Fourth Advent
Matthew 1:18-25; Isaiah 7:10-16; Romans 1:1-7
The best stories always seem to have a beginning that sticks in your memory. The opening line. "Call me Ishmael" signals the beginning of the great epic of Herman Melville's Moby Dick. "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times" brings to mind the events in A Tale of Two Cities. The best stories always seem to have a clearly defined beginning, a place from which the story proceeds. But life, the real world, has no such simple beginnings. Our lives are more the continuation of what has gone before. Each story we would tell always carries with it details of events that came before the present moment and each story of the moment points beyond itself into the future. Who I am in this moment is the product of an almost infinite number of beginnings. Events and people who each have their story. None of our personal stories exist apart from the lives of those around us, those who have gone before us. And in a very real sense even those who will follow us.
On this last Advent Sunday before Christmas we find ourselves caught up in the anticipation of events that will become our stories of the Christmas of 2004. For some the anticipation is filled with expectations of gifts and joys, the promise of food, family and friends. For others the story of this Christmas will turn towards memories of other times when there were the smiles of loved ones now departed, memories of family and friends no longer an active part of our lives yet held dear in heart and mind. There will even be those moments in the story of Christmas 2004 that will in future years come be identified as the time when the promise of things to come first became a possibility. Each human story has no precisely crafted first line but is the product of the many story lines of history that converge into this instant. For people of faith, we believe it is no accident that such stories converge. We believe that God is actively a part of not just our world but each moment in our lives, providing purpose, meaning and direction that connects our past and our future through the divine promise of grace, redemption and eternal love.
On this last Sunday in Advent we anticipate not just our stories of Christmas 2004 but also the story of Christmas 2004. That point at which the ancient and familiar story embraces our story and carries us forward into the promise of Christmas for our future. Today is a day to look with anticipation at the Christmas story unfolding around us. It is fitting therefore that our Gospel lesson for today is the other Christmas story. Later this week we will read the familiar words from the Gospel of Luke which speaks of a journey to Bethlehem, of angels and shepherds and a manger. But today we have the other Christmas story from the Gospel of Matthew. Where the Christmas Eve nativity from Luke approaches the story from the perspective of Mary, Matthew is concerned with seeing things from the perspective of Joseph. Actually, the Matthean perspective recognizes that the beginning of the story about Jesus is not defined by his birth but by all that has gone before and all that will follow. While they were not read as part of our lesson for today, there are actually 17 verses that precede the story of Jesus' birth in Matthew's Gospel. Those 17 verses are usually skimmed over if not skipped entirely by any telling of the Christmas story. And yet Matthew knew that the real story begins there, in all that came before.
For various reasons that have been the inspiration for numerous doctoral dissertations and scholarly debates, Matthew begins his Gospel with what is often referred to as a messianic genealogy which locates Jesus in both divine and human time. The genealogy is divided into three series of fourteen generations mapping the human landscape from the beginning point of the ancient covenant given first to Abraham. A promise that through him would come God's blessing on all the nations. The second group of fourteen generations begins with King David, the greatest King Israel claims and the source of the image and promise of a messiah. For David received a promise that his descendents would be the source of true kingship. The third group of fourteen generations demonstrate the power of God to preserve a people even through exile into Babylon and the struggle to survive as a remnant of the community they had once been. This is not the way we would expect the story of Christmas to begin. The genealogy includes the "rich and famous" but also the unknown, the righteous and the immoral. Most notably. defying cultural convention, Matthew's genealogy includes five women. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and finally Mary, the mother of Jesus. The women are especially interesting because the first four are foreigners to Israel. They are Gentiles or have Gentile connections. They are what each of us are, strangers to the neat genealogy and chronology that is usually associated with defining historic figures and events.
The world is a complicated and messy place. The best laid plans and strategies are constantly confounded by the unpredictabilities of human behavior and responses. Try as we might to analyze the events leading up to a certain moment and the conditions that should determine a certain outcome, we are still surprised by the failure of policies, the frustrations of good intentions, the sometimes seemingly randomness of events that we attempt to define as historic and meaningful. After 42 generations it should have been clear to Joseph and all who desired to keep the Abrahamic covenant that the fulfillment of God's promise was not going to be a simple matter of connecting the dots or keeping every detail of the law. From our perspective some 50 generations later the events that surrounded the birth of Jesus all seem to indicate a certain inevitability. For all the terror and violence of the Roman occupied state of Judea in the first century there was also the promise of a world united around one language of the realm, Greek, with networks of commerce and trade that was among the most efficient the world had known up to that time.
There was a hunger in the heart of many throughout the first century world for spiritual insight and guidance. The old ways of failed traditions and rituals were being recast in the hope that some new understanding of God would emerge to give meaning to people's lives and purpose to relationships. The neglect and abuse of children, the poor and homeless, the aged and the sick demanded a new worldview. The triumphalism and power of Rome was soon to encounter the teachings of one who came in humility and service, who taught that the better way was to be found through an open hand and generosity of all one has received from God. From our perspective some 50 generations later it is apparent that the time was right for something truly wonderful to happen. But it didn't seem so wonderful at the time. From Joseph's perspective it was down right difficult to deal with. The modern translations of the events reported in Matthew's text require a bit of cultural contextualization.
Two thousand years ago in the Middle East marriages were arranged. The betrothed female was usually younger than her husband and would often stay in her parent's home until she was old enough to officially take over the duties and responsibilities of being a wife and running her husband's household. This appears to be what happened in the case of Mary who was most likely significantly younger than Joseph. Socially, when Joseph finds that Mary is expecting a baby that is clearly not his there is little choice but to declare the marriage over. If Joseph chose to make a public issue of the divorce it could well have meant that Mary would have been stoned to death for committing adultery, which is one reason why Joseph may have chosen as our text says, "to dismiss her quietly." Joseph was confronted by a hard reality. But this is where the story takes a curious turn. God comes to Joseph through the voice of an angel in a dream that challenges Joseph to see the world not as it is but as it might be transformed by God. The angel invites Joseph to see no ordinary child but a miracle from God. Joseph is invited to consider all that history has witnessed and pointed toward, the promise of the covenant, a Messiah, the culmination of 42 generations of divine direction. There are few things more difficult than looking at a certain set of facts. contemplating a reality we know to be all too true, and seeing beyond it in a way that denies every expectation and meaning we have brought to the moment.
Everything in his tradition and community told Joseph to divorce Mary, quietly maybe but still to walk away. All he had to challenge that thinking was a voice in a dream, and the whole thing seemed more like a nightmare than a dream. Claim the child as your own the angel voice said. Claim the child but don't name him after yourself. Name him for the God who spoke in the stillness of the night. Name him "Yehoskua (Joshua). in Greek "Jesus." A name that means "salvation of the Lord" for he will save his people. Save his people was what the vision said. Save his people not from the Roman oppression or even the trials of daily life, but save his people from their sins. A vision. a dream. beyond reality. Joseph could have just gone on with his life, ignored the interruption. The passage of years would have erased Mary and the child from his life. It is easier that way, to live without expectation of the divine, ignoring the divine that might try to break into our lives. To simply be too busy for dreams and visions. To rely on reality and what we know. But the time was right, and the 42 generations had been preparing for just this moment, for a simple carpenter to have a dream, and to remember that long ago a promise was made to father Abraham that the children of Israel were descendents of a royal people chosen by God.
Times have not changed so much. 50 some generations later we still struggle with the reality before us. We still have a hard time believing that God really cares that much about the details of our lives. We still find it hard to believe to see the world not as it is but as it might be. To see the life changing power of God's anointed, the messiah. Not simply as an event of history, part of the genealogy of an ancient faith. But as a transforming presence here and now. By faith Joseph knew his place in the messianic genealogy. He recognized that God was calling him to join with Mary in the opening of a new life for the world. He did not understand all the details. He could not have even guessed at what the future would hold, but by faith he answered God's call. Fifty generations later the story continues. Continues in and through each of us God still speaks. Speaks through the needs of others. The skills and talents we discover we have been given. The opportunities presented to us to touch another human life. Maybe even in an occasional dream. A hope. A possibility to make real what seems so overwhelming and challeTo see the world in a new way. Transformed here and now by God's miraculous grace. Here and now in the miracle of water and the word that makes a child a new member of God's family. Blessed and gifted by a Spirit that renews and shapes our world. Here continues the story of our faith. In the splashing of water. and the tasting of bread and wine. Today the Advent of our God is no longer history but our story. "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," ..."God with us" ...and he named him Jesus. The word begins the story, a word that sustains the story. A word that carries us into God's future story.
Amen