Have Yourself a Merry/Blessed Little Christmas (2)

Carols 4 - 2025

Have Yourself a Merry/Blessed Little Christmas

Series Slide

Good morning again, and welcome to those of you joining us online! What an amazing Sunday this is! I hope you will stick around for the 11:00 service in the Great Hall as we celebrate Christmas with the Kids as they share the story of Jesus Birth with us.

And, I can’t wait to celebrate Christmas Eve with you this Tuesday! It is so hard to believe that Christmas is here!

That means we are in our final week of Advent! The week where we remember the Advent theme of love. Love is the fact that God came near. This is the love of God: that he would come to us in the form of a baby named Jesus, to grow, walk among us, and teach us how to live and love. A love that would cause one to lay down their life for another, that Jesus would give himself for you and me. That is the theme of today’s candle. And, Love is truly the theme for this entire season.

Over the past couple of weeks, we have been considering some of the best-loved songs of Christmas. I have pulled stories from various places, mostly from Ace Collin’s book, Stories Behind the Best Loved Songs of Christmas. Today, some of the information I have will come from Ace’s research, but some will come from the music director at the church where the author attended.

But, before we get to this week’s song, I want to touch on a few highlights from today’s readings.

Joseph doesn’t get enough credit, you know… Here is this guy… he’s a good guy… and he’s engaged to this young lady who turns up pregnant. Rather than make a big deal about it and drag her name through the mud, he decides to just call off the wedding. I mean, can you imagine how betrayed he felt? It had to hurt to think that Mary would have cheated on him…

But then, in a dream, he hears from Gabriel who tells him this supernatural story… that Mary didn’t cheat on him, but that God has selected her to be the mother of the Son of God… and that he will raise the child who will become the savior of the world.

That he, Joseph, would be a part of fulfilling the prophecy…

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.”

I mean, come on… we gotta give Joseph some credit here.

Here’s the other interesting thing about this passage… it is Matthew’s entire narrative of the birth of Jesus…

She bore a son; and he named him Jesus.

And with that, I invite you to pray with me…

[Prayer]

Not all of our favorite Christmas songs come from the Hymnal. Some of our new favorites may be Mary, Did You Know?, or maybe Joy Unspeakable, orA Baby Changes Everything. Some of the songs we love this time of year have nothing to do with Jesus, like White Christmas or Jingle Bells. One such Christmas song has stood the test of time and remains one of the most loved Songs of Christmas now for some 80 years. It has been sung by Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Judy Garland, Christina Aguilera, Garth Brooks, Whitney Houston, The Jackson Five, and many more.

Authors Hugh Martin and Ralph Blane were some of the most prolific and sought-after writers of Hollywood’s Golden Era. They worked on Musical Scores and lyrics in Meet Me in St. Louis, Best Foot Forward, the Soundtracks of The Godfather, When Harry Met Sally, and they are even credited inJurassic World. But, what is likely their most famous song wasn’t The Boy Next Door, or I Get a Funny Feeling.

Many consider their most famous and best song as Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

Sermon Slide

Written in 1944 for Judy Garland to sing in the now classic Meet Me in St Louis, Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas wasn’t written as the song we know today, and it really wasn’t meant to be the hit it has become. Written for Judy’s character Ester to sing for her little sister as they prepared for their final Christmas in St. Louis, the song was meant to be a melancholy sad song. I mean, the first line was originally written by Hugh Martin as,

Have yourself a merry little Christmas, though it may be our last.

Next year we will all be living in the past.

Don’t beat the songwriter up over it though, the message of the song fit the script. Esther has just fallen in love with the boy next door. Little Tootie was sad to leave her favorite city and her snow people…

Hugh Martin had done his job… but Judy Garland was not willing to accept the song as it was written. She had spent the last few years traveling to Europe to encourage and entertain the troops of WW2 with Somewhere Over the Rainbow… a song that had taken on new meaning as the soldiers longed to be back home. She wasn’t about to sing something so melancholy and sad. She demanded that they change the lyric to something more upbeat, and though he refused at first, Hugh reluctantly changed the lyric to the now familiar words:

Have yourself a merry little Christmas,

Let your heart be light

From now on, Our troubles will be out of sight

The song as Judy Garland sang it would go on to become one of the greatest songs of all time. But the song you know and love is not the final word from the author.

Sermon Slide

Hugh Martin would become a devout Christian and in the later years of his life, he would meet a young man named Michael O’Brien. Michael was a recent graduate of a small school in Southern Louisiana with a music degree. He had made his way to California and landed a job in the music and young adult ministries of Hugh’s church. Michael was drawn to the musical genius of Hugh and they became lifelong friends as Hugh mentored the young singer-songwriter. When Michael would later become the lead singer for the Contemporary Christian group Newsong, Hugh reached out to him again.

While Hugh may not have wanted to change the lyrics of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas for Judy Garland, he was certainly willing to change them for his Savior.

Hugh rewrote the song, not to reflect the melancholy nature of the scene in Meet Me in St. Louis, or the wishes of a movie star… Instead, Hugh wrote the words to reflect his wish for all at Christmas as he wrote a new lyric for Newsong to sing…

Have Yourself a Blessed Little Christmas.

Michael was excited to share the new lyric with his friends in Newsong, but they weren’t so excited to sing a version different than what the world knew. Their Christmas album would only contain the lyrics of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas that the world had grown to know and love.

It wasn’t until years later, after Hugh had passed in 2011, that Michael would have the opportunity to record a solo Christmas album, honoring his friend and mentor Hugh Martin, as he sang about the true meaning behind Christmas.

I want to share those words with you now, and we will sing them together in a few minutes.

I hope you enjoy and are blessed by the words that Hugh Martin wanted shared with the world.

Have yourself a Blessed Little Christmas (1 Slide)

Lyrics – Hugh Martin As performed by Michael O’Brien

Original Music – Hugh Martin/Ralph Blane

Have yourself a blessed little Christmas

Christ the King is born

Let your voices ring upon this happy morn

Have yourself a blessed little Christmas

Serenade the Earth

Tell the world we celebrate the Savior's birth

Let us gather to sing to Him

And to bring to Him our praise

Christ the Lord is a gift to all

‘till the end of all our days

Sing hosannas, hymns, and hallelujahs

As to Him we bow

Make the music mighty as the heav’ns allow

And have yourself a blessed little Christmas now.

A part of what I love about these new lyrics is the fact that they remind us that this is a message to share.

We are to let our voices ring upon the happy morn

We are to tell the world that we celebrate His birth.

While we offer our praise to him, Jesus is truly a gift for all, until the end of all our days.

A song that was meant to be the sad song of a heartbroken young lady…

Then to become one of the best-loved songs of Christmas… looking toward the hope of a post-war world…

To now become a song that proclaims the Savior’s birth… I think it has become so much more than Hugh ever dreamed it could.

Yes, the original song has been shared over and over and continues to offer promise to many as they look beyond Christmas toward a new year.

Yes, the original lyrics offer hope to all who hear them, but they were not to be the final hope.

It is in these final lyrics penned by the original author that share the true hope, peace, joy, and love that we find in this Christmas season.

They share the truth of the passage we read earlier, the truth that God is with us. Yes, it is a short version of the birth narrative, it is an important one because it points to the fact that God is with us… Emmanuel…

No matter what we face. No matter how hard times are… no matter whether we are living through a world war, a culture war, or a pandemic… one thing will never change… Emmanuel, God is with us.

Sermon Slide

So, rather than wishing you a merry little Christmas, today, as we enter this final week leading up to Christmas day, I want to wish you, a Blessed Little Christmas and I look forward to worshiping with you on Christmas Eve.

And, as we close, I want to invite you to sing this song together… and as we sing, if you do not know Christ as the king we sing about, or as the Lord of your life, If you have never bowed your knee to him, I invite you to do so today… This is the day of salvation, today is the day to offer your life to Christ.

So, let us stand together and sing.

Have yourself a Blessed Little Christmas (4 Slides)