Matthew 1:18-25
December 8
David A. Davis
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This morning we continue in our Advent sermon series on “the annunciations”. The angel Gabriel announced to Zechariah that his wife Elizabeth would give birth to John. Gabriel announced to Mary that she would be with the child by the Holy Spirit. The angel and the heavenly host announce to the shepherds in all their splendor and glory. This morning, it is angel of the Lord appearing to Joseph in a dream. For Joseph, it is something other than “an annunciation” because, of course, Joseph already knew that Mary was pregnant and he was trying desperately to discern what was the right thing to do.
Zechariah had the benefit of a conversation with the angel Gabriel. Joseph had to settle for a dream. Joseph was a righteous man and unwilling to humiliate his betrothed. According to Matthew, Joseph had decided to “dismiss Mary quietly” to avoid the “public disgrace.” One can easily imagine the whispers, the shaming, the finger-pointing, the shunning. A biblical version of a social media firestorm. What is more difficult to picture is what Mary’s life would have been like as a young, vulnerable, pregnant woman becoming a nobody or less in the blink of an eye. What it would have been like for Mary to be “dismissed quietly”.
Through the angel of the Lord appearing to Joseph in a dream, God has other plans for Joseph, for Mary his fiancé, and for the child she is carrying in her womb. Mary is not to be “dismissed quietly”. Compared to the other angel appearances, the “do not be afraid” line in Joseph’s dream has a different take. When the angel Gabriel tells Zechariah and then Mary to not be afraid, the takeaway is to not be afraid of the ethereal angelic presence. But here the angel tells Joseph to not be afraid to get married. Go ahead marry Mary, the angel says. The pregnancy is a God thing. Mary is going to give birth to a son and you Joseph are to name him Jesus. “When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him.” For Joseph, the angel dream is not an annunciation, it is a command. God’s command to Joseph.
Joseph has no lines in the Christmas pageant when it comes to the gospel page. He doesn’t get into a conversation with the angel like Zechariah or Mary. He doesn’t get to sing like Mary’s Magnificat. Joseph doesn’t speak anywhere in Luke or in Matthew. But notice Matthew’s literary move here as the nativity story comes to an end. Matthew gives Joseph the last word. It doesn’t come as a dialogue with quotation marks. “He did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took Mary as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.” “Joseph’s first and last word comes in the naming of Jesus.
Joseph named him Jesus. “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Call him Jesus. He will save. Mary bore a son. Joseph named him Jesus. It’s more than Joseph getting to say something.. It is Joseph’s obedience. His obedience. His faith statement. It is Joseph’s move from participant observer to preacher, proclaimer, and evangelist. Joseph named him Savior. In his silence, Joseph became the proclaimer. As Joseph portrayed by Philip in the video showed obedience by getting up and immediately packing a bag, here in Matthew Joseph’s obedience comes in the naming. Joseph did more than speak. He named him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
You and I are participants in a pageant that unfolds all around us year after year. We are participant observers in a pageant of everyday life that mushes the secular and the sacred all together. As we here on life’s stage, try to discern the faithful and right way to live in a complex, swirling world. Our roles have us moving, often unaware, from the mundane to the holy. We seek to respond to the call of the Christ Child with the obedience and discipleship of our lives, and most of us I imagine, like Joseph, prefer the silence of a non-speaking part.
As the congregation gathered around the fount this morning for Kai’s baptism, a few lines were spoken. “What is the Christian name of your child?” Another naming. The sacrament of baptism drips with our obedience to Christ. “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them….” Time and time again, the entire congregation surrounds a child, surrounding the one baptized, where a few splashes of the mundane become holy. It’s not just a naming. It’s a faith statement: all of us promising to “tell this child the good news of the gospel, to help them to know all that Christ commands, and by your fellowship, to strengthen their family ties with the household of God” That is a sacred task. A promise fulfilled less with words and a whole lot more with the obedience of our lives in the everyday pageant. Joseph’s response to God’s command and ours.
“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’”. Name the child Jesus, Joseph. He is God with us and he will save.
Frederick Buechner offers a reflection on Emmanuel and the promise of God with us. He offers an invitation to ponder the power of the here and now of God with us. “To look at the last great self-portraits of Rembrandt or to read Pascal or hear Bach’s B Minor Mass is to know beyond the need for further evidence that if God is anywhere, God is with them,” Buechner writes. “God is also with the man behind the meat counter, the woman who scrubs floors at [the hospital], the high school math teacher who explains fractions to the bewildered [student]. And the step from ‘God with them’ to Emmanuel, ‘God with us’, may not be as great as it seems. What keeps the wild hope of Christmas alive year after year in a world notorious for dashing all hopes” Buechner concludes, “is the haunting dream that the child who was born that day may yet be born even in us.”
The wild hope of Christmas. Joseph’s dream and ours. That by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we might bear the light of the Christ Child in the world’s shadows with the obedience of our discipleship. For the light of the Christ Child forever shines like a bright morning star. A light that the darkness shall never overcome. A light that pierces through the night with the promise of God’s steadfast faithfulness offering peace and goodwill when both are noticeably absent. A light that flickers with the everlasting hope of God’s wisdom breaking into a world that prefers foolishness and folly. A light that shines ever brighter with the assurance that God would dare to become somehow like us, come all the way down to us, to make holy the sinfulness of our flesh. The light of the Christ Child for us and for our salvation. Emmanuel. God is with us. He named him Jesus.
Our wild hope for the world at Christmas meets God’s wild promise.
“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel commanded him….he named him Jesus.”