Year A
Matthew 1:18-25
The Very Rev. Denise Vaughn
The Commitment of Love
Much of what we see on TV and our culture in general this time of year, give us false expectations of family harmony and good cheer. Therefore, the ‘picture perfect’ Christmas, the one that we see on Hallmark cards, is the one we try to achieve with a great deal of time, energy, and money. Yet, because of events in our lives or our families many of us do not have the sort of Christmas we believe we should have. I have never been successful to live up to the notion of the “perfect Christmas.” Yet, despite my failures to be perfect, or create the perfect Christmas, I always end up more faithful, more thankful and more filled with awe that God, in Emmanuel, because of love would take on our skin. God wants to share with us trials, pains, temptations, disappointments, and fears which upsets our normal expectations of God. On this last Sunday of Advent, we are once again confronted with a paradox.
Normal expectations did not dictate that first Christmas. That first Christmas was anything but conventional and did not come about by a flawless lead-up and elaborate preparations. Who would expect the incarnation to happen through the life of a young virgin girl? And we may forget just what a scandal the whole thing really was. It was anything but proper. Joseph, a righteous man learns that his soon-to-be-wife, Mary is pregnant. To Joseph, Mary had violated an important moral rule, punishable by death. Yet, because Joseph is a good man, he decides to spare Mary’s reputation and feelings by arranging to divorce her quietly or secretly. In those days engagement was as binding as marriage.
However juicy these details might have been, Matthew only touches on them to set the scene. What takes center stage for Matthew is how God is working in this messy situation between Joseph and Mary. God intervened, as God often does, in an unexpected way. Mary’s baby is of the Holy Spirit which certainly put an interesting twist on the situation therefore God had to send an angle to appear to Joseph in a dream telling Joseph that it was going to be ok, to not be afraid to take Mary as his wife. God is about to do something wonderful, despite the fact that according to Jewish custom and law they are in a rather socially unacceptable situation.
God is working through this pregnancy and birth. The baby growing in Mary’s womb is God’s act of salvation. Matthew quotes Isaiah as a way of saying what can’t be said. “Look the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, God is with us.” Beyond any ability we have to explain, this baby is God in human flesh. And somehow Joseph has to trust this strange news: that this child is from the Holy Spirit; that he already has a name, Jesus; and that he will save people from their sins. At the heart of our faith is the truth that Jesus is God with us, God in human flesh. What begins here, what God announces in this special baby is a human being who will somehow show us a different way to be. Through this child, God saves us.
The news catches Joseph off guard. At this point in the story, Joseph is totally unaware of the journey that will take the one he will call Jesus, which in Hebrew means “Yahweh saves,” from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from the temple to the cross to the empty tomb. If Joseph was told all that by the angel, the news would be totally overwhelming. What we see in Joseph’s story is that many times God opens a door for us, or gives us a vision, which requires us to trust and follow. God called Joseph to a very special mission and we are glad he trusted and believed. God calls each of us to a special mission and sometimes it’s to do something strange or unexpected and we may not always know where the call will lead us, but when we look back we are very glad we trusted and went.
Joseph and Mary show us profound trust in today’s gospel despite the messy situation and doubts. As Mary and Joseph journeyed to the first Christmas, they did not know where God would take them; all they knew was something wonderful had been promised and that they had been called to follow. They were “set apart for the gospel of God, as God had promised through his prophets, the gospel concerning his Son.” In his letter to the Romans, Paul was speaking about himself but it is for everyone called to belong to Jesus Christ, called to be saints. That is the gift God has chosen for each of us because God loves us. But it does require commitment; the Mary and Joseph kind of commitment.
Our faith requires us to march to the beat of a different drummer; it requires us to let our lives be shaped by an ongoing, daily interaction with the God who is with us rather than by all the cultural things that are shaping most other people’s lives. And our Christian faith requires us to be committed to a purpose bigger than our own purposes. However, difficult and awkward the pregnancy may have been for Mary and Joseph, God was acting for the salvation of creation. The biblical faith has always required commitment and if we are willing to commit, one of the things we really want and God offers us, is freedom. Not just freedom from our sins but saving us from things that mess up our lives, like guilt that keeps us from being able to like ourselves, or the anxieties that make us afraid, or the selfish ambitions that make us slaves and drive us, or the bitterness and hatred that could make us do things we don’t want to do. To be free from those things can make a big difference in our lives.
God also offers us happiness, something we all want. Yet, there is no promise that everything is always going to work out or come out like we want it to. But there will always be an assurance that life as a whole is a good gift from God and our faith teaches us how to enjoy life even when circumstances are not what we could wish for them to be. The greatest offer God gives us is the ability to love. That is something all of our hearts hunger for. Yet, many of us find it hard to love. Part of our inability to love has to do with our willingness to make commitments. So God sent us Jesus to show us what it means to love and God surrounds us with love, God’s love and other loves that can love us into the ability to share love.
Freedom, happiness, love, purpose, these are some very valuable gifts and who knows what else we will find in our own personal gift from God. But it requires commitment to answering the call. Just look at how Matthew’s gospel starts and how it ends. Joseph was going to dismiss Mary quietly, in secret. No one would have known but he didn’t, he answered the call and how does this gospel end, with Jesus commissioning the disciples to go make disciples of all nations. What was almost snuffed out in secret ends up changing the world because of trust and love. When God is working, healing and saving, we never know how it will turn out.
What we do know is that God is with us. God is in the flurry and craziness of Christmas and as Mary and Joseph journeyed to the first Christmas, they only knew they had to follow. So too we are called to rise and follow God’s call, not knowing where the journey will take us but knowing that God is working in our lives and in this world. God has been in love with us from the beginning of time, and that is the real mystery of Jesus. Emmanuel is with us. This is not only a statement, but a promise, a fact for now and for eternity.