You Are the Reason: A Blessing

"To really understand the Christmas story, you have to go back even further … to the first chapters of Genesis … to the creation story … and the fall. You see, we learn from the creation story that we humans are special … we bear the “the image of God,” somehow. We are designed so we can do life with God, somehow. And, we learn that we humans rebelled against doing life with God … God’s way … and in so doing, we made a mess we can’t fix. We are messed up. And I’m not just talking about just Adam and Eve messing up; all of us mess up, all of us are messed up, all of us are broken … and we can’t fix us. That’s what the Bible says, and … I’ve never met the exception. Have you?

But, instead of blowing us off or snuffing us out, our Creator decided to give us a way back. Because, for some crazy reason, he loves us anyway … go figure. For some reason, God treasures us anyway … go figure. So, somewhere around 4000 years ago, our Creator God somehow made a deal with this really old twit named Abraham. God said, “Go from your country, your people, and your father’s household to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will (… barak) bless you. I will make your name great, and you will be a (barak) blessing. I will (barak) bless those who (barak) bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse, and all peoples on earth will be (baraked) blessed through you.” (Genesis 12.1-3) What does that even mean?"