--
Matthew
1:18-25
18
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary
had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be
with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man
and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to
him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary
as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She
will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people
from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the
Lord through the prophet:
23 “Look,
the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which
means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel
of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital
relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
--
Last
Sunday I had the privilege of joining some members of our community of faith as
we visited a few of our homebound members and sang them some well-known
Christmas songs. You can guess some of the songs. “Silent Night,” “Little
Drummer Boy,” “Jingle Bells,” and of course, “We Wish You a Merry Christmas!”
All songs most of us could sing along to… which is a good thing for amateur
singers like me who are trying to bring some festivity and joy through the
age-old practice of Christmas Caroling.
And
then, we added more Christmas cheer as we drove from house to house. I was in a
vehicle with three of our youth and one of their parents. On the radio was, of
course, more Christmas music.
Between
two of the houses, a Christmas song came on the radio that I wasn’t familiar
with. It kind of had some catchy lyrics, so I was following along. One of the
youth in the backseat was singing along to every word of this song. She had it
memorized. I was impressed. I was even more impressed when I found out that
this song that the youth knew every word to was first released in 1953. And
yes, we were listening to the original version.
The
song that we were listening to was “I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas,” first
recorded and sung by Gayla Peevey, who was ten years old at the time.
In
the song, Gayla states that she doesn’t want a doll or a tinker toy; all she
wants is a hippopotamus for Christmas. She doesn’t want a crocodile or a
rhinoceros. She wants a hippo! Because she like hippopotamuseses and
hippopotamuseses like her too. Listen to the song if you don’t know it; you’ll
understand that last part.
I’m
sure we’re all familiar with buying gifts for our friends and family. Sometimes
it’s pretty easy. In my own family, at this point, we pretty much tell each
other, “This – this exact thing – is what I want for Christmas from you… and
this – this different exact thing – is what I want from you… and so forth.”
But
sometimes the Christmas list is a little more difficult to fulfill. Such as a ten-year-old
asking for nothing but a hippopotamus for Christmas. How many of you know
children who have asked for something for Christmas that is nearly impossible
to get them? Perhaps a hippo or a unicorn or a rocket ship or for you to change
their name to Batman… or maybe they ask to spend Christmas Day with their mom
or their dad or their grandparents if for whatever reason, maybe because of the
armed forces, work, or even death, they are separated. How many of you have
asked – or even prayed – for something miraculous to happen during the
Christmas season? And maybe that year, that’s all you ask for…
We’re
calling these moments… Christmas expectations. Because that’s what this season
feels like at times. There is so much shopping and cleaning and planning and
preparing and decorating and cooking and wrapping and visiting and traveling
and and and and and more.
And
these expectations are even more exhausting when the unexpected happens.
Like
being told that the woman you are to marry is pregnant with a child conceived
by the Holy Spirit. Talk about the unexpected.
In our
text for today, we have the only passage of scripture in which Joseph, the
adoptive human father of Jesus, is the central character.
We
know very little about Joseph, maybe enough facts for each finger on one hand.
We
know his profession. Joseph is a carpenter; a trade that by no means made him wealthy
but at least stable enough to live an okay life.
We
know his lineage, which is important to the writer of the Gospel of Matthew, as
evidenced by the list of name after name at the start of this Gospel. It
connects Joseph to God’s chosen people of old, such as Abraham, Tamar, Ruth,
David, etc.
We
know where he’s from, as him and Mary his fiancé must head back to his
hometown, Bethlehem of Nazareth to be counted for the census.
We
know Joseph is a righteous man; he is just and upright. When put in a place of
conflict, Joseph intends to do what he believes is the rightful,
lawful thing without embarrassment or shame to his wife-to-be.
And
we know that Joseph is a Godly man. He knows the requirements to be in covenant
with God and he is doing his best to follow them. Joseph, at the end of the
day, just wants to be in a right relationship with God.
So
when the unexpected happened, the seemingly random pregnancy of his wife-to-be
who he had no relations with, Joseph plans to dismiss her, because that’s what
the Jewish law would have him do, and Joseph is trying to be “right” in the eyes
of his Creator.
But
what Joseph failed to do in this unexpected moment of chaos is to listen … he does
not listen to the woman is he to be with and he does not listen to the God he
is trying to be right with. Instead, when the unexpected is thrown into his
expectations, he just adds another step to his list of things he must get done.
You know, at this time, Joseph has to be
fixing and hammering and packing and traveling and preparing and praying and
and and and and now dismissing his pregnant wife-to-be.
So
yes, Joseph adds another expectation to his list of expectations, without even
considering why this unexpected thing may have happened. So to make it as clear
as a vision in the night, when Joseph is sleeping rather than checking off his
list of expectations, God sends an angel of the Lord to him.
In a
dream, the angel tells Joseph to embrace the unexpected and not be afraid of what
he didn’t plan for, because in that thing – this child of Mary’s – something Joseph
never saw coming – is salvation for the world. When the angel of the Lord tells
Joseph to name this child Jesus, Joseph must have remembered the Jewish scriptures
being the Godly man he was, and he was reminded that this moment was prophesized
and that when that prophesized moment would happen, God would be there, fully
present with the people for this child’s other name would be Emmanuel, which
means “God is with us.” Or for Joseph and Mary in that time of unexpected
pregnancy, it was the promise that God was with them.
Over
the last couple of weeks, we have been putting straw in the manger to
anticipate the arrival of Jesus’ coming. We’ve been adding straw to the manger
when we done good deeds or acts of service. We’ve been adding straw to the
manger when we have spent time in prayer or reading scripture. We’ve been
adding straw to the manger when we’ve repented and when we have forgiven. And then
each Sunday we added more ways we can add straw to the manger. We’ve heard and
learned that we add straw to the manger when we recognize that God calls us to
focus on what is coming, we’ve heard and learned that we add straw to the
manger when we proclaim the message that we are free to live in the path of
Christ, and we’ve heard and learned that we add straw to the manger when we
encourage each other.
And today
we add straw to the manger when we prepare for Jesus’ birth, the giver of salvation,
and we add straw to the manger when during that preparation, we trust in Emmanuel,
that God is with us no matter what is thrown our way, the good or the bad, the
expected or the unexpected.
One of
the most amazing things found in the Gospel of Matthew is the promise that
opens and closes this book, which tells of the birth, life, death, and
resurrection of our Savior.
Listen
for this promise:
In
the first chapter in the Gospel, before Jesus’ birth, Matthew 1:22-23: “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.’”
In
the last chapter in the Gospel, after Jesus’ death and resurrection and moments
before his ascension into heaven, Matthew 28:18-20: “And Jesus came and said to
them, ‘All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore
and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and
of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I
have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of
the age.’”
God
is with us, always, in Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter, and Pentecost, in every
season of life. God with us, always, in every planned list of expectations, and
in the unexpected, the chaos, the impossible, the stress, and the worry. And God
is with us, always, in every moment of joy… and in every moment when we feel
otherwise.
Look
for the sign of this promise on Christmas, just a few mere days away, and you
will know its true, that God has been with us, God is with us, and God will be
with us. This sign is what we have all been preparing for; it’s a child in a
manger, laying on a bed of so much straw that each speak of great good things
we have done in anticipation of that coming day.
I want
to return to the Christmas song I mentioned earlier, the song that was first
sung by Gayla Peevey in 1953, the one in which a child adds an unexpected, near
impossible item to her Christmas list.
Do you all know that Gayla’s Christmas wish came true?
After
the release of her song, a statewide fund drive in Oklahoma, in which children donated
dimes, led to the Oklahoma City zoo purchasing of a pachyderm hippopotamus
named Mathilda in Gayla’s honor. Then, over 60 years later, in 2017, the zoo
did it again, and bought a pygmy hippopotamus named Francesca, once again in
Gayla’s honor.
Friends,
the unexpected happens. It’s happens now with unforeseen items on Christmas lists,
it happened 2000 years ago when a young couple-to-be handled a holy conception
and birth, and it will happen again, as another wrench in thrown into any of
our pre-prepared plans.
But
the promise is still true, declared in the name of one who came to save us, in Christ
who will come again. Emmanuel: God is with us. Amen.
--
Joseph’s
Dream, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt
Divinity Library, Nashville, TN.http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56270 [retrieved
December 23, 2019]. Original source:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/paullew/23745541071.
