Blessed. Broken. Poured.

"Blessed"
Mary DuBose

I am speaking about the idea of being blessed. When I started thinking about what I would say this morning, I realized how hard it is to figure out what exactly it means to be “blessed”. Does it have to do with luck? Is it something you have to earn? Can only people be blessed, or could it also apply to objects, ideas, or moments?

A blessing could be an unexpected gift, some sort of benefit to your life that you feel you do not deserve. People often talk about their children as blessings. Blessed could also mean that God has bestowed his blessing upon you. We often think about this when we study the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”. In this sense of the word, being blessed is like your reward in heaven for the suffering you have gone through or the virtues you have shown.

In another sense of the word, your life could be blessed before you are even born: the circumstances of your life can be a great blessing. I am personally very blessed to have been born into this church community that has loved me and supported me throughout my life, and many of the experiences that I have shared with this church community have been some of the greatest blessings in my life: being able to sing in the youth choir, going to worship on Sunday mornings and seeing people who have known me since I was a baby, going on mission trips to West Virginia, Mexico, South Africa, and Swaziland- all these have been great blessings in my life.

The wealth of blessings in my life makes me feel like I can and should try to be a blessing to others. I think that this aspect of “blessedness” is very important. Just as we bless the bread and wine before they are broken and poured out for us, we ourselves are blessed by God so that we can go out and be blessings to others.

In our scripture passage for today, telling the story of the Walk to Emmaus, the two men are blessed in many ways: with the opportunity to retell and relive the events they had just witnessed in Jerusalem, by their inability to recognize Jesus which gives them the freedom to talk to him as they would to any stranger walking along the road, but most of all by the mere presence of Jesus among them.

I think we all know in our hearts when Jesus is among us, even if we don’t see it with our eyes or with our brains. We are blessed just to be called children of God and we carry that blessing around in our hearts and spread it everywhere we go. I think that that is the true meaning of “blessedness”- to know that you are in the presence of God and that you are always loved by him. This knowledge is what gives us the grace to then pass it on and be a blessing to others.