Advent IV
By the Reverend Martha Frances
Year A, Advent 4
23 December 2007
Text: Matthew 1: 18-25; Other Readings: Isaiah 7: 10-17; Romans 1: 1-7; Psalm 80: 1-7, 16-18
Today's gospel begins with an annunciation—not the usual annunciation story when the angel Gabriel comes to the Blessed Virgin Mary to ask her to become the God-bearer, the Theotokos as the Greeks call her, & she says yes, only she says it in good Biblical language: "Let it be with me according to your word." No, today's annunciation, or appearance of the angel, is to Joseph—an oft-brushed-aside Matthean tale which I have learned to appreciate more & more in the past few years. Last Sunday night our vestry explored this text in our Community Bible Study, & the men who pondered the story in small group with me gave me a whole new appreciation for Joseph's dilemma & subsequent choices.
Matthew says this is the way it happened. He begins with the discovery that Joseph's fiancée Mary is pregnant though they haven't even been living together. The focus turns immediately to Joseph as he deliberates his options in the light of such an embarrassing predicament. After all, he's an upstanding member of the community, a "righteous man" we are told, & furthermore, much older & more mature than Mary, so he knows that proper Jewish behavior is to expose her sin to the synagogue council so she can be stoned to death & he, exonerated. But he is a kind man & genuinely cares for this young girl, so decides to "dismiss her quietly" which probably means she would be sent to her cousin Elizabeth's in the next village until the baby is born & then would live in her father's house just like a widow, no longer be eligible for marriage.
Fortunately for all, Joseph chooses to sleep on that decision; thus, the present annunciation is made possible. An angel also appears to him, beginning with the usual "do not be afraid" announcement, not afraid to make Mary his wife since she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. For centuries, we have applauded Mary for her "yes" response, yet here in this parallel passage, we have Joseph's "Yes"— trusting that God's messenger is not just indigestion from last night's supper. As the men last week discussed the enormity of trust required to follow through with such a responsibility, even in our enlightened society, my awe & admiration for Joseph increased markedly. In fact, as my family has realized recently that some babies come inconveniently soon after marriage, I notice our modern enlightened & liberal society may still be neither.
Joseph is a synagogue-going pillar of society, so he must know the prophecies about the Messiah's coming to fulfill the hope of Israel. Still, he must have had some sleepless nights during the next several months, having supposed nothing this significant could happen so directly to him. As we look ahead to Jesus' early years, we continue to admire Joseph the adoptive father who assures Mary's & Jesus' legitimacy by enrolling them as family in Bethlehem, fleeing with them to Egypt to protect Jesus from Herod's reign of terror, returning to Nazareth only upon Herod's death, & searching for this beloved son when 12-year-old Jesus is left behind in the Jerusalem temple. What a remarkable model of manhood & fatherhood we find in Joseph in a day when family may take on a variety of configurations!
Matthew sees Jesus' birth as fulfillment of prophecies from Israel's prophets with which every educated Jewish person is familiar. He quotes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew scripture from Isaiah we heard today, rooting Jesus' ancestry not only in the history of Israel but from the very family of David, Israel's greatest King. The original Hebrew says a young woman will conceive & bear a son to be called Emmanuel— God is with us—a further indication that Jesus is Son of God. Only in the Greek translation we call the Septuagint did "young woman" become "virgin," a subtle variation which has led to a very strong belief that Jesus' mother Mary was perhaps even perpetually a virgin.
We modern folk, having grown up under the influence of Matthew's proof-texting & Handel's rendering such verses ever-memorable by setting them to music in the Messiah, have a hard time accepting that Isaiah's prophecy to King Ahaz of Judah related to his immediate crisis. Ahaz was under great pressure to make alliance with Syria & Ephraim (Israel) to avoid Judah's destruction in a war against Assyria. Ahaz had appealed to Assyria for aid, so Isaiah has come to warn Ahaz to stand firm in faith, putting his trust in God for deliverance, not in the Assyrians. Isaiah pleads with Ahaz to ask God for a sign, & when Ahaz declares he won't put God to the test, Isaiah insists that God will give a sign anyway—a young woman, perhaps a member of Ahaz' own court, will bear a son named Emmanuel, God is with us. Only later does Emmanuel take on Messianic significance.
Matthew's emphasis, which we may miss if we get tangled up in how much the old prophecies do or do not apply to events of Jesus' time & after, is that Emmanual—God with us—is what the incarnation business is all about. Incarnation literally means enfleshed—God's son comes to us also as Joseph's son—fully human, to dwell among us, to know our lives & hearts & souls, to guide us, through forgiveness of sins, to fulfill our call to behave as children of the living God, made in God's image & likeness. It is in Jesus' coming to be among us, as well as his dying for our sins, that we are saved, thus fulfilling his given name Jesus or Yeshua which means, God saves.
And Joseph, in Matthew's rendition, shows all of us a lot about how to behave as God's children. We have already noted that Joseph acted courageously & honorably, truly righteously, in treating Mary with respect instead of disgracing her. Joseph exhibited the greatest law, that of loving God so fully that he loved as God loves, when he learned of Mary's extraordinary pregnancy. We also see Joseph as obedient to God through the angel's message, doing as the angel commanded him. He took Mary as his wife & didn't have marital relations with her until she had given birth to Jesus, assuring all generations that Jesus was, truly, conceived by the Holy Spirit. All that could have threatened either the masculinity or the righteousness of a lesser man, but Joseph was obedient & followed through on the angel's command to name the child Jesus.
Perhaps you can learn from Joseph just as I have been doing right here before the Feast of the Nativity we'll celebrate tomorrow night. We aren't asked to do what he did but we, too, can follow the greatest law of love in our response to the Christmas angel & to the coming of our Lord Jesus. As we have journeyed through these 4 Sundays of Advent, lighting one more candle on the Advent wreath each week, perhaps you've experienced some of the urgency, the looking-forward, to the advent of this human baby who comes once more to be the Lord of our lives, the Emmanuel—God with us—this year.
How will Christ's entering into your live anew this Christmas make a difference in your life? In your relations with others—in your faith community & beyond it? To a large extent, that will be up to you, but being part of an active Christian community can help you daily make space for Christ to dwell within you & spill out in your every thought & action. Welcome, Emmanuel!
Year A, Advent 4
23 December 2007
Text: Matthew 1: 18-25; Other Readings: Isaiah 7: 10-17; Romans 1: 1-7; Psalm 80: 1-7, 16-18
Today's gospel begins with an annunciation—not the usual annunciation story when the angel Gabriel comes to the Blessed Virgin Mary to ask her to become the God-bearer, the Theotokos as the Greeks call her, & she says yes, only she says it in good Biblical language: "Let it be with me according to your word." No, today's annunciation, or appearance of the angel, is to Joseph—an oft-brushed-aside Matthean tale which I have learned to appreciate more & more in the past few years. Last Sunday night our vestry explored this text in our Community Bible Study, & the men who pondered the story in small group with me gave me a whole new appreciation for Joseph's dilemma & subsequent choices.
Matthew says this is the way it happened. He begins with the discovery that Joseph's fiancée Mary is pregnant though they haven't even been living together. The focus turns immediately to Joseph as he deliberates his options in the light of such an embarrassing predicament. After all, he's an upstanding member of the community, a "righteous man" we are told, & furthermore, much older & more mature than Mary, so he knows that proper Jewish behavior is to expose her sin to the synagogue council so she can be stoned to death & he, exonerated. But he is a kind man & genuinely cares for this young girl, so decides to "dismiss her quietly" which probably means she would be sent to her cousin Elizabeth's in the next village until the baby is born & then would live in her father's house just like a widow, no longer be eligible for marriage.
Fortunately for all, Joseph chooses to sleep on that decision; thus, the present annunciation is made possible. An angel also appears to him, beginning with the usual "do not be afraid" announcement, not afraid to make Mary his wife since she is pregnant by the Holy Spirit. For centuries, we have applauded Mary for her "yes" response, yet here in this parallel passage, we have Joseph's "Yes"— trusting that God's messenger is not just indigestion from last night's supper. As the men last week discussed the enormity of trust required to follow through with such a responsibility, even in our enlightened society, my awe & admiration for Joseph increased markedly. In fact, as my family has realized recently that some babies come inconveniently soon after marriage, I notice our modern enlightened & liberal society may still be neither.
Joseph is a synagogue-going pillar of society, so he must know the prophecies about the Messiah's coming to fulfill the hope of Israel. Still, he must have had some sleepless nights during the next several months, having supposed nothing this significant could happen so directly to him. As we look ahead to Jesus' early years, we continue to admire Joseph the adoptive father who assures Mary's & Jesus' legitimacy by enrolling them as family in Bethlehem, fleeing with them to Egypt to protect Jesus from Herod's reign of terror, returning to Nazareth only upon Herod's death, & searching for this beloved son when 12-year-old Jesus is left behind in the Jerusalem temple. What a remarkable model of manhood & fatherhood we find in Joseph in a day when family may take on a variety of configurations!
Matthew sees Jesus' birth as fulfillment of prophecies from Israel's prophets with which every educated Jewish person is familiar. He quotes from the Greek translation of the Hebrew scripture from Isaiah we heard today, rooting Jesus' ancestry not only in the history of Israel but from the very family of David, Israel's greatest King. The original Hebrew says a young woman will conceive & bear a son to be called Emmanuel— God is with us—a further indication that Jesus is Son of God. Only in the Greek translation we call the Septuagint did "young woman" become "virgin," a subtle variation which has led to a very strong belief that Jesus' mother Mary was perhaps even perpetually a virgin.
We modern folk, having grown up under the influence of Matthew's proof-texting & Handel's rendering such verses ever-memorable by setting them to music in the Messiah, have a hard time accepting that Isaiah's prophecy to King Ahaz of Judah related to his immediate crisis. Ahaz was under great pressure to make alliance with Syria & Ephraim (Israel) to avoid Judah's destruction in a war against Assyria. Ahaz had appealed to Assyria for aid, so Isaiah has come to warn Ahaz to stand firm in faith, putting his trust in God for deliverance, not in the Assyrians. Isaiah pleads with Ahaz to ask God for a sign, & when Ahaz declares he won't put God to the test, Isaiah insists that God will give a sign anyway—a young woman, perhaps a member of Ahaz' own court, will bear a son named Emmanuel, God is with us. Only later does Emmanuel take on Messianic significance.
Matthew's emphasis, which we may miss if we get tangled up in how much the old prophecies do or do not apply to events of Jesus' time & after, is that Emmanual—God with us—is what the incarnation business is all about. Incarnation literally means enfleshed—God's son comes to us also as Joseph's son—fully human, to dwell among us, to know our lives & hearts & souls, to guide us, through forgiveness of sins, to fulfill our call to behave as children of the living God, made in God's image & likeness. It is in Jesus' coming to be among us, as well as his dying for our sins, that we are saved, thus fulfilling his given name Jesus or Yeshua which means, God saves.
And Joseph, in Matthew's rendition, shows all of us a lot about how to behave as God's children. We have already noted that Joseph acted courageously & honorably, truly righteously, in treating Mary with respect instead of disgracing her. Joseph exhibited the greatest law, that of loving God so fully that he loved as God loves, when he learned of Mary's extraordinary pregnancy. We also see Joseph as obedient to God through the angel's message, doing as the angel commanded him. He took Mary as his wife & didn't have marital relations with her until she had given birth to Jesus, assuring all generations that Jesus was, truly, conceived by the Holy Spirit. All that could have threatened either the masculinity or the righteousness of a lesser man, but Joseph was obedient & followed through on the angel's command to name the child Jesus.
Perhaps you can learn from Joseph just as I have been doing right here before the Feast of the Nativity we'll celebrate tomorrow night. We aren't asked to do what he did but we, too, can follow the greatest law of love in our response to the Christmas angel & to the coming of our Lord Jesus. As we have journeyed through these 4 Sundays of Advent, lighting one more candle on the Advent wreath each week, perhaps you've experienced some of the urgency, the looking-forward, to the advent of this human baby who comes once more to be the Lord of our lives, the Emmanuel—God with us—this year.
How will Christ's entering into your live anew this Christmas make a difference in your life? In your relations with others—in your faith community & beyond it? To a large extent, that will be up to you, but being part of an active Christian community can help you daily make space for Christ to dwell within you & spill out in your every thought & action. Welcome, Emmanuel!
posted by
Hope Episcopal Church
at 11:40 AM
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