Fourth Sunday of Advent (A)
December 22, 2019
Isaiah 7:10-16 The Lord will give you a sign.
Romans 1:1-7 [You] yourselves are called to belong to Jesus Christ.
Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place this way.
O God of love, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
Many of you have heard me say I love the way that each of our four Gospels tells a different story about the beginning of Jesus’ ministry – of how and when Jesus the Christ, Love incarnate, came into our world. The Gospel of Mark notes the beginning with John the Baptist preparing the way in the wilderness. Jesus came into the world, according to Mark, at his baptism. For Matthew, the preparation began with Abraham and he came into the world at his birth. Luke says, yes, he came into the world at his birth, but the preparation went all the way back to Adam. And for John – he was before the world even existed. Today the Gospel account belongs to Matthew, who writes, “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah [or the Christ] took place in this way.” If, as I think, Matthew’s Gospel was written a few years before Luke, then this is the earliest extant birth narrative for Jesus.
Matthew’s account is not a particularly sentimental one. And it doesn’t make a good Christmas pageant because what drama is there is adult drama. The Gospel first establishes the legal precedent for Jesus’ family credentials with a long genealogy. And in case you might think that this is the back story or the preamble to the story of the heavenly host and shepherds and a babe lying in a manger because there was no room at the inn, the very next line in the Gospel of Matthew (after this passage) is “After Jesus was born, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem.”
“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.” This passage we heard this morning is what Matthew needs you to know. Matthew was concerned about establishing the legitimacy of Jesus’ kingship – his lineage from the House of David. In ancient times kings were believed to be gods in human form or direct descendents of gods. Every legitimate king was “Emmanu-el.” The leap of faith here was not that Jesus was “God-with-us;” the leap of faith was that Jesus was a king, even though he wasn’t born like a king, didn’t live like a king, didn’t look like a king, and didn’t die like a king. So for Matthew, Jesus’ kingship is what needed to be established at the outset because it was not at all obvious.
But of course, just declaring “God is with us” doesn’t necessarily mean that we feel it – or know it, does it? King Ahaz demonstrated that in the story told in Isaiah. King Ahaz of Judah was in the middle of a huge and dangerous political mess in 8th century BCE. He was anticipating an attack from Israel and Syria to the north. The prophet Isaiah was called by the Holy One to persuade the king that appealing to a foreign power, the mighty Assyrian Empire for help would be a huge mistake. Isaiah was offering assurance and urging courage to embrace again the fidelity of the Holy One in the House of David. The faith Isaiah was encouraging had little or nothing to do with a thinking kind of believing about the Holy One. It had to do with a feeling kind of belonging to the Holy One, especially in the midst of grave danger or threat of danger, that typically leads to panic or dread. Biblical faith or fidelity, is not as much about believing as it is about belonging. (The Apostle, Paul, says as much in the opening to his letter to the Church in Rome when he addresses those called to “belong to” rather than “believe in” Jesus Christ).
King Ahaz seemed to have forgotten to Whom he belonged and he was panicking and making bad decisions with far-reaching and long-lasting consequences.[1] God told King Ahaz, through Isaiah, to ask for a sign of God’s faithfulness that would be so deep and so high that it could not be missed. (It seems that God wanted to show off some.) King Ahaz refused. He did it in a polite way – saying I will not ask and I will not test the Lord. “Oh no, no, I couldn’t – I wouldn’t want to presume to ask for a sign. I’m not going to test God.” But Isaiah wasn’t fooled by King Ahaz’s reluctance. He knew that King Ahaz did not trust God enough to deliver a big sign or deep down, Ahaz felt that he didn’t really need any divine assistance.
And Isaiah’s frustrated response was, “oh for crying out loud. Is it not enough that you should try the patience of people that you are also going to try the patience of my God? Listen. God told you to ask for a sign. You know what? God’s going to give you a sign anyway. And this is the sign. A child is going to be born to a young woman, or a woman of marrying age, in the midst of all this chaos, who will be nourished by God on the food of abundance and well-being – on honey and curds. That child will be called “With-us-is-God.” (In other words, that child will be a king.) That child will grow up — and then you’re going to see what’s what.” I just want to mention that there is a Hebrew word for “virgin” that is used many times in other parts of Isaiah, but it’s not used here.[2] The sign is the child; the sign is well-being; the sign is a king in right-relationship with the Holy One (which means in right-relationship with people as well). Sadly, King Ahaz rejected the sign the way folks run a red light in Boston. He just blew right through it.
I want you to understand the context of the reading from Isaiah because Matthew began his Gospel project with this passage from Isaiah on his mind. While stories of miraculous births abounded in Greek and Roman mythology, and Caesar himself claimed to have had a miraculous birth, Matthew was not quoting an emperor, but the prophet Isaiah because the story of Jesus’ birth reminded him of Isaiah’s account of hope being born in the midst of so much war and hate, so much suffering and fear. Here is the king, Matthew is saying, who came into the world as a child, who survived because of the righteousness of Joseph. Joseph saw and accepted the sign. He stopped at the light. He adopted the child of Mary and named him Jesus. Technically, the name Jesus means “God saves.” The name “Jesus” is a reminder that God will save God’s people.
I’ve been thinking a lot about Joseph’s honor lately. You know, Joseph could have had Mary put to death in a very public way as punishment for infidelity. He was fully within his rights to have her stoned. But he didn’t do that. He must have been angry. He must have been disappointed. He must have loved Mary. He resolved to end the betrothal quietly – the word for dismiss can also mean forgive, set free, and divorce. Joseph wasn’t asking for a sign. He had already decided what to do. He was an honorable man — a righteous man – but not a foolish man. But no sooner had he resolved to dismiss Mary, than he dreamt that he should not be afraid to take the next step in marriage and bring her into his family home. He dreamt that the child she was bearing would remind them all that God saves. A dream. The life of Mary, the mother of Jesus – and the legitimacy of Jesus’ kingship was saved by something as hazy — as nebulous as a dream about not being afraid. Joseph dreamed that his own worst despair might also become his greatest joy. And then when he awoke, he dared to live as if that dream could become true. He dared to live as if joy and kindness and hope, that God-with-us could be born out of his sorrow. The miracle in this story has nothing to do with virginity or immaculate conception – those were later ideas. The miracle in this story has to do with Joseph’s receptivity to the sign of God, the scandalous holiness inside of Mary. The miracle is that Joseph claimed the scandalous holiness, this sign of Love from a spirit of holiness, for his own.
But this isn’t just a story about Joseph and Mary. Matthew’s reference to Isaiah makes it clear that through them, God’s mighty work – God’s immeasurable presence is ongoing. God’s opposition to imperial power, imperial oppression and aggression, yes, even imperial theology, is ongoing, whether the empire is [Assyria or] Babylon or Rome or the United States of America, or even the Church. Matthew is making it clear that “the empire is not sovereign and God is not powerless,”[3] and that God comes through ordinary people to save ordinary people who risk loving in the face of evil, ordinary people who insist on belonging to the ultimate power of Love.
These stories make me wonder about our own dangerous political and precarious economic circumstances. These stories remind me of our own communal stories of regret and shame and anger and sorrow and grief and fear and love. These stories remind me of the plaque in my office quoting Carl Jung, a gift from my faith-filled wife, that says “Bidden or not bidden, God is present.” Signs and wonders and dreams of God are all around us even now. May we be brave enough and foolish enough to see them and respond accordingly.