This sermon is based on Matthew 1:18-25. I preached it only at our early service (and since there were so few people there and none of them will be at the 11 pm Christmas Eve service, I will preach it again then, although I will probably change to title and the end to reflect more of an understanding Christmas perspective). My paraphrase of the gospel is as follows:
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being righteous and unwilling to expose her to public shame, resolved to secretly divorce her.
But while he pondered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. Moreover, she will give birth to a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Now all this happened in order to fulfill what the Lord had spoken through the prophet:
“Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name ‘Emmanuel,’”
which is interpreted as, “God is with us.”And when Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord had bid him and took unto himself his wife, but he had no sexual relations with her until she had given birth to a son; and he called his name Jesus.
There are a lot of things in the Bible that I do not understand,
and for me to list them all or to even share more than of few of them with you would take way too much time.
So let me confine myself to the Christmas story that we all know and love.
I do not understand how Mary became pregnant.
Yes, I do know the mechanics of how pregnancy happens, thank you,
and yes, I know what the Bible tells me,
as Gabriel himself told Mary over two thousand years ago:
And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son,
and you shall call his name Jesus.
And when Mary asks the angel,
“How will this be, since I am a virgin?”
I know what he told her in reply:
“The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
and the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
therefore the child to be born will be called holy–the Son of God.
And while I accept this answer as gospel,
the mechanics of what actually happened to Mary are not any clearer to me.
I don’t understand.
And since I have already mentioned an angel,
let me say that I don’t understand them either.
Yes, I know that they are literally messengers of God,
but to use a phrase from my grandmother,
In all my born days, I have never even heard,
let alone seen an honest to goodness real, live angel.
In some ways I wish they were still flitting around,
telling people what God wants them to do,
and maybe they are,
maybe others see them and I am just blind to their presence,
maybe even some of you have encountered these mystical beings,
but I have not,
and so I really don’t understand them,
what they are and what they do,
other than scare the living daylights out of those they pop in to see.
You may have noticed, for instance,
that in almost every instance where an angel or angels appear,
the very first words out of their mouths are,
“Don’t be afraid.”
Why? If they are messengers of God, why are they so scary?
I don’t understand.
I don’t understand King Herod,
a man who is so consumed by his need to maintain and exercise control.
A man so eaten up with a lust for power that he would order the deaths of all the children in Bethlehem under two years of age,
just so he can keep Jesus, the new-born king,
from ever being able to challenge his throne.
What kind of man is this.
And while I do know that there have been many like him throughout human history . . .
Genghis Khan slaughtering 200 million of his enemies,
The leaders of the Ottoman Empire executing over a million Armenians at the beginning of the 20th century,
and of course, Hitler, who not only exterminated over six million Jews, gypsies and homosexuals,
but who was also responsible for over 60 million other deaths.
Yes, We all know of people like this,
but can we ever really understand why they are the way they are?
Can we even begin to comprehend the violence and hatred and sociopathy that lives in their hearts and minds?
I can’t.
I don’t understand.
And I certainly don’t understand why God does what he does.
To send his son from his side,
to be born among us,
but not in a palace of power and not to people of great learning or prestige,
but to be born to pheasants, nobodies,
who are and will be refugees from the powers that be,
fleeing for their very lives.
And born, not in Jerusalem or Rome,
but in backwater Bethlehem,
whose only claim to fame was that it was the home of another King,
albeit almost 1000 years before Jesus arrives on the scene.
I can just see the road leading into Bethlehem,
a one camel, one red light village if there ever was one.
I can see the rundown homes and shoppes,
and there at the town limits a sign:
Bethlehem, population 247, home of Israel’s greatest King: David.
But the road leading into town is full of potholes,
and when you get closer to the sign,
you can see that it is chipped and the paint is beginning to peel,
and someone has taken a shotgun to it and the whole thing is peppered with holes.
Bethlehem is that kind of town.
Why there, of all places?
I don’t understand
And if God wanted to share the good news of Jesus’ birth with the world,
why in the world were the first ones to hear about it the shepherds.
Shepherds were disreputable characters to say the least.
Looked down upon by everyone else – despised and distrusted.
As Dr. Dennis Atwood tells it in a sermon of his on shepherds:
The Shepherds of New Testament times were not exactly like the sweet innocent ones you’ll see in . . . Christmas Pageant[s].
The image we have is like the one in Charlie Brown’s Christmas where shepherds have fake beards and bathrobes and paper staffs.
But the shepherds of Luke’s story were more like the trash-talking, hard-working, roughlooking
guys who after a long day’s work go out and drink their way through the night.
So when they looked up on that first Christmas Eve night and saw angels in the sky,
it probably wasn’t the first time the shepherds [in Luke] had seen strange visions.
Shepherds had a bad reputation in Israel.
They were the men who lived on the edge of society.
These were the ones whom country songs were written about—those who lost their dog,
their woman, and their truck all in one day.
In the late period of Judaism,
the rabbis made lists of thieving and cheating professions.
And guess what, shepherds were high on that list.
They couldn’t hold public office or even testify in court.
They were always on the move—like migrant farmers and truck drivers.
Shepherds were unsupervised and it certainly wasn’t unknown for them to steal newborn sheep from the flock of their bosses.
In those days, the joke wasn’t about “would you buy a used car from a guy like this?”
but instead “would you buy a sheep from a shepherd like this?”
Can you imagine this?
The good news, the best news that the world has ever received was first entrusted to people whose veracity was so doubted that they would not even testify in a court of law.
Why not share this news with a few rabbis instead,
or someone whose word can at least be trusted?
I don’t understand this at all.
Do you?
So, as you can see, there’s a lot I don’t understand when it comes to this Christmas story,
but one thing, one person, I do understand is Joseph.
Joseph I can identify with.
I can identify with his fear, for one thing.
It’s first of all the fear that any man has of getting married.
I have never presided at a wedding where the groom wasn’t nervous or anxious,
even fearful of the changes that would come about because of his impending marriage.
Even for couples who have lived together before the day of wedded bliss,
there is something about the wedding itself which makes many a many look like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.
I know it was that way with me.
Tying the knot has a finality to it that is more than a little scary.
This I understand.
And then there was the matter of the baby.
Joseph has heard that Mary is pregnant,
and he knows that the child is not his.
What should he do.
To publicly disgrace Mary is not only an option but the preferred way of treating women who have sexual relations outside of marriage.
And even if Mary was bold enough to tell the story of how her pregnancy came about, who would believe her?
It was a lot easier, a lot more simple, to think that Mary was the way she was for the same reason thousands and millions of other women before and after her became pregnant before marriage.
The tongues were already beginning to wag in Nazareth.
Joseph couldn’t walk down the street without noticing the stares and hearing the whispers of his good neighbors and towns folk.
His reputation was as much at stake as Mary’s.
He was about to lose the respect of the town,
and a tradesman such as himself could ill afford that.
And though he wanted children of his own,
the idea of raising another man’s child as his didn’t even cross his mind.
No, he knew what to do.
He would end the relationship quietly,
hope that Mary might leave town and start anew,
look for a new woman,
one not tainted in the eyes of the synagogue and community
with whom he could raise a family.
I understand this part about children as well.
When I married Cheryl I became a part of a family.
Two boys from a previous marriage,
an adopted son from the same previous marriage,
and a foster daughter.
I am sure I looked a little like a deer staring at automobile headlights myself.
None of these children were mine,
but I would become a parent - a step dad, a foster father to them.
And then, just a week after our honeymoon,
we brought into our new home yet another child. . .
This one a baby -
whom you all now know as Desiree.
I was not too keen on Desi’s arrival.
Another foster child, a baby no less,
while I was still adjusting to the whole idea of becoming a part of a family of six virtually overnight.
But needless to say,
and as you all can see,
Desiree grew on me,
and one the happiest days of my life was the day we adopted her and made her our own daughter.
But that doesn’t mean the idea of having five children,
all of whom were no my own,
was not a little scary.
So I understand a little about Joseph.
Joseph I get.
And I also understand that Joseph,
this strong, silent man,
who never says a word in scripture,
is a righteous man,
and righteous men and women are always in short supply and high demand in this all too sinful world.
As Marnie Barrell of Christchurch, New Zealand has written:
“Joseph is righteous;
he knows how to behave properly.
His intended bride is pregnant, and it’s no child of his.
The community expects a righteous man to defend his honour and distance himself from her shame.
He could publicly accuse her of adultery and have her stoned to death,
but he’s compassionate enough not to insist on that –
he’s trying to limit the damage by quietly ending their solemn contract. There’s no discredit to Joseph in this - in fact the law forbids him to live with an adulterous wife, even if he wants to.
And then, as he ponders the problem,
a significant, God-given dream shows him the way ahead.
It leads him beyond his fear of humiliation,
calling him to trust Mary and back her up.
God has a purpose in this situation,
and it’s vital that this child survives.
Protecting Mary was where Joseph’s own instincts were taking him,
and the dream strengthens him to face what lies ahead. .
And in the story of Jesus’ birth,
Joseph’s importance can hardly be overstated.
He saves Jesus and Mary from a life of shameful exclusion from the community.
He gives Jesus his social identity,
by naming him and including him in his own descent from King David.
He’s indeed a righteous man,
with a generous nature that goes beyond the letter of the law.
He listens, he loves, and he chooses the right path,
whatever people may say.
His openness to God’s guidance makes the whole story of Jesus possible.”
And that brings me to one last thing I understand about Joseph,
and it’s this:
It would be a good thing if we were more like him.
If more of us could open our hearts to love, to God’s guidance,
and finally to the Christ child himself,
this world, this community, our church,
and our own lives would experience the peace about which the angels sang.
I close with a poem by Ann Weems entitled “Getting to the Front of the Stable”
It talks about how Joseph is often given second hand status at best during Christmas time.
She asks:
Who put Joseph in the back of the stable?
Who dressed him in brown, put a staff in his hand, and told him to stand in
the back of the crèche, background for the magnificent light of the Madonna?
God-chosen, this man Joseph was faithful in spite of the gossip in Nazareth,
in spite of the danger from Herod.
This man, Joseph, listened to angels
and it was he who named the Child
Emmanuel.
Is this a man to be stuck for centuries
in the back of the stable?
Actually, Joseph probably stood in the doorway guarding the mother and child
or greeting shepherds and kings.
When he wasn’t in the doorway,
he was probably urging Mary to get some rest, gently covering her with his
cloak, assuring her that he would watch the Child.
Actually, he probably picked the Child up in his arms and walked him in the
night, patting him lovingly until he closed his eyes.
This Christmas, let us give thanks to God for this man of incredible faith
into whose care God placed the Christ Child.
As a gesture of gratitude,
let’s put Joseph in the front of the stable where he can guard and greet and
cast an occasional glance at this Child who brought us life.
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