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December 04, 2005
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God is With Us
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Pastor Brian Shimer
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"Joseph Encounters the God of Mission Impossible"
Matthew 1: 18-25
- This season of Advent we are looking at the ordinary people who encountered and learned to know the character of the Living God. Zechariah encountered a God who did relate personally to him, knew his name, answered his prayers. Before this God he did not need to be terrorized, but could go to him and abide with Him. Zechariah encountered the incomparable present tense God.
Today, with Joseph we encounter the size of God, just how Big God is.
I tend to like Joseph. He is like a shadow, a behind-the-scenes kind of guy. Some of you can relate to that, can't you? Joseph would never have signed up to be a worship leader. Joseph is in the first 2 chapters of Matthew, then beyond brief mentions of him, he disappears from history after the birth of Jesus.
But I marvel at the man. He had lived a fairly uneventful life until he met Mary. That's true for lots of us married guys: life was fairly routine and then came our wives! But it was more true for Joseph.
Joseph was a carpenter in Galilee - today we would call him a building contractor. Carpenters built buildings from stone and furniture and ox yokes from wood. He was betrothed to Mary, living in the small town of Nazareth when Mary turned up pregnant.
You may remember that in those days to be betrothed was to be legally married, but not living together until the groom had finished the addition on his father's house, and came to get his bride and bring her to their home. Then there would be a weeklong wedding celebration and consummation of the relationship.
But if anyone wanted to break a betrothal, it meant getting a divorce. So when Mary is found pregnant, it meant either she had to be stoned, publicly disgraced, or quietly divorced. In this community even a quiet divorce would be known by all. However, Joseph stunned everyone when he instead took Mary home as his wife and kept her a virgin without consummating the relationship until after the birth of Jesus. This was to do something that was not one of his options.
And imagine the additional surprise when asked why he had done it and could only answer with, "an angel told me to."
- This guy followed his dreams. He had made up his mind to divorce Mary quietly, and then an angel visited him in his dreams and everything changed. Here is a man of commitment, a man of integrity and a man of faith. God gives him his mission impossible assignment and he does not flinch. Scripture shows no reaction, but simply "Joseph did what the angel had told him and took Mary home as his wife."
They may have bypassed the big wedding celebration, and they bypassed consummating the marriage until after the birth of Jesus. Joseph was a rock-solid man's man. It blesses me to read this.
There are men today who are just into "taking" from women and fleeing from God and responsibility. They are guys who minimize relationships, who negate commitment. They are happy to take advantage of a girl in order to have what they call a good time. Such guys do not deserve the name "men" - they are dogs, instinctual animals, perhaps, but less than human.
But Joseph - what a man he was!
He was afraid to take Mary as his wife, but the angel said, "Do it!" and so he did.
God was the originator of the "Just Do It!" campaign and Joseph did.
His yes may have meant ridicule by the people of his community, possible loss of business, and multiple hardships. It meant a willingness to wait to consummate his marriage, and the huge charge to be a dad to God. This is a mission impossible if ever there was one, but it is bigger than all this even.
- For God had predicted the whole event and Matthew ties this to the verse from Isaiah. Some say Matthew was quoting Isaiah to prove Mary's virginity, but why would he need to do that? Mary's virginity is proven already by the text. Three times she is named a virgin with the Greek word meaning never having had sexual intercourse.
No, this fulfilled Isaiah's prophecy in another way.
If you read back to Isaiah, chapter 7 begins a five chapter section dealing with unfaithful King Ahaz, king of Judah. In that section he is in a difficult situation.
Remember there had been civil war in Israel after the death of Solomon, son of David. And ten of the tribes of Israel became the Northern Kingdom called Israel while two became the Southern Kingdom, called themselves Judah.
After King Uzziah died, there arose a world super power, Assyria, which was ruthlessly taking over country after country and was threatening to attack Israel, the northern Kingdom and Aram. These two countries united and called upon King Ahaz to join forces with them to stand against Assyria. King Ahaz says: "NO!" for he knew to stand against Assyria was stupid.
However, these two countries were angry that Ahaz refused to join them, so turned to attack him in Jerusalem. It was their plan to dismantle Judah and create another nation with one of their own named king. At this Ahaz asks Assyria to protect him!
Imagine, turning to your enemy to be protected from another enemy. It is like the mouse taking refuge in the paw of the cat when facing the rat.
At this juncture with these two nations coming against Jerusalem, and the threat of a super power against them, God sends Isaiah to Ahaz.
Isaiah 7:4: "Say to him, 'Be careful, keep calm and don't be afraid. Do not lose heart because of these two smoldering stubs of firewood--…"
Do you hear what God thinks of these powerful enemies? They are smoldering stubs of firewood. They will burn out!
And God goes on to challenge Ahaz saying: "Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights."
Ahaz is a faithless king - so he will not ask for a sign, even though God is the one who told him to ask for it, saying, he "would not put the Lord to the test."
God was testing to see if Ahaz would demonstrate trust in Him by obeying this command to ask for a sign, instead Ahaz falters, he turns from God as he has already turned to Assyria. So, God says: Will you try my patience? Or "Listen, you royalties, I am tired of you!" (Moffatt translation)
So, God tells Ahaz what will happen: A child will be born and while this child is still young, before 7, the two kings you are now fearing will die, and before 10, the entire northern Kingdom will be swept off the map by the super power Assyria you thought you could trust. This is told in the next two chapters. Yet all the while "God is with us" - in other words, there is a God who can be trusted.
- So, when the quote from Isaiah about the child is placed in Matthew, the connection the Jewish readers will make is to the whole history of King Ahaz and this super power threatening to destroy the nation. The question was whether Ahaz would trust God instead of this super power. Ahaz chose Assyria.
In Joseph's time, the situation for the nation of Israel was similar. I am now using the name "Israel" to refer to the nation existing at the time of Jesus' birth.
A large super power (rome) was surrounding and controlling them, and in the birth of "God with us" would Israel, beginning with Joseph, trust God or trust the super power or their own abilities to save the nation.
The lesson is "do as Joseph did" and as Ahaz ought to have done: "Trust God" Place your whole trust in God even when all the odds are against you. Place your trust in God even if people will think you strange.
Here is where Joseph's encounter with the God of mission impossible speaks to our lives today -
Like Joseph, what we say or do will most likely not be remembered by the history books, but are we still willing to take a stand when opportunity is given even when that stand is unpopular or against societal norms?
Are we willing to trust God when faced with super powers around us that are bigger than we can handle alone?
Are we placing our trust and hope in God when the pressures of the season seem to be too big for us?
This may mean not having a drink in a social gathering because you care about the witness this may have to another present.
For me it meant writing a very politically incorrect letter to my bishop to take a stand on a difficult topic encountering our conference.
For the Samona family in Michigan it meant not bowing to a demand that they remove a Nativity Scene from public display in their front yard. Their stand was eventually honored and the management company of their subdivision removed the threat of fines apologizing to the family.
A local teacher had the opportunity at Banks Elementary School to affirm that yes, Jesus Christ was an historical figure, but chose not to do it this week, for whatever reasons. It happened when the class had been studying Roman history and in that context the life of Jesus Christ. A student had said, "I've heard that Jesus was just mythical character." This was this teacher's perfect opportunity to simply say, "Oh, but it is true history," for it is, more provable than Lincoln's assassination, but instead she said nothing, infuriating another young Christian in the room.
There are young people in this nation saying "no" to dating relationships in high school not because of being prudish, but to uphold their commitment to Jesus and the Biblical mandate not to stir up the fires of love too early. They are investing themselves in knowing Jesus, in having lots of friends, in living life to the full, but refuse to add in "romance" even when society does not understand such a stand. Sex is promoted as an assumed, airbrushed, aspect of young relationships, but so are the proliferation of some 250 STDs, the rise in teen pregnancy and the abortion industry. These teens say they can trust God with their future relationships.
The God Joseph met can handle anything, there is nothing too big or too hard for this God. This God says: "Will you trust me enough to side with me even when society pulls you another way?" And how will you answer?
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