Recently we witnessed the enormity of the devastation of the Tsunami tragedy in Indian Ocean. The world is still straining to recover from the shock and to help the people affected directly to pick up their pieces. With all sorts of other natural disasters around us, we also suffer from the man-made tragedies as we experience the harsh realities of cruelty and corruption occurring daily in our society caused by the wickedness of human hearts. It is hard to believe that we are blessed. Often, it may be more realistic to feel that we are cursed rather than blessed. At the same time, however, it is also our experience that God surprises us in many ways. God surprised Abraham when God told him that he would bless him to have a son in his old age from his barren wife, Sarah. When Sarah overheard it, she laughed in disbelief. Mary was surprised when she was told that she as a virgin would bear the Son of God. Nicodemus was very surprised when he was told that he would have to be born again from above to see the kingdom of God. The disciples were surprised when they were told to take up their cross to follow Jesus. Mary Magdalene was surprised to see the resurrected Lord. Apostles were surprised that the Gentiles had the Holy Spirit poured upon them. In spite of all the problems, difficulties and the wickedness of human hearts we are facing everyday, God surprises us by declaring again and again that we are blessed with God’s blessing.

The book of Genesis proclaims that "God created humankind in his image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. God blessed them, and God said to them ‘Be fruitful and multiply…’ … God saw everything he had made, and indeed, it was very good." God created us to be blessed by his love. God’s love for us has been shown to us throughout the human history and we experience it in our daily lives of our faith journey. We fall and fail all the time but his love never fails. Even when we become rebellious, turn away from him and fall into a big ditch, his outstretched hands are there to deliver us. All the more, his grace abounds and his love intensifies. He loves us so much that God became a man in Jesus Christ to live with us, to suffer and die as atoning sacrifice, and to rise again from the grave for us to have the life in Christ, the abundant and eternal life that we experience now and here on earth. God gives us life, victorious life in faith, love and hope in spite of our weaknesses and failures. It is not an exaggeration when Apostle John declared that "God is love". I ran into a passage in the book of Zephaniah to find out how pleased God is with us. God exults over us, his beloved creation in spite of our shortcomings. Before, I have not heard God humming or singing when God is pleased. Prophet Zephaniah, however, proclaims that God will ‘sing loudly’ over us in his joy. Zephaniah 3:17 reads: "The Lord, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness, he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival." God is so personal that he knows all about us and be ever present with us. The Psalmist of the Psalm 139 maintains, "O Lord, you have searched me and known me. You know when I sit down and when I rise up… Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? … For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well." In Psalm 100, the Psalmist urges that we respond to God’s love by "making a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth, worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing," affirming that "His steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations." God is love and God is faithful. The love of God is ours forever. Apostle Paul tells us that "Blessed be the God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ." Paul also declares that nothing can separate the love of God from us declaring "If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son, but gave him up for all of us, will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? ... Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will hardship, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness or peril, or sword. … For I am convinced that neither death, or life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord."

We are truly blessed with the love of God, are we not?

When he called Abraham, who was not particularly great a man but an ordinary man like us, God affirmed his blessing to all mankind. God made a promise to make him a great nation, to bless him, to make his name great so that he would be a blessing and in him all the families of the earth should be blessed. Now we see that God’s promise to Abraham has been and being fulfilled. Not only he was blessed with the land, prosperity and descendents in his lifetime, but also he became a great nation, and his name became so great that practically all the people of the earth may call him their ancestor. Through Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham, we have become descendants of Abraham by faith to receive the blessings God promised to him.

Throughout human history, God continues to call us, ordinary human beings, as he called Abraham many years ago, to continue his acts of blessing for all of us. Apostle Paul reminds us: "Consider your own call, brothers and sisters: not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God."

God’s act of blessing continues. We are blessed because we are created and ‘taken’ to be beloved children of loving God. We are taken to be his people and the sheep of his pasture. We have a fellowship with merciful and all-powerful God. We are blessed because we are taken to live a life as God intended for us, the life born again from above, the life of light, the abundant and eternal life in Christ as today’s Gospel lesson tells us. God offered himself to us in Jesus Christ who died on a cross as a sacrificial lamb to save us from our sin and death. He became our Lord and Savior. Through his transforming power, we have come to reclaim the image of God. And, Jesus promised to be with us to the end of the age. We are walking with Christ for the journey.

When God called Abraham, God made it clear that the reason for the call was to make Abraham to be a blessing to all the families of the earth. And, Abraham became a blessing to all the people. The reason for God’s call for us is no different. God commands us to love our neighbors as ourselves. God commands us to be a blessing to our neighbors. When Jesus and his disciples made their way to Gethsemane, Jesus reminded us that his mission was ‘mission of love’ and that our mission is to live out God’s love among ourselves, the love Jesus displayed by yielding himself up on the cross for us. Jesus charges us: "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends." To love our friends is to know that we are blessed with the immeasurable love of God and to share our ‘blessedness’ with others. It is to include others in our blessedness. It is to see the uniqueness of others and their own blessedness. We need to be a blessing to each other and to all around us. Without being a blessing to others, our blessedness is not really a blessing. When our Lord says to love one another, he is asking us to be a blessing to one another. Today’s Gospel lesson tells us that God loves the world, everyone of the world. We are to be a blessing to the world. We ‘are taken’ to be blessed as the beloved children of God. We are taken by the love of God. We are taken to be a blessing to our neighbors and the world. We are truly blessed when we are a blessing to others. Often, we dismiss concerns of others saying that "it is none of my business". Well, let us make it our business to be concerned about others. We need to ask ourselves these questions from time to time:

Am I a blessing to myself? Am I a blessing to my wife or husband and to my family?

Am I a blessing to my neighbors?

Am I a blessing to the church and to the community?

Am I a blessing to difficult people and even to my enemies?

Am I a blessing to all?

We are called upon to bless God who has already blessed us. We are taken to be a blessing to all. Amen.