing for just a moment in the midst of the commotion, we will return to the ancient stories and words that remind us again and again – you are loved. You are needed and wanted and have a purpose in this world. You. Are. A. Blessing. Words that we can sometimes find easily enough to share with others, but we often have great difficulty hearing them or believing them about ourselves. Words that give us strength and courage to go on when life is hard – and we know this because they’ve given our ancestors strength and courage for generations.
We begin our story with someone who probably didn’t think she was a blessing – Mary. Although she would come to be likely the most venerated woman who has ever lived, when we meet her she is an insignificant teenage girl, living in the northern town of Nazareth. Located far away from anywhere important, Nazareth was a Jewish town known for its uprisings and skirmishes against the Roman Empire that had long oppressed their people. Kelley Nikondeha, in her book “The First Advent in Palestine” writes that Mary was “shaped by her place of origin. She saw soldiers riding into town, terrorizing her neighbours in the name of peacekeeping. She witnessed uncles humiliated and cousins hurt as a result of the soldiers’ presence. She watched women taken by force to be punished in unspeakable ways… without a doubt, she experienced the push and pull of war and resistance that shaped the villages of Galilee.” [1]
Mary was not used to being treated with honour. She was neither wealthy nor powerful. It’s unlikely she had much of a voice in anything that had happened in her life up until this point. And yet she is introduced into this story as “blessed among women,” “favoured one,” “favoured with grace,” or “favourite of heaven” depending on which translation of the Bible we are reading. [2] Mary, an ordinary girl from the obscure village of Nazareth, was going about her ordinary life doing her ordinary things, and the message that she received was “you, dear beloved one, are a blessing, and you are going to be an important part of bringing God’s love into this world.”
Mary didn’t do anything special to be chosen for this role. She didn’t apply for it, didn’t shine up her resume, wasn’t more beautiful, more demure, more mindful, more holy than anyone else, didn’t work harder or go to synagogue more frequently. She simply was a beloved child of God, and nothing she had done or would do would earn God’s favour. And yet… like many of us… when Mary was confronted with the words “Greetings, favoured one” she was confused and even troubled.
Friends we often have trouble processing this message as well. In this world we are so frequently told that we are not enough, and those are the words that sink deep into our souls, stomping out the truth that we are beloved. Some we carry with us since childhood – not smart enough, too weird, too fat, too ugly, can’t sing, not athletic, not cool, not rich. Some we absorb from difficult family situations – kids who can’t control the chaos in their homes can feel like they are only loveable or worthwhile if they shrink themselves back and hide their own needs so that things remain calm on the surface.
Then we get older and enter the adult world, carrying these childhood insecurities with us and, surprisingly, learn that there are new ones waiting! New messages from the world about why we aren’t good enough. I was absolutely astonished to learn that the vast majority adults are not secure and grounded and confident in their own worth, and that there’s not a magic age where you suddenly feel deep within your soul that you are enough. And so we strive for that feeling in other ways – to earn more money, to get a better job, to build a better house, to lose weight, to mold our personality into something more likeable… or, when the striving and working isn’t making us feel better, we accept with despair or resentment that we’ll never be good enough. And all the while, God is sighing, and shaking her head, and wondering WHY we are forgetting what’s at the core of our being – that we are deeply loved, and that nothing we ever do or don’t do will change that.
My friend and colleague once said to me, “I have some of the most wonderful, smart, funny, creative, talented, beautiful friends… and sometimes I get tired of them listening to the voice in their head that’s telling them they aren’t good enough, aren’t doing enough, aren’t being enough. I’ve tried gently reminding them “you are a blessing” but that internal voice, it can be loud, and my gentle reminders seldom work. And so I’ve turned into this aggressive screeching shrill voice trying to drown it out, just screaming at them, sometimes daily “YOU ARE A BLESSING! YOU ARE BELOVED FOR GOODNESS SAKE!” I imagine the Holy Spirit sometimes feels like doing that with all of us – although I do think her tactics are a little more kind and a lot less shouty.
In her book “Playing Big: find your voice, your mission, your message” Tara Mohr introduces the idea of an “inner mentor” – a positive and loving voice inside of us that can balance out that inner critic voice. We are sometimes told to silence that inner critical voice, but Tara’s research indicates that this is almost impossible to achieve – and so her proposal is that we give up on that, and tune in to the inner mentor voice that reminds us, with examples, of all the goodness we already have within us, that will counteract or drown out the negative messages we have internalized. It’s meant to be gentle, kind, and firm, and not at all screechy.
In the Christian context, this voice is the Holy One, reminding us that at the core of our being we are beloved. This is the still small voice whispering to us that we are a blessing. This is the thousands of years of tradition and scripture, declaring that we belong to a God of love who says “You are precious in my sight.”[3] And, because we are often like the little fish Dory in the movie Finding Nemo and we forget important things and need others to tell us…. This is church on Sunday, where we hear the scriptures, and we sing the songs, and we say to each other “you are a blessing. You belong to God.”
Friends as we head into the advent season, in this frigid time of year, I want you to take these words that Mary heard long ago, that Isaiah recorded generations before her, and that we say easily to our loved ones but not to ourselves… take these words and wrap them around you like a warm quilt that was sewn together just for you. Take them out into your week and to your world and hold onto them for when times are tough. You, my friend, are a blessing. You are precious in God’s sight. You are honoured and favoured and worthy of love. You, my friend, are beloved. Amen.
[1] Nikondeha, K. (2022). The first advent in Palestine: reversals, resistance, and the ongoing complexity of hope. Broadleaf Books. P 51.
[2] Luke 1:28, various translations
[3] Isaiah 43:4
