ADVENT 4A - Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 16-18; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25 -

23 December 2007 - A sermon preached by The Rev. Peter A. Munson for St. Ambrose Episcopal Church, Boulder, Colorado

 

Ongoing Discernment With God

 

INTRODUCTION - The four Gospels and the birth of the Messiah

 

This is one of the many reasons why it is a wonderful thing that we have four Gospels - four different accounts of the life of Jesus. Take the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, for example. Mark and John say nothing about it. They both start with John the Baptist and Jesus appearing on the world’s stage as adults. Luke gives us what you might call “the birth of Jesus from the perspective of Mary”. Thanks to Luke, all subsequent generations have received the wonderful story of the Annunciation - the angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary and the announcement that, by the Holy Spirit, she would conceive and bear a son, who would be called “Son of God”, and “reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” (Luke 1:26-38) Thanks to Luke, we also receive Mary’s hymn of praise, said in Elizabeth’s presence, that we now call the Magnificat. What we don’t get from Luke is anything about Joseph’s reaction to all of this. Joseph is pretty much “off stage” in Luke’s gospel, and Mary is very much “center stage”. It is just the opposite in Matthew’s gospel. Matthew is the only other gospel writer who writes about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, and he makes Joseph the focus of the story. And that’s a good thing for us, too. Aren’t you glad that you know something about how Joseph reacted to all of this? Without Matthew’s account, we would have been left with nothing about what Joseph was thinking about this baby who suddenly came into his family, under the most unusual of circumstances.

 

JOSEPH HAD MADE UP HIS MIND...

 

We are told by Matthew that Joseph was a righteous man. By the other things Matthew tells us, we see that Joseph was a man of faith who respected women, and always tried to do the right thing. According to Jewish law, Mary and Joseph had entered into the second stage of the marriage process. They were beyond the engagement process, which started when a girl reached puberty and was promised by her father to her future husband. They were now betrothed. This was a one-year period prior to marriage. The couple was known at this time as husband and wife, even though they did not live together, for they were not yet married. Still, the only way a betrothal could be broken was by divorce.

 

It was during this period of betrothal that Joseph learned that Mary was pregnant. Imagine what kind of stress Joseph was under as thought about what to do. Being righteous, you can be sure he agonized over the decision. According to the law - because Mary was pregnant, and not by him - this was grounds for divorce. More than that, according to the law, this was also grounds for Mary being stoned to death by the men of the town. (Deut. 22:13-21) You can be sure that Joseph thought long and hard about what he should do. According to Matthew, “... Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.” (Matthew 1:19) In other words, a quiet divorce - in Joseph’s mind - was the right way to go.

 

He could never disgrace Mary publicly. He would divorce her quietly, without fanfare. That was the right thing to do. He was sure of it.

 

That night, when he went to bed, Joseph was thinking about how good it would be to finally get a good night’s sleep. He was looking forward to getting the kind of sleep that comes when one has a clear conscience from making the right decision, from making a decision that had come after weighing everything out, and that had included that one important question: “What is the most loving thing to do in this situation?”

 

Yes, Joseph finally had a clear conscience. He was going to take action to make the divorce happen - perhaps even the next day. So he went to sleep, and was sleeping well, when all of a sudden the angel came...

 

“Joseph! JOSEPH, SON OF DAVID! Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife. She is pregnant not by another man, but by the Holy Spirit. She will deliver a son. Name him Jesus, which means ‘the Lord saves’, for he will be the One to save his people from their sins.”

 

Matthew goes on to tell us that after he awoke, Joseph did as the angel commanded. But you and I know that Matthew left out a few interesting details.

 

Truth be told, when Joseph first woke up, he thought to himself, “Man, what a weird dream!” He thought about what he had heard. He thought about dismissing the dream altogether. But he couldn’t. It was too real, too vivid, too powerful. He couldn’t get it out of his mind. Could it be true? “Mary pregnant by the Holy Spirit? That’s crazy! Who had ever heard of such a thing?”

 

Then, as I see it, as he opened himself up to this possibility, Joseph got a little irritated with the angel. “Why is this angel coming to me now? I spent hours and hours, days and days - I spent weeks agonizing over this decision - pouring over the scriptures again and again, losing sleep all over the place. I finally made up my mind as to what the right decision was, and then, after I have finally resolved in my mind what to do, the angel comes with this new information! Where was the angel when I was losing all that sleep? That’s what I want to know! (Looking up to God) Is this how You show that You care about me?”

 

But Joseph finally moved past his anger. He had to, because the dream would not let go of him. He now had new information that he hadn’t had before, and then - when he went to talk to Mary about it, and heard her story - well, it all started to line up. He finally admitted to himself that he would have to think through his decision all over again.

 

BEYOND LAW TO GRACE

 

Joseph, in deciding to divorce Mary quietly, had decided to do the perfect and righteous and legal thing, and, we might even say, the compassionate thing - under the law. But sometimes the perfect and righteous thing is not good enough for the purposes of God. Sometimes God calls us to a higher righteousness, a righteousness that is beyond the law, beyond what we are legally entitled to do. The angel of the Lord knew that Joseph had done everything exactly the way it said to do it in the Torah, and was even demonstrating compassion towards Mary. Part of the angel’s job was to help Joseph understand that God had new and higher purposes in mind, which transcended the earlier purposes of God that had been revealed in the giving of the Torah.

 

Sometimes, even after you’ve been pouring over the scriptures, trying to make the right decision, and you think you’ve got it all figured out, God intervenes in some way, and suddenly another scripture comes to mind - one that been overlooked earlier - and you begin to see with new eyes. I think that is what might have happened to Joseph after the dream and the words he heard from the angel. Maybe he sat down with the scriptures again, and in trying to make sense of all that had just happened, he found the place in Isaiah where it said, “Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.” (Isaiah 7:14) Maybe as he reviewed this scripture, he allowed himself to think something that, hours earlier, would have seemed utterly preposterous. “That young woman mentioned in Isaiah could be Mary! And the baby to be born - Immanuel - God with us! Is this prophecy from over 700 years ago coming true now... in my life with Mary?”

 

You know that Joseph thought through the potential ramifications if he changed his mind and made this new decision - to go ahead and take Mary as his wife. There would be the reactions of the relatives to deal with, not to mention skeptical and even cruel folks from all over town. There probably would be some effects on his carpentry business, too. But after he weighed it all out - ALL OVER AGAIN! - Joseph 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.” (Matthew 1:24-25) And when that son was born, they named him Jesus.

 

CONCLUSION

 

And so it happened that after he had done all his studying of the law and all his agonizing, and had made up his mind, Joseph was surprised by God. Joseph listened to the angel sent by God. And by God’s grace, Joseph was open enough to hear the angel out, and change his mind on what he should do with respect to Mary and the coming baby. Joseph allowed his mind to be changed, when confronted with new information. More than that, Joseph allowed himself to be changed. Joseph opened himself up to God in a new way, and God saved him from his own intended actions, and from himself. In the process, he went from doing what would have been the right thing - divorcing Mary quietly - to doing what was the very will of God.

 

The next time you or I face a difficult decision, and have finally figured out what to do... when we’ve firmly resolved that we have all the information we need, and we’re making a good and even a righteous decision, and then, suddenly, we get some new information... let us pray that we can pay attention, humble ourselves, and listen - as Joseph did. For it just might be that God is the One who is sending us this new information, and calling us to a higher righteousness. It just might be God reaching out... to save us from ourselves.