Matthew 1:18-25
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Pastor Tom Johnson, December 18, 2016
It must be an unsettling thing for Joseph. He feels that he has no choice. He cannot go through the marriage. His fiancé Mary is pregnant. He is not the father. But because of his authentic love for Mary, he does not want to publicly embarrass or shame her. He plans to dismiss her quietly. Just like the Joseph of Genesis, he will also have a dream. God sends an angel to visit him in his sleep. The mission is to reassure Joseph. “Do not be afraid. Take Mary to be your wife. Name the child who is conceived by the Holy Spirit ‘Jesus.’ His name means deliverer. And he will save people from their sins.” What Joseph needs is assurance that God is with him. He needs confidence that God is on his side. Joseph will need support. He will need God’s strength. And he will need courage to be the father he is called to be to the promised Messiah. This fulfills what the prophet Isaiah wrote: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God with us.” God is with us even though we may not see him. God is with us even though we may not believe in him or trust in him.
This Scripture that is fulfilled is first directed to King Ahaz. He is everything a king should not be. In fact the book 2 Kings (16:2-4) says, “he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord” and even did unspeakable things to his own son. He participated in human sacrifice and other destructive pagan practices. In other words, he was not even a believer. And it is God himself that approaches Ahaz to propose a sign. The sign will be useful just like we use signs all the time: to assure us that we are on the right path or to bring us to the right path. Ahaz tells God, “Thanks but no thanks. I will not put the Lord to the test.” It is a very religious sounding answer. It may sound pious but he is clearly rejecting God. He does not want a sign. Because that would mean his life will have to change.
Maybe we are a lot more like Ahaz than we want to admit. Perhaps we are more like Joseph than we want to admit. Both of them are reluctant. Both doubt God’s purposes. But Ahaz is especially stubborn. He will not believe. He refuses God’s offer. And he even uses religious language to do so. We can also be like Ahaz—if not individually we are collectively. We can miss the Christmas story and God’s reassurance that he is with us. We may even sound religious and pious but we miss the main point of it all: God with us. We can be like Joseph at times—not fully understanding God’s purposes. We have days when we doubt and do not trust God as fully as we ought to. We need that extra nudge of encouragement. We need a reminder that God is still with us.
We are surrounded by Christmas trees, Santa, reindeer, jingling bells, tear-jerker movies, and familiar holiday music. But how much of it directs us to the Christ child? Does it assure us that God is with us in the person of Jesus? There is a real danger of over sentimentalizing this time of year. For some people it is not a time of warm feelings and good memories. Quite the opposite. It can be a time of heightened grief, loneliness, and pain. We need to know that God is indeed with us in the good times and the bad. Materialism also threatens to cause us to miss the Christmas story. One of the most brazen ways this is done is to take a Christmas Carol and re-write the words to sell us their products. The gifts we give should remind us of the greatest gift given—Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.
That is what I love about both the story of Ahaz and the story of Joseph. The original Christmas story is messy. The story before the original Christmas story is messy. We should not be surprised that the story after is messy as well. God sends his eternal Son to an unbelieving and sinful world. He gives to us even when we are ungrateful. He takes the initiative to relieve our doubts. He is there when we are confused. He sends his angels to reassure us. He sends signs to soothe our anxious souls. He comes to hearten, inspire, encourage, and to comfort us. He points to Emmanuel. He directs us to Jesus again and again. He is the one who comes to deliver us. He is the one who is with us. Just as he came to a broken world before. So shall he come again to be with us.“If God is with us…if God is for us, who can be against us? …He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” (Rom 8:31,32). “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger or sword? …For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom 8:38,39).
O come, Thou Dayspring from on high,
And cheer us by Thy drawing nigh;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death’s dark shadows put to flight.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel!
And so we pray, “Even so, amen. Come, Lord Jesus.”
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