December 18 2016 Sermon
Isaiah 7:10-16
7:10 Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying,
7:11 Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven.
7:12 But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test.
7:13 Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also?
7:14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel.
7:15 He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good.
7:16 For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.
Matthew 1:18-25
1:18 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.
1:19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
1:20 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.
1:21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
1:22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
1:23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”
1:24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,
1:25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God.
This morning we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Advent and the next time that we gather together for worship as a community of faith, it will be Christmas Eve. We will gather Saturday evening for Christmas Eve with gathering music at 10:45 and the service beginning at 11pm and ending in candlelight. On Christmas morning, worship will be at 10:30am. Inside each bulletin this morning is enclosed a card that I encourage you to share with neighbors, friends, family, or coworkers inviting them to participate in these memorable and special services of worship.
Today we conclude our lectionary worship series that I’ve called ‘Expectant: In the Wilderness.’ We have paired the gospel readings from Matthew with the prophetic witness of Isaiah promising that in God’s final reign that nation will not lift up sword against nation, that the lion and the fatling will bed down together, and that a child will come from God as a sign of peace. We have heard the pleas of John the Baptist calling people to change their hearts and life for the kingdom of God is at hand. We heard John’s clarifying question last week seeking to know whether Jesus was the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophets or whether he had labored in vain proclaiming a false messiah.
And Jesus sent word back to John the Baptist in jail bearing witness that the blind were receiving their sight, the poor were receiving good news, and the sick were being healed. Surely these are marks that the kingdom of God is at hand and that Jesus was the promised Messiah that John had first announced in the wilderness and on the banks of River Jordan.
I have promised you for weeks now that we would finally get to a gospel reading that told the good news of the Christ child coming into the world to deliver all of creation from its suffering, unjust ways, and hopelessness. And today we finally have it-our reading doesn’t have the wise men from the East quite yet, or the shepherds keeping watch in their fields, or the memorable line that there was no room in the inn for Mary, Joseph, or baby Jesus. Rather on this fourth Sunday of Advent, we get a few brief lines assuring us that Jesus is the Messiah, the anointed one of God, who the prophets of old foretold would come into the world. We get a few lines from God’s angel instructing Joseph as to how he will take Mary into his home and name the child, rather than put her out and call off the wedding celebration from suspicion of infidelity. Putting her out and disgracing her out of suspicion of infidelity could have led to physical harm, even stoning. But upon waking from the angelic visit, Joseph does just as he is instructed by the angel of God bringing Mary into his home expectant for the arrival of the promised child.
Much ink has been spilled over Joseph and Mary. What was their engagement like? How did Joseph react to the possibility of a teenage mother bearing a child that was not his? Why didn’t
Joseph act within his legal limit to call off the betrothal and get Mary out of his life? Why did Joseph so obediently act according to the instructions of the angel of God? Were there other children born to Mary and Joseph who would have become Jesus’ brothers and sisters? Was Jesus born inside a 1st century home, in something resembling a barn, or a cave hewn out of stone where animals were kept secure from predators? How can the mystery of divine intervention in a pregnancy be explained? They are all good questions, interesting ones that probe at understanding the texture and dynamics of the holy family. But today, questions like those pale in comparison to the proclamation of the angel of God that the Messiah is with us and will save God’s people from rebellion.
In echoing Isaiah, the angel of God speaks of the nature and work of God in the world.
‘They shall name him Immanuel.’
Indeed, as the name Immanuel indicates, God is with us. That pronouncement of God’s loving presence is our story, our lifeblood, our purpose for without it things begin to unravel. Because of Christmas and Easter, we say that God is among us bringing all things back to God’s self restoring them, making them whole, perfecting them through the power of grace.
Despite a ton of evidence to the contrary given the death dealing, oppression, and hatred that abounds in the world, we, the church, the living body of Christ on earth maintain that God is with us moving throughout creation. Some days it seems given the cruelty that human beings exact upon one another that it is quite plausible and appropriate to say that God is not with us-to dismiss God’s incarnation in Jesus Christ. This has been one way for communities of faith to account for the realities that drive the daily news: to reason that God is absent. God was absent at Auschwitz. God was absent at Newtown. God was absent when 87 brothers and sisters died on the streets of Nashville this past year due to homelessness. A just and loving God would not allow these things to occur as if God was picking and choosing arbitrarily when to demonstrate love and compassion.
Some days it will be hard, maybe even ludicrous to maintain that the God who authored all of creation is among us and with us in the highest joys and deepest despairs of life. But that is the Christmas story-a foundational claim upon which all the public ministry of Jesus the Christ rests. Almighty God is not absent and distant but here. God is with us. And if God is among us, then there is no place on creation where the grace of God will not go or is not already at work bringing hope into dark corners, recovery of sight to those who can not see, and freedom for those who are bound up.
In the most vulnerable human form, an infant, the everlasting God of the universe took on flesh and bones to be close to us, to be one of us. God did not flee from the mess we’ve made but made a way to step right into the middle of it and breath newness of life into our warring madness. In the ministry of Jesus the Christ, we get the clearest picture of God’s grace acting in flesh and bones to bring restoration and healing to the broken hearted and broken.
When I move through the day, sharing relationships with brothers and sisters, it is this affirmation that God is with us, and that God knows intimately what it means to be human that is a genesis of hope standing toe to toe with despair.
Wherever there is suffering we can say, God is here. Where there is great injustice treating neighbors as less than beloved, we can say, God is still among us. And if God is among us, no matter how grim it may look, there is no way that despair and darkness will have the last word. Immanuel, God with us, is the church’s bold claim that love came down from heaven, took on flesh and bones as an infant, so that we might live in hope and grace, given a second chance in spite of our rebellion against God and one another.
Every Advent, just behind the lights, the greenery, the echoes of carols, and the warm glow of candlelight, something occurs in our life together that recalls a part of the Christmas story that is less than glamorous and far from sanitized. Whatever the event may be point us to the second chapter of Matthew that comes right after this morning’s gospel reading. The Christ child is born, the Magi come from the East, and then for a second time, Joseph is met by an angel of God instructing him to flee with his new family to Egypt for the wrath of King Herod is on the move.
As the lives of the young are extinguished, the cries of Rachel are heard again in Ramah and her mourning cannot be comforted. Rachel’s cries are an echo of Jeremiah’s prophetic witness when Jerusalem was sacked, burned, and its people exiled off to Babylon.
Then the displaced holy family remains in Egypt until for a third time an angel of God approaches Joseph telling him to return to Judea.
On the cusp of Christmas, I hold in tension the celebratory mood of the Christ child once again coming into creation with the cries of Rachel poured out over people and places that have no hope for they are many. As you move into this last week of Advent, I want you to contemplate and imagine what it means for you and your neighbors near and far to have the good news that God is with us, incarnated, flesh and bones, that we might be saved from our rebellion.
Lastly, I invite you to hear the Christmas Eve reflection of Francis that it might stir in you anticipation of the hope born in Jesus Christ and compassion for those who so often live in darkness.
“May the attention of the international community be unanimously directed to ending the atrocities which in […] in Iraq, Libya, Yemen and sub-Saharan Africa, even now reap numerous victims, cause immense suffering and do not even spare the historical and cultural patrimony of entire peoples. My thoughts also turn to those affected by brutal acts of terrorism, particularly the recent massacres which took place in Egyptian airspace, in Beirut, Paris, Bamako and Tunis…
To our brothers and sisters who in many parts of the world are being persecuted for their faith, may the Child Jesus grant consolation and strength.
Where God is born, hope is born; and where hope is born, persons regain their dignity. Yet even today great numbers of men and women are deprived of their human dignity and, like the child Jesus, suffer cold, poverty, and rejection. May our closeness today be felt by those who are most vulnerable, especially child soldiers, women who suffer violence, and the victims of human trafficking and the drug trade.”
Bless you with the hope of the Christ child. Amen.