O come, O come Emmanuel. Amen.
Here
we are, the fourth Sunday of Advent; Christmas Eve is just around the corner.
In the previous weeks we’ve considering the Second Coming in terms of kairos
and chronos time, and we’ve pondering the question “what are you waiting for?”
Now we’re at the doorstep to Christmas and finally we get a reading about this
baby who is the focus of the Christmas season. It’s an absolutely fascinating
story. Mary and Joseph were engaged, but somehow Mary ended up pregnant. And I’m
sure that Joseph had a few questions about how that happened.
Now
Joseph was a kind man. Under the law, he probably should have publicly broken
off the engagement and Mary would have been punished for her transgression. It
wasn’t that Joseph didn’t want to take Mary as a wife; it isn’t that he didn’t
love her anymore; it wasn’t that he couldn’t forgive her. It was that he wasn’t
allowed any of those options. Under Jewish law and custom, if Joseph was to
honor God, he had to dismiss Mary. He was a descendent of the house of David
and it would be wrong to stay with Mary given her unexpected pregnancy.
But
a messenger from God came to Joseph in a dream and says, “Joseph, don’t do it.
The child is of the Holy Spirit; take Mary as your wife.” And Joseph does just
that. He ends up naming the child, something that the Jewish mother would have done.
But by naming the baby, Joseph claims the child as his own. And he names the
child Yeshua, Jesus, which in Hebrew means “God saves.” God has saved this
situation, God has set things straight, and Joseph realizes that.
It’s
a wonderful story, and very well known. But is it fact or fiction? Was Mary
really pregnant without knowing a man? Maybe. Christmas and Easter present the
two most complicated doctrines of Christianity, the Incarnation and the
Resurrection, and we present them on the two days when the most people are in
the pews. People that are largely unchurched; people that have their doubts.
I’d encourage you to believe as much as you can this Christmas. If you can
whole heartedly, without a doubt believe in the virgin birth, then great. If
you can’t, don’t let it trip you up. I’m not saying to dismiss doctrines that
are hard for you and just pretend they don’t exist. No, we should struggle
through our faith; we should struggle with stories such as this one. But don’t
let a few doubts along the way keep you from believing anything else. Don’t let
a small doubt about a doctrine that doesn’t really change much dissuade you
from the rest of your faith, from coming to church, from seeking discipleship.
If
you have your doubts about the virgin birth, you’re in good company. Consider
these quotes- from the conservative end, Billy Graham writes “while I most
certainly believe that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin, I do not find
anywhere in the New Testament that this particular belief is necessary for
personal salvation.” Or from the left, Bishop Jenkins of Durham, England, “I
would not put it past God to arrange a virgin birth if he wanted to, but I very
much doubt that he did.” How Jesus was born really isn’t as important as the
fact that he was born.
These
birth narratives are most certainly parables. Parables are something that Jesus
told throughout his ministry. Parables speak to a truth, even if they didn’t
actually take place. No one debates whether or not there was actually a
Prodigal Son. No one says, well, if there really wasn’t a son that came back to
his father, I’ll dismiss the point of the story. It’s the same with these birth
narratives. If they are simply history, maybe they’re accurate, maybe they’re
not; but then they’re just dogma, something stuck in the past. But if the birth
narratives are parables, and they certainly look like parables when you read
them closely, then they speak to some larger truth that still speaks to us
today. And I think this reading has a lot to say to us today. I’d like for us
to consider the three main actors in this story and see what they have to say
to us nearly 2,000 years later.
First,
let’s start with God. You’ll notice that God really doesn’t do much in this
passage, just sends a messenger. But the message is what’s important; specifically,
the name for the child- Emmanuel. Emmanuel is a Hebrew compound word that means
“God with us.” This is God’s yearning, to be with us. For God so loved Creation
that God came to Creation. God is a personal god, a god who loves us intimately
and longs for us to be in relationship with God. Hopefully, this Advent has
been one of prayer and growing closer to God for you all. If not, it’s not too
late, Christmas isn’t until Wednesday. And on Christmas, when we celebrate that
God has come to us, that’s the perfect opportunity to open the door of your
life to God and invite God in.
The
next person that we read about in this story is Joseph. He has a very
interesting role in this story. He is the active person; Mary, God, and Jesus
are all off-stage in this part of the story. Joseph’s example for us is that of
discernment. Discernment is a tricky thing. Did you happen to catch how all of
this happened? Some angel in bright robes didn’t show up in Joseph’s living
room and say “look, I know this is tough, but just trust me, the kid is of the
Holy Spirit, so take Mary as your wife.” Joseph didn’t turn pale upon seeing
the angel and nod his head in agreement. That’s because this all happened in a
dream. The story records this conversation as taking place in a dream by
Joseph.
Now
I don’t know about you, but I rarely remember dreams in vivid detail, just
vague concepts. But I certainly don’t make a habit of treating dreams as if
they were real. If that we the case, I don’t think I’d be in a pulpit this
morning. I’d be a flying superhero who plays tennis in outer space. Dreams are our
subconscious mind processing data. Now that doesn’t mean God can’t speak to us
in dreams, just like God can speak to us when we’re awake or in prayer. But to
take a message from a dream and act on it takes a huge leap of faith, and it
takes a lot of discernment.
If
you’ll allow me a little poetic license, I really don’t think Joseph jumped up
from his dream and ran to Mary to say that things are all okay now. He likely
woke up at some point after the dream, scratched his head and thought “what was
that?” Is that me wishing I could still marry the woman I love and am coming up
with a reason on my own, or was that God telling me something? It’s a question
we should all ask ourselves- is this of me or of God? The answer can be either,
or both. But if the answer doesn’t include, “of God” then we need to think
twice before acting on our gut.
Joseph
had an incredible gift- he could see the Holy Spirit in others. He was able to
recognize that indeed, the Holy Spirit was dwelling within Mary. The Spirit is sometimes
like a gentle breeze, if you’re not paying attention, you won’t even feel it.
But Joseph takes the time to discern what’s going on around him. Remember, in
the story he had decided to dismiss Mary quietly. But he wasn’t rash about it.
He didn’t make the decision and then go do it. He decided to sleep on it. And
in giving himself time to discern, he found something new. This sort of patient
discernment is something that we don’t do often enough. Things are instant.
People get mad, and then they get on Twitter and let the whole world know about
it. Or this time of year, we make a lot of impulse purchases, don’t we? How
often do we sit down with a difficult decision and just sit with it, without
words. We’re good at dragging decisions out, making pros and cons lists,
talking about it with others, even praying about it, but how often do we just
be quiet and let the Spirit speak to us? Probably not as often as Joseph did,
and his example to us is that grace comes to us in those moments of quiet
discernment.
Another
thing that Joseph does for us is that he urges us to consider how we go about
our business. Joseph had decided to do something quietly that could have done
quite loudly, and probably would have been done in a public manner by most
people. He could have dragged Mary out into the public square and yelled about
her infidelity to the whole village. But he decided to do what needed to be done
quietly. How many of us though do things that should be done quietly out in
public? How many things do we do for our ego’s sake? How often do we make a
scene or make an example of someone when a quiet conversation would do the
trick? It’s something to consider on how we follow up our discernment.
And
finally, we consider Mary. If we read this story as a parable, as something
that is more-than-literal, then we see a wonderful truth expressed in Mary- the
truth that the Holy Spirit is in all of us and is waiting to be birthed. I know
that’s not language we often use, but I think it’s right on target. What is
growing inside of you that will be birthed to our world? It doesn’t matter if
you’re young or old, male or female, fertile or infertile; we all have the
ability to give birth to the Holy Spirit.
You’ll
notice that our reading started at verse 18 of chapter one of Matthew. Did you
wonder what happened in those first 17 verses? I’ll give you a hint; it was a
whole lot of begetting. It’s the genealogy of Jesus. Let’s look at some of who
is in that list. It mentions Jacob, who wasn’t the true heir, but instead stole
the birthright from his brother Esau. It includes Jacob’s son Judah, not the
more well known Joseph. It includes the prostitute Tamar; Ruth the non-Jew;
David, the king who lusted after Bathsheba and had her husband killed; it
includes people like Azor and Eliud, who are only mentioned in this list. The
point is this: Jesus’ genealogy contains saints and sinners, old men and young
women, faithful Jews and those outside of the faith, the popular person and the
nobody. And yet, all of them, over thousands of years were part of the birth,
or the genesis, as the text literally puts it, of Jesus Christ the Messiah.
None
of them were necessarily worthy to bear the Spirit; they weren’t always
equipped for such a task, perhaps they weren’t even really interested in such
as task. But the Holy Spirit was in them and they played a pivotal role in this
story of Jesus’ birth. We too are in this list of this new genesis. It’s no
coincidence that Matthew begins by mimicking the beginning of Genesis. The
Spirit of God moves over the chaotic water and creates life in Genesis. In
Matthew, the Holy Spirit comes to the chaotic situation of a premarital
pregnancy and brings the life of the world into the world. Jesus is a part of
this re-creation. And we live in the reality of this new genesis.
The
Spirit is waiting to break into the world over and over again. The Spirit is in
you, ever growing, waiting to burst forth and give life to all of Creation. The
Spirit could be many things- an outreach project, teaching a Sunday school
class, tutoring a child in need, donating your time or money to a charitable
cause. Whatever it looks like, I promise you, you have something to offer the
world; you have God’s holy and life giving Spirit within you, and the world
needs you to share it. So let us be like Mary. Maybe we don’t understand how
the Spirit got there, or what exactly it will be like once we birth it; perhaps
we don’t feel qualified to birth the Spirit; but nevertheless, as Mary
proclaims in the Magnificat, may our souls proclaim the greatness of the Lord.
Regardless
of what you think about these doctrines, know that God yearns to know us all.
Let us be like Joseph, patiently discerning the Spirit of God moving in our
lives and responding graciously. And let us follow in the footsteps of Mary,
the mother of Jesus, by not being afraid as we share with God in this new
genesis of God’s Kingdom by birthing the Holy Spirit to our world. Amen.
