4th Sunday of Advent. Matthew 1:18-25. Joseph and Mary.
Today we are going to look a little closer at two betrothed teenagers, Joseph and Mary of Nazareth, chosen by God to be catalysts of the most important event in all of history. All because they were faithful to God.
These are pre-Pentecost times, and before the gift of universal access to God the Holy Spirit through all that Christ Jesus did for us, one of the ways God used to speak to people was to send angels.
The word angel just means messenger. So both Mary and Joseph were sent holy messengers with holy messages. Mary was visited in person by the Archangel Gabriel, and Joseph was sent an angel in a dream. The point here is that they both were instantly obedient to God.
Mary said “Behold, I am a servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word” (Luke 1:38). Today’s gospel shows Joseph, “did as the angel of the Lord commanded him” (Matt 1:24), and married Mary.
Joseph is such a humble man, the man in the background. The perfect example of the humble servant of God. The least who will be the greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.
God did not entrust his son to be fathered by a rabbi or a scribe or a pharisee or a rich merchant but by a tradesman, from a very humble village in one of the most humble provinces in the Roman Empire.
Here are just a few things we notice in this very short gospel reading about Joseph. He could have had Mary stoned to death, but he was a kind and righteous man, and wanting to avoid malicious and shaming gossip, he decided to just break off the engagement quietly. What a loving act.
Now God needed a very specific, Godly man to be Jesus’ adoptive father, and, as God does, he chose perfectly.
He was a man who did not need an angel to appear to him to change the direction of his life, but only a dream of an angel. A man who put God’s agenda for his fiancé before his own hopes. When he married her he would have been seen as a weak man under the thumb of an already adulterous wife.
He was a man who set aside the sexual expression of his love for Mary until after Jesus’ birth. He was a righteous man who knew that Scripture must be fulfilled. In order for the Scripture to be fulfilled, Jesus must not only have been conceived to a virgin, but born of a virgin.
A man who risked Herod’s murderous intent and was ready to lay down his life for his bride, just as his son would be ready to lay down his life for his bride – the church.
So Mary and Joseph, utterly obedient to God. What did they make of the amazing promises in the messages they received from God. All generations would call her blessed through this Son she would bear, who would be great and would receive the throne of David forever. And Joseph was told to call him Jesus -which means God saves.
But then almost from the beginning, things went a bit crazy. Up and down like a yo-yo. All those promises made by the angels may have seemed far away.
Suddenly a census is called, so Joseph and a very pregnant Mary have to travel from Nazareth in the far north in Galilee, on a donkey, to Bethlehem in Judea, the other end of the country. Relying on whatever savings the very young carpenter had, in order to be counted in the town of his ancestors.
When they get there the who town is full, nowhere to stay. Then Mary saying something like – “Darling, I think the baby is coming!” HELP LORD, I reckon Joseph might have said.
The baby is born, and the only cot is a feed trough, (a feed trough!) in which the Saviour of the World is laid. The yo-yo spins some more and some itinerant Shepard’s come and say, “you’ll never believe what we just saw and heard from the whole heavenly host of angles.”
And suddenly a whole lot of people knew that the King of Kings had been born - including Herod the Great.
Herod, perceiving a threat to his kingship decided to kill all the newborn boys in Bethlehem. Again, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him to flee to Egypt. Once again, obedient, faithful Joseph obeys
What happened to those wonderful promises of God?
Joseph and Mary have a fair bit on common with us. We too, are given amazing promises, that at times seem so distant, and at other times so close
Just and Mary and Joseph had a calling on their lives, so too do we. Yet sometimes all we too can see is chaos.
In all sorts of ways; death of a spouse or child or parent at a young age, really bad medical news, financial stress, trying to bring up children the best we can, and they seem to just go off is a whole other direction. There are lots of ways our expectations are shattered.
Sometimes all we see is a mess. There have been times in my life where I have felt this, and more! Where has God’s favour gone? Was the angel real? And where is this abundance of life that is supposed to happen?
But something else is happening here is the story of Mary and Joseph, and in our own stories I believe. In all the mess of Mary’s and Joseph’s life, a beautiful miracle was emerging. Jesus Christ, the Saviour of the world was emerging and had emerged from her, the birth of a miracle.
I believe in miracles and have seen them, but very rarely are they instantaneous. More often I think they emerge, they don’t come fully-grown, our own lives are exactly like that.
With Mary and Joseph, the miracle was in the mess; just as ours is too. As Jesus got older, and began his ministry, Mary had the horrible reality of witnessing his shameful crucifixion as a common criminal. Mary must have thought the visitation of Gabriel all those years ago was not real.
Yet at that very moment, the real miracle was just beginning.
And whatever the miracle is that is emerging from our mess, God will give us the grace to stand firm, and endure and eventually come to the place where we can embrace the miracle and nurture it. In Philippians 2:13, Paul says, “It is God who works in you to will and to act according to his good purpose”.
And that, of course, is the incredible nature of the Nativity of Jesus: that a miracle emerges from chaos, and, in God’s good design, it is not that the miracle emerges despite the chaos but that the chaos itself is part of the emerging miracle. Let me pray …