“To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.” (Luke 2:1-20)

That is the angel’s “good news of great joy for all the people.” It is the summation of Christmas. It is the heart of the Christmas story. What more needs to be said? What else can be said?

The angel’s words just might be the most and the best that can be said about this night. But you’re here and I’m a preacher so settle in. I’ve got a few other things to say and I’m going to begin with something I talked about this past Sunday; original blessing. 

Some of you will remember those two words from Sunday. Some of you will have forgotten them since Sunday. (I’ve come to realize that my sermons aren’t nearly as memorable as I often think they are.) And some of you are hearing them for the first time. 

If the angel’s words are the heart of the Christmas story, then original blessing is the heartbeat. It is the very heartbeat – the lub dub, lub dub – of God in you and me.

Original blessing connects us to and reveals our deepest and truest self. It is who we were in the mind of God before we ever existed in this world; before anything was done or left undone, before any sorrow or loss, before anything was broken or wounded, before any shame or guilt, before any violence or betrayal, before any regrets, disappointments, or failures. 

Original blessing is an inner reality that has always been true and always will be. It is the promise that everyone and everything holds and is held in the image and likeness of the divine. What God creates, God loves; and what God loves, God loves everlastingly. That’s the original blessing. And it is never more real, more visible, or more tangible than it on this night in the face of the newborn child.

I think that’s why we never tire of hearing the Christmas story. I think that’s why we want to hear the same old story one more time. It’s not because we think the story might have changed but because we know ourselves to have changed and been changed over the past year. 

We come to this night knowing what has and has not happened in our lives and we want to be reminded that the story is still true and that the original blessing is still real for and present to us.

We come to reclaim and reconnect to our original blessing. We come to hear its heartbeat ringing in our ears like Christmas bells. 

Maybe that’s why so many show up this night even if they rarely or never go to church the rest of the year. And that is not a criticism or judgment of anyone. It is, rather, a recognition of the power this night has to call us back to ourselves and touch our deepest longings and desires to be remembered, seen, recognized, valued, loved, and called beyond the circumstance of our lives. That’s why St. Gregory Nazianzen called Christmas “the festival of re-creation.”

All of that is held in the manger of Jesus. It’s why the shepherds “went with haste” to “see this thing that has taken place.” And it’s why they “returned glorifying and praising God.” What else can you do or say in the face of your original blessing? 

It doesn’t matter who you are, why you are here, what you do or not believe, what you’ve done and left undone, or what has and has not happened in your life, this manger is for you and this is your child. “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord.”

Every year we come to this manger again for the first time. What are you coming with this year? What has and has not happened in your life? Bring all that you are and all that you have. Leave nothing behind. 

Come, gaze upon the face of your original blessing. See the reflection of your own face.

Draw that original blessing into you. Caress it, hold it, carry it, care for it, protect it, and love it, the way you would a newborn child. 

The promise of Christmas is that we will not leave here unchanged. It might take us a while to recognize and live into this change but our original blessing is trustworthy and true. It always has been and always will be. 

And that, the angel says, is “good news of great joy for all the people.”

Merry Christmas. And Merry Original Blessing. 

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Image Credit: By Bicci di Lorenzo – Harvard Art Museums, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.