Have Yourself a Merry/Blessed Little Christmas

Carols 4

Have Yourself a Merry/Blessed Little Christmas

Good morning again! What an amazing Sunday we have already had! Thank you Drew for celebrating and giving your mom such an amazing Christmas gift! And thanks for sharing it with us here at FUMC.

We are in our final week of Advent! The week where we remember Advent theme of love. Love is the fact that God came near. The love of God, that he would come to us in the form of a baby named Jesus, to grow, to walk among us, to 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. That is the theme of the Advent devotional readings you will find this week. And, Love is truly the theme for this entire season.

Later this week we will celebrate the Savior’s birth on Christmas Eve. We will gather and sing hosannas, hymns, and hallelujahs. We will light candles and sing Silent Night… but, today isn’t Christmas Eve and we have one more week leading up to it…

What does that mean?

You have 1 more week to get all your gifts together,

but more than that, we have 1 more week of Advent. One more week of awaiting our Savior’s coming into our lives fresh and new. Amen?

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, 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, let’s turn in our Bibles to the reading for today. We are going to look briefly at the birth narrative from Matthew 1.

Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

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

and they shall name him Emmanuel,”

which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

[Prayer]

Not all of our favorite Christmas songs come from the Hymnal. Some of our new favorites may be Mary, Did You Know?, as we just heard from Drew,, or maybe Joy Unspeakable, or A 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 Best Loved Songs of Christmas now for more than 75 years. In fact, yesterday Renee had some music playing and I heard this song by 2 different authors in 2 different styles. 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, even working on the Soundtrack of The God Father, When Harry Met Sally, and

they are even credited in Jurassic World. But, what is likely their most famous song wasn’t The Boy Next Door, or I Get a Funny Feeling, but

Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas.

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 song writer 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 travelling 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.

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 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…

Michael was excited to share the new lyric with his friends, 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 would like to share that song with you now. Admittedly, I didn’t know Trey Womack would be in the house when I planned this sermon and to sing this song for you… it’s bad enough to have professionals like Jennifer Reeves and Greg Church regularly in worship to think about when you plan to sing, but…well…

here we go.

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

Have yourself a Blessed Little Christmas

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

Sings 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 it reminds 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.

For a song that was meant to be the sad song of a heartbroken young lady and a song that became one of the Best Loved Songs of Christmas that looked toward the hope of a post-War world, I think it has become so much more than Hugh even dreamed.

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 that hear them, but they were not to be the final hope.

It is in these final lyrics penned by the original author that shares the true hope, and peace, and 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. 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 that one thing will never change… Emmanuel, God is with us.

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