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December 23, 2007
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Advent
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"The Forgotten Man of Christmas"
Matthew 1: 18-25
- Last week we had our children's Christmas pageant which is something I always enjoy. What I love the most is the uncertainty of what is going to happen.
It is really the kids' show and what happens often remains in my memory bank a long time! But the thing I relate to best is just how doing the pageant reminds me that Christmas is not about superstars, but about ordinary people. People like Mary, the teenager chosen to birth the Messiah. Zechariah the priest who with Elizabeth brought John the Baptist into the world. Joseph the carpenter who for a season was the Dad to the Son of God, and taught Jesus who put all the planets into place how to use a saw, a plane and how to build with stone.
These were people like you and me - people who had a hard time balancing their checkbooks, juggling all the demands of life, and making ends meet. But we know their names because of how they responded to Jesus. We remember them because of their association with Him.
The most silent of the characters of Christmas, even though Matthew wrote his opening chapters from this character's point of view, is Joseph. Clearly Matthew was not writing to display who Joseph was but who Jesus was, but what we learn about Joseph from this description will keep him from becoming the forgotten man of Christmas.
Joseph can get lost in the shuffle of Christmas!
In one Children's Christmas pageant, where the children had lines to speak, the boy playing the part of Joseph got ill and could not come the day of the performance. The director decided to just write Joseph out of the script - and the play went on without him. The most amazing factor was that no one missed Joseph nor questioned his absence.
So, instead of letting Joseph become the forgotten man of Christmas, let's give heed to this life who like Mary was willing to be an instrument in the hand of God for the salvation of the world.
- You remember that Joseph was engaged to Mary and you have heard told multiple times that in that time, engagement meant full fledged marriage without living together yet. It was "marriage" in the sense that if you wanted to "break an engagement" you had to get a divorce.
Beginning in verse 18 of the first chapter, Matthew lets us know he is about to tell us about the birth of Jesus. But in the second sentence, which reads, "before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit" we encounter an ominous phrase
Those three little words, "she was found" say much! She was visibly pregnant. I wonder, what was that disclosure truly like? What was it like when Mary came home from her cousin Elizabeth's clearly, visibly pregnant? Who noticed first, what did they say, how did Mary tell her beloved about this? Or did her shape proclaim it all? Had she told Joseph anything before she departed for her 3 month stay at Elizabeth's house? In that culture and in that era, such a revelation that someone had clearly "slept around" was as startling as a flash of lightning and crash of thunder on a dark night. In early Israel it would have meant certain death for Mary. In the era when Joseph and Mary lived, in the fullness of times, the ancient punishment had been lessened.
Matthew hints at the perplexity this caused Joseph in v. 19 where Joseph is designated both as "her husband" and "a righteous man".
On the one hand Joseph was totally committed to his betrothed. He was her husband. He loved Mary. He wanted the fullness of marriage with her. But then what had happened that she was pregnant? Who had impregnated her? Had he heard at this point that this child was conceived by the Holy Spirit? How was that possible?
The rational man, the husband, with his desire to protect and defend Mary was certainly conflicted. He knew the Scripture long attributed as Messianic prophecy that the "virgin would be with child" but HIS virgin? What was he to do?
For, on the other hand, Joseph was a righteous man, a man who did what is right, who kept the law, who obeyed God-how could obey God and still marry this woman? His questioning here was motivated by fear, the Angel of the Lord says, when the angel comes and says: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife."
It was fear that was motivating him. What was Joseph afraid of?
Was it fear that he would be subject to ridicule-for if he married her, the assumption would be that he had impregnated her before the wedding or that he was covering for her sin?
Or, was he afraid to marry her BECAUSE he believed the story that what was conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit? Was he afraid to become the dad to the Messiah?
While both are possibilities, it seems more likely that Joseph was afraid of the cultural ridicule, the questioning glances, the rumoring, the clouding his own good name in the small Nazareth community, and afraid that it was not true this child was conceived by the Holy Spirit. For the angel uses the fact of a supernatural conception as proof that it is okay for Joseph "not to fear".
Either way, Joseph struggles with his decision. We are not given a clue to what extent, but we know his heart of compassion for his Mary won over justice. He chose to act in mercy toward her by choosing to divorce her quietly, giving the certificate of divorce in the presence of two witnesses.
Joseph was not a man to act in haste - he was not reactive, but reflective and deliberate, so after making this decision apparently he had resolved to take action the next day, and went to sleep.
- Where was God all this time? Why didn't God just write a message in the sky for Joseph to read and clear up the matter?
Well, why doesn't God just communicate in that fashion? Why doesn't God remove the guesswork from hard decisions?
Asked in that fashion the reason becomes obvious - God has chosen to "come" instead of just giving a message. God gave Himself as the answer to our quandaries - so our answers will not be found in some handwritten message on a wall, but in the ongoing reality of a living relationship with the living God.
Also, when I am swamped by fears, when fear is the air I breathe, the water in which I am submerged, I am not open to God's voice. Were God to be speaking, I would not be listening, for I am busy listening to my fears. Like the disciples in their famed boat trip across the Sea of Galilee - I would hear the wail of my heart: "we're all going to die".
So, perhaps God was speaking to Joseph in the midst of his decision making, but Joseph could not hear. He was swamped by the fears of what was going to happen, what had happened to his Mary, about what would happen if he married her.
But the other possibility in how God, our good God, works - is that God was unwilling to intervene in Joseph's questioning. God let Joseph have the space to feel through to the end, to come to a decision, to wrestle with righteousness and justice and arrive at mercy, which revealed much about Joseph's heart.
Doesn't this account in Joseph's life reveal then how God works in our lives? That God will not necessarily remove the doubts, the fears, the difficulties, but allows us to encounter them, to face them and to make decisions for Truth, for Righteousness, for Mercy out of our desire to serve and please God, rather than giving us a clear cut answer to our many prayers?
- So then, in the night, Joseph has a dream in which the angel of the Lord comes to him and gives him a message which will change Joseph's mind. It is a message of freeing grace, which will turn Joseph from divorce to marriage, from fear and doubt to faith, from quandary to strength.
This angel - not designated as just "an angel" but THE ANGEL OF THE LORD was perhaps Gabriel who had been sent to Zechariah and then to Mary some months earlier. This was not a Hallmark, fluffy, Crystal Cathedral feminine flowing white gowned angel-no, this was God's Angel, a warrior, a mighty, powerful witness to Truth.
The angel begins by saying: "Joseph, Son of David" - clearly connecting him to David's line. Joseph may have remembered even then the prophecies saying the Messiah would be born in the line of David.
Then, the angel says, what I have already pointed to: "Do not fear to take Mary home as your wife…"
"Do not fear!" God is continually saying this to people we encounter in Scripture. I read that someone once counted the number of times this phrase is said to us, and found it there once for every day of the year - God says, "Do not Fear" 365 times in Scripture. It may be there even more than that! Do you think there is a message in that for us?
Often in our lives we don't even recognize that it is fear that is motivating us. We may think we are simply angry. We may think we are being rational and logical, when underneath our decisions and actions dwells fear.
Perhaps Joseph did not even see that he was afraid until the angel told him to not be afraid.
- "Don't be afraid," the angel said, "take Mary home as your wife!" And Joseph obeyed the voice of the angel. He woke up the next day and immediately did what the angel had told him to do - he did what he wanted to do in the first place - he took Mary home, he married her, but he did not consummate that union until after the birth of her firstborn, a son, and Joseph gave him the name Jesus, just as the angel had said.
Joseph was rational, deliberate, and faithful to Mary - and more than that, he was obedient. Joseph learned to listen and obey in an instant after this experience. So in the three dreams detailed in chapter 2, we find Joseph responding with immediate obedience to God's voice through the angel.
Soon after the verse, within the first two years of Jesus' life, the angel comes at night and abruptly wakes Joseph up saying: "Get up! Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt! Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him."
In 2:14 we read: "So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt…" That's about a 60 mile journey at a walking pace.
Don't be afraid, just obey seems to have become Joseph mantra. Joseph does not react but responds to God's word and obeys. He just obeys.
Because of Joseph's obedience, Jesus' young life is spared.
Because of his obedience, Jesus is brought back to the land of Israel, the land of promise, the land of prophecy, the land of hope, and raised in the town of Nazareth.
Because of his obedience, Jesus is able to be known later in life as the "son of the carpenter" rather than as a son of a harlot. Only the Pharisees will later ridicule Jesus as "illegitimate".
Because of his obedience, Jesus can be known as a "Nazarene," having grown up in the town of Nazareth.
Because of Joseph's obedience, he is not forgotten, but rather is remembered. Obedience is that important to God.
Out of the Coptic tradition in the Christian church, which is the Egyptian church, known as the oldest expression of the Christian faith, there is a lovely story about a small spider's obedience. The story tells how Joseph Mary and Jesus during their escape into Egypt took refuge in a cave. It was very cold, so cold that the ground was white with frost. A little spider saw the baby Jesus and wished that he could do something to keep the child warm. He decided to do the only thing he could do: spin a heavy web across the doorway to the cave. Later, a detachment of Herod's soldiers, searching for the refugee family, spotted the cave. When the squadron commander saw the spider's web, he declared, "No one is in there, for anyone entering would have torn the web." The soldiers moved on, leaving the Holy Family safe, all because a little spider spun his web across the entryway. This tradition tells us that the tinsel streamers we place on our
Christmas trees today represent the strands of the spider's web glistening with that silver frost." (Howard Edington, The Forgotten Man of Christmas, p 24, ubp)
Sometimes people look to do some great thing for God, but perhaps the greatest thing we can do is to obey in little ways the God who has come, who is "God with us".
Perhaps the little thing of turning from fear to God, the little thing of listening and obeying is greater than any mighty feat in the eyes of God.
But perhaps the greatest obedience will be to continually do what Joseph did and welcome Jesus into our lives, into our homes, into our hopes and dreams and therein discover the living God leading us through our lives.
(referred to Howard Edington's The Forgotten Man of Christmas
Barnes' New Testament Notes, Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, '49)
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