A Sermon given by the Revd. Tessa Stephens
'Joseph and the coming of the Christ Child'
This morning we’ve lit the fourth candle on our advent crown. Christmas is so very close. As I wrote this sermon I could see that there aren’t many surfaces left that aren’t covered in Christmas cards and the secret present cupboard is getting very full…
Advent is a time of waiting. We wait for the coming of Jesus at Christmas. We have the privilege of knowing how the story will end. How much harder it would have been for those who were involved in the first Christmas and who had no idea at all how the story would unfold. But before we think about that, let’s go right back in time, eight centuries before the birth of Christ, to another king who was waiting for an answer to a tricky situation…
King Ahaz was in a difficult sitation. As King of Judah he was trying to maintain the stability of his kingdom but this was threatened by the pact that the King Pekah in the Northern Kingdom of Israel had made with King Rezin in Syria. The two kings were threatening to invade and Ahaz had no idea what to do.
God tries to reassure Ahaz and offers him any sign he wants but Ahaz refuses. An encounter with the living God can be a terrifying experience. So perhaps it isn’t surprising that Ahaz immediately tries to regain control of the situation by saying that he doesn’t want to put God to the test. Ahaz is also worried that if God gives him a sign then he will need to do things God’s way, when in fact he has already made his own plans to deal with the threat from Israel and Syria by forming an alliance with the mighty Assyrian empire.
Exasperated by Ahaz, Isaiah promises that God himself will give the people a sign – a young woman will become pregnant and bear a child who will be called Immanuel. The meaning of this name is “God with us” and the promise Isaiah makes is that before the child grows up, the two countries who are giving Ahaz such a hard time will be dealt with and their lands will be empty.
For both Jews and Christians this passage from Isaiah has formed the basis of a rich tradition of messianic hope. This hope is for a time when God will truly be present with us here on earth. And God does prove to be persistent in offering himself to us, despite our struggles to believe.
When we think of the first Christmas, those who encountered Jesus were not necessarily those who were looking for him. The shepherds weren’t prepared for the sudden arrival of a host of angels and neither were the Magi expecting to find themselves following one particular star. But in both these situations, God’s kingdom breaks in and amazes them.
In our Gospel reading today we hear the Christmas story from Joseph’s perspective. Joseph is a carpenter in Nazareth, engaged to Mary and looking forward to getting married and a happy family life. But Joseph too finds that things are not turning out in the way that he expects, as Mary comes to him and explains that she is pregnant. It’s hardly surprising that Joseph found Mary’s explanation for her sudden pregancy a little hard to accept. He no longer wants to marry her but decides to divorce her quietly instead.
Matthew says that Joseph is a "just" man. It was for this reason that he did not want to expose Mary to public ridicule and decided to dismiss her quietly. Of course, in a small town like Nazareth it would have been difficult to have done this quietly. You can imagine the gossip. But however he planned to do it; it seems that Joseph was trying to deal with a difficult situation as tactfully and discreetly as possible. So Matthew is using the word “just” in a new and original way. Under the law, the punishment for adultery was death. But Joseph is shown as being compassionate rather than vengeful. For him, concern for Mary outweighs strict adherence to the law. This concern for compassion, mercy and not sacrifice, is taught by Jesus himself later in the gospel.
But, then entirely unexpectedly, Joseph receives a sign of his own. He has an encounter with God in a dream which helps him to accept this astonishing turn of events. He makes the decision to stand by Mary and to take her as his wife, even though their first born son will be a most unusual kind of foster child. God even tells Joseph what the child’s name is to be: Jesus (or Yeshua) because he will save the people from their sins. This is a version of the name Joshua. Just as the Old Testament Joshua saved the people by leading them across the Jordan and into the Promised Land, so Jesus will save the people from their sin and lead them into new life.
Matthew makes the link with Isaiah quite explicitly. He is suggesting that the Old Testament passage which spoke directly into the situation of King Ahaz of Judah in the eight century BC can speak into the situation facing Mary and Joseph as they await the birth of Mary’s child and to us also as we try to understand the meaning of the events of the first Christmas. In Jesus’ ministry God is with us. In this way, the prophecy of Isaiah becomes a promise of God’s saving presence in every age, including our own.
The promise is also a challenge. How will we respond to the arrival of God in our world? The birth of Jesus changes everything. The brief extract from Paul’s letter to the Romans which we’ve heard summarises this new faith. Christ is identified as both a descendant of King David’s line and the son of God and is so decreed to be both human and divine. In our calling to become part of the community of Jesus Christ, we too are called to become a part of this story.
Amen.Back to top