FOURTH SUNDAY IN ADVENT – 23 DECEMBER 2007
ST PAUL LUTHERAN CHURCH, ABQ NM – The Rev. P. L. Holman
Isaiah 7:10-16; Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19; Romans 1:1-7; Matthew 1:18-25
“On the Way, Signs to HOPE”
Children's Message Identity-- who is the guy on the bulletin cover? Joseph, a saint (halo), someone loved by God, someone given an important job -- to love the child of Mary, the Son of God, like he was his own. And Joseph did.
Who ARE you? Lover of chocolate, pet owner, someone who knows cursive, someone who is learning to skate board, middle school student beloved of God, the identity that grows with us, and goes with us always. Thanks be to God!
You can almost feel the excitement, eh? Christmas is right around the corner. The signs are all over the place -- final shopping days, some presents under the tree, others waiting to be wrapped. Here more than 50 blankets were collected and now have been distributed to the homeless, almost 150 hats, mittens, tops and sets of underwear were delivered to the Storehouse for children in need, and some 57 stockings stuffed with warm items and candy were delivered to the adults at Dismas House. The final gifts for Adopted Families are being readied for delivery, the poinsettias are set out, the lights are on the tree and, well, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas once again.
The signs of Christmas -- of Emmanuel, God with us, are all around us. God's Word today reminds us to pay attention to those life-giving signs, and not just at Christmas. Centuries ago Ahaz had a political dilemma; stand firm in faith, the prophet warned, or you won't stand at all. Yet when the LORD directed Ahaz to trust God for guidance, Ahaz decided he had a better way. His 8th century BCE decision to trust in himself and leaders like Tiglath-Pilezar led Ahaz to ruin and subjected Judah to Assyrian control.
Joseph’s story of trust does not follow a straightforward path either, yet his is a path that turns toward God. Walt Wangerin is a devout theologian and wonderful story teller. In his BOOK OF GOD, the Bible as Novel, he paints a picture of Joseph as a 40 year old widower who falls hopelessly in love with young Mary, to whom he becomes betrothed. Being a man of very modest means, Joseph strikes a deal with her father, Joachim, to work off the requisite dowry for obtaining Mary's hand in marriage by repairing Joachim's dilapidated house -- fixing the door, repairing the roof, and the like. Things go well for a while, everything seeming to fall into place, the signs all affirming Joseph's decision to engage Mary as his wife; Joseph settles into a comfortable routine of daily seeing Mary, enjoying the sound of her giggle and her charming quick wit, his trust in her love for him deepening with each passing day.
Then all of a sudden Mary disappears. Joseph worries when he learns even her mother doesn't know where she is, and he begins to second-guess himself. Then, after three months, she returns. She seems different now, more mature, her gaze more distant. And one day, in the midst of a strong embrace, he figures out what those "signs" mean: she is pregnant. There is no hesitation for Joseph: he walks quickly to his home, writes out on parchment a statement of release from her vows for reasons of impurity -- not adultery, he couldn't write that because he loved Mary too much to put her through that public disgrace -- and then with nightfall mercifully falls asleep pondering his difficult decision to let her go, to face yet another grief in his life. That's when God's sign appears -- in a dream, a vision, the appearance of a messenger who assures Joseph that all will be well. The next morning Joseph is a renewed man, and he himself becomes the sign of hope for Mary and her parents….
When he woke up on the following morning, 40-year-old Joseph moved more quickly and lightly than he ever had in his life. He lit a fire of dry sticks then burned the parchment in its flames. He washed himself. He brushed and brushed his beard. He oiled his hair. He donned his one clean tunic and his Sabbath robe, then fairly ran to the home of Joachim and knocked at the door.
But there was wailing inside the house, a voice filled with outrage and pain. No one heard Joseph's knocking. The voice was howling, "How could you bring such disgrace on --"
Hearing that, Joseph made a fist and pounded the door with all his might. "Joachim!" he bellowed. "Joachim, open your door and let me in!"
The house became very still. No one spoke. No one moved.
"Joachim," Joseph roared, "Open this door."
"Go away." It was Joachim's voice, whining piteously: "You don't have to finish the roof. Just go away and leave us alone."
But Joseph only roared the louder: "No, I will not leave until we've set the date for my wedding to your daughter. And you're right. I don't have to finish the roof. But I will. AFTER we are married."
The little house seemed altogether deserted after that, so long did silence last inside. Then Joachim called softly, "Joseph, do you know that Mary is with child?"
Joseph said, "Yes, I know."
"And Mary my daughter says that you are not the father."
"She's right. I'm not the father."
The new wooden door on Joachim's house opened a crack. A tiny eye peered out. "And you wish to marry her anyway?"
"Yes, I do."
Joachim threw open the door and burst into tears. "I am overcome with happiness!" he cried. "I am suffocating in gladness!" He spread his arms and moved toward his son-in-law, but Joseph saw one figure only.
Pale in the interior dark -- scarcely visible, as if she were winter's breath on the air -- Mary was gazing out at Joseph, hesitating, chewing her bottom lip. Oh, the worry in her features broke his heart!
Joseph couldn't help himself: he ran past Joachim and gathered Mary into his arms and held her tightly to his body.
"I love you," he whispered in her tender ear. "Don't cry, don't cry. I love you, Mary, and I know who is sleeping in you, and I will love him too. It is well. All is well, I know what God is doing, and I love you."
[Walt Wangerin, THE BOOK OF GOD, Zondervan (1996) pp. 588-589]
Like Joseph, the apostle Paul was clear about his identity: called by the Spirit, set apart for the gospel of God, harbinger of grace. It's an identity that came to him in a sign too -- blinding light on the Damascus road, God's sign reaffirmed in the person of a reluctant guide named Ananias who embodied God's hope for Saul-renamed-Paul. This sign became the call that took Paul on a series of missionary journeys planting churches throughout the Mediterranean and sowing seeds that continue to bear fruit even today. Do you remember what Paul wrote to the people in Corinth, the ones who were quarreling and having such a difficult time being the church? He wrote among other things of faith, hope and love, and the still more excellent way. His life was a testimony to the power of the God who gave the world Jesus, and while his path was anything but straight, time and again it too showed the still more excellent way that was always possible with God.
Today Paul's testimony reminds us, along with the painful warning of Ahaz's story and the hope of Joseph's, that God is always doing new things, no matter the darkness or challenge or grief, always shining with the light of saving grace for those who put their trust in God.
So who are WE? We are the people God has called to trust that there will always be a still more excellent way, to trust God enough to walk that way. Richard Rohr in his volume PREPARING FOR CHRISTMAS writes that the only we become convinced of the power of the Spirit, our own empowerment "and the truth of the Gospel is by crossing a line -- a line of decision, testing, risking, doing and owning the consequences." Like Ahaz and Saul, like Abraham and Sarah, like Mary and Joseph before us -- by crossing the line of what the world expects to do what God expects, and trusting God's help with the consequences. We can’t prove the rationale for such actions, Rohr says, "that's why we call it faith. When we cross that line, we act in a new way based on what we believe the Kingdom values are." Faith is more about walking than talking; it is about being ON the way following the signs to Hope: in times of war, walking in hope toward peace; in times of brokenness, toward hope for healing; in times of dying, toward hope for everlasting life. With God, there will always be a still more excellent way, no matter what. Always a way to Hope, thanks be to God, always.
Scary? Sure, because such living flies in the face of what the world expects and often demands. Yet God IS with us, Emmanuel. We just gotta trust that, and get walking. "Come, God with us, lighten our darkness; sine on us and show us your way. You are our hope. Walk with us into your light.
Amen. Come, Lord Jesus."
Amen