December 23, 2007 Message

Luke 2:1, 3-20; Matthew 1:16-25
“The Birth of Jesus”

This the season for Christmas cards…
A man sent his friend a cryptic Christmas card. It said: A B C D E F G H I J K M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z.
The recipient puzzled over it for weeks, finally gave up and wrote asking for an explanation. In July he received the explanation on a postcard: "No L."

It is the season for shopping…
A man goes to Cedar Rapids to do some Christmas shopping. His wife was watching the news on TV when she heard the announcer say, "be very careful and watch driving on 380 today, there is a motorist driving the wrong way"!
The wife immediately calls her husband on the cell phone to warn him, and he says: "Tell me about it! There are hundreds of them here going the wrong way".

And it is the season for helping others…
During the sermon, the preacher was telling the people about how the angel came to Mary to tell her about how she would help bring Jesus into the world. To help make his point, he asked what they thought the first thing Mary would have asked for after the angel left her.
Immediately a young mother, sitting about five rows back from the front, and with a little one, turned to her husband and said, "I'll bet she asked for a little help from Joseph!"

But most importantly, this is the season of “our dear Saviors birth.”
Luke 2 tells the story of the birth of Jesus. It is the story dads often read to their children and grandchildren at Christmas time. It begins by filling us in on why Mary and Joseph were in Bethlehem. “About that time Caesar Augustus ordered a census to be taken throughout the Empire. Everyone had to travel to his own ancestral hometown to be accounted for. So Joseph went from the Galilean town of Nazareth up to Bethlehem in Judah, David's town, for the census. As a descendant of David, he had to go there.”

Then the surprise comes - verse 5 says, “He went with Mary, his fiancée, who was pregnant.” That’s not really important to a four year old. So Luke’s brevity is fine. But for those of us needing to know more, well we have to go to Matthew to find out more. In the parallel text found in Matthew, Chapter 1, we find that: “Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they came to the marriage bed, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. Joseph was upset and angry but he was determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced. While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God's angel spoke in the dream: "Joseph, son of David, don't hesitate to get married. Mary's pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God's Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—(which means) 'God saves'—because he will save his people from their sins." This would fulfill Isaiah’s earlier prophecy (7:10-16) that foretells ‘a young woman will conceive and bear a son who will be called Emmanuel.’

Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;
They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for "God is with us").

So what does Joseph do? He wakes up and does exactly what God's angel has told him to do in the dream: He marries Mary. But he doesn’t consummate the marriage until she has the baby, who he names Jesus.

Imagine being Joseph… It must have been a difficult and anxious time to say the least – and for Mary as well. Mary confides in you before the marriage that she is expecting a child. You know you are not the father. You have no idea what to do. Oh, you could humiliate Mary in front of her family and their neighbors, announce the wedding is off and demand your dowry back. But that is not the kind of person you are. Instead, you help Mary go away to her cousin’s home to avoid the shame.

And after she has gone, the most amazing thing happens. In the middle of the night, when you are in a deep sleep, you have a dream in which an angel of God appears to you. This angel tells you that what had happened to Mary was all God’s doing, it was God’s plan. It’s okay. You are not to be afraid or angry or mad at Mary. Instead, the angel says, you are to take Mary as your wife, just like the both of you had planned all along. Things will be fine. Trust God. God would do something great.

Mary would have a son, and the angel tells you to name him, Jesus… or Yeshua —which means “God saves.” And just like Joshua of old, this Jesus would save his people from their sins. But then the angel added something else. His name would also be Immanuel — God with us. God with us!

This is a story of new life breaking lose in unexpected ways - and in unanticipated places. Luke 2:7 says, “She wrapped him in a blanket and laid him in a manger, because there was no room in the inn.” The baby Jesus… Yeshua (God saves)… Immanuel (God with us) was born to unlikely parents and in an unlikely place. What might be the parallels today? Through what unlikely people and in what unlikely places might God be at work during this season of hope.

This is also a story of God’s promise kept. Jesus’ birth is evidence of that. In his birth is found hope for all people, the same hope we can be a witness to today. Or can we? Are there people who are yet to hear the Christmas story and its message of hope for the first time… who are waiting for our telling?

Yesterday was an anxious day for me. As I was working on this message, I found myself anxious as to whether there would be a service this morning or not… with the snow and all. I’m sure it was nothing like how Joseph felt, but still the uncertainty of not knowing what the ‘morrow would bring’ made for an uneasy evening. Plans had been made, everything was going as planned… and then the storm blows in! Not necessarily so unexpected but still, what to do? Perhaps the same ‘anxiousness’ about Christmas overwhelms us, and what to do.

But, like Joseph, there is no reason for us to be anxious. For we too are assured that the child, whom we will celebrate in his birth this Christmas morning, is GOD WITH US, Emmanuel, and that this child, whom we celebrate in his birth, came to save us from our sins more than two thousand years ago.

We have no reason to be anxious this Christmas. If we don’t have our service, Jesus will come. If we don’t get the shopping done Jesus will still come. If we don’t get the decorating done, Jesus will still come. All we have to do is be patient, and wait, and prepare, and he will be here ... sooner than we might expect.

“Joseph, the son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Do not be anxious… or concerned… for Jesus Christ is coming.