The other day I sneezed and heard the response, ‘God bless you.’ It set me thinking. Why do we say ‘God bless you’ or ‘bless you’ when someone sneezes? I think we are either wishing for health or for blessing.
Sneezing occurs (once) in the Old Testament in the story of Elisha, where a dead boy miraculously comes to life with seven sneezes (2 Kings 4:35).
Medically, sneezing is an uncontrollable expulsion of air from the lungs through the nose and the mouth through a sudden spasm of the face, throat and chest muscles. It’s normally caused by foreign particles that have irritated the mucus membranes in the nose but can be triggered by a sudden bright light, a change in temperature or a virus infection.
A sneeze is dramatic. It can spray as many as 40,000 droplets over a distance of several metres at around ten miles an hour, be of almost deafening loudness and can be so forceful that attempts to suppress it can physically damage the throat. Of course, as we were all taught during COVID, a sneeze is extraordinarily effective at dispersing germs. Good etiquette is either to look down when you sneeze or preferably to block it with a tissue. A sneeze is sudden, unpredictable and generally unstoppable. No one ever says, ‘Did I just sneeze?’
There are tales that a Pope Gregory at a time of plague (there have been many) urged the faithful to say, ‘God bless you,’ after a sneeze as a prayer of protection.
Let me suggest that a more helpful way of looking at sneezing and the ‘bless you’ response is to realise that sneezing suddenly and dramatically disrupts something we take for granted: breathing. Most of us give very little thought to breathing – you are, I hope, doing it now. Sneezing, explosively and unstoppably, disrupts that vital process. Although today we tend to think of the beat of our heart and pulse as a sign of life, in the past breathing was the indicator commonly used, and life’s end seen as when breathing stopped; even today we talk about someone ‘breathing their last’. In the past, two English words were used for breathing: inspire for breathing in and expire for breathing out. Expire became inescapably associated with dying and continues to have that sense today. Now on that view you can see that sneezing can be seen as a brief preview or foretaste of death. Indeed, some people believe the heart stops when you sneeze. (It doesn’t!) With such a belief it was logical that a sneeze prompted people to offer a little prayer for blessing or a hope for good health.
With autumn and winter approaching I can only hope that you will be spared ‘sneezes and diseases’. But can I suggest that a sneeze is a helpful reminder of three things?
First, a sneeze reminds us that God gives us the breath of life. In Genesis 2:7 (NIV) we read, ‘Then the Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.’ A sneeze should remind us not to take our own breath of life for granted.
Second, and it is perhaps a sombre thought, a sneeze reminds us that the breath that God has given us is something that he will one day take away. There will be a moment when we will breathe our last breath and stand before God. Thankfully, as Ezekiel 37 reminds us, through his Spirit, God will breathe back breath into those who know him. But a sneeze is a reminder that we need to get right with God while we have breath in our bodies.
Finally, I note that to say ‘bless you’, with or without the word ‘God’ attached, is often the only prayer that many of us ever offer for our family, friends, colleagues or neighbours. ‘God bless you’ is a very minimal prayer. Whether those we meet sneeze or not, let’s pray they will come to know ‘God’ – the true and living God – and in knowing him, be ‘blessed’.
God bless you!
J.John
Reverend Canon
