Sermon for December 3rd, 2023
Matthew 1:18-25 (NT p. 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. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 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. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Bless This Mess: Joseph & Mary - Socially Messy
It was five days before Christmas, and Santa Claus was having a horrible day. By horrible, I mean his wife was sick with the flu, 23 elves were on strike; Dasher, Dancer, Donner and Blitzen had all gone missing, and nothing was getting done--so the entire operation was WAY behind schedule. Right about the time Santa was pulling his beard out by the fistfuls, someone started ringing his doorbell over and over again. Santa opened the door, with a loud and not-so-jolly "WHAT??" only to see... the tiniest angel standing next to a large Christmas tree. The angel asked Santa Claus "Where would you like me to put this tree?" Santa thought about it for a minute... And that is why we put an Angel on top of the Christmas tree.
Today is the first Sunday in Advent--the season where we prepare our hearts and minds for the coming of Christmas, the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Advent is supposed to be a season of calm, quiet introspection. And yet, it also happens to be the season of a thousand school performances, Christmas parties, church events, holiday travel plans, shopping for Christmas presents, entertaining in-laws and crazy uncles, eating more food and candy than a reasonable person should, trying to get the perfect family Christmas picture, so you can fool all the people on your Christmas card list into thinking that you have your act together and are not, in fact a completely exhausted mess by the time December 25th arrives. And then you have to clean up the wrapping paper, do the dishes, and take down all the decorations.
In many churches today, the pastor's sermon will likely be an attempt to get congregants to slow down this year, to resist over-scheduling and rampant materialism, so that we can embrace the true spirit of Christmas, so we can focus more on those quiet and precious moments with our families, spreading peace on earth and good will to all.
But we're not really going to do that, are we?
You see, I've preached that sermon many times...and it never really seems to work. Not even in my own family, or in my own personal approach to the season. So I'm going to take a very different approach this year. We're going to go with the flow. We're going to own the fact that Christmas is a chaotic, conflicted mess, and probably has been ever since the very first one.
If you actually read the story of the first Christmas in the Bible, you won't find a Silent Night, or a picture-perfect nativity scene with everyone serenely posed around the manger. The story is messy--socially, politically, environmentally. It's a story about people who did not have their acts together, people who were continually caught off guard, whose plans and backup plans all fell through.
But if you actually read the story (and we will, together) you will also see a certain blessedness in the messiness. You'll see how God works through the chaos and conflict, through stressed-out and imperfect people in order to make his perfect plans come to pass. And that, my friends, is tremendously good news for us, because it means that God is still capable of redeeming our own frantic and scattered attempts at celebrating Christmas, transforming them (and us) into something beautiful, joyful, and deeply meaningful.
We begin with Joseph and Mary.
