Advent's Praise
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Matthew 1:18-25
William S. Epps, Senior Pastor
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Sunday, December 18, 2022 |
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This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 20But after he had considered 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 home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins" 22All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23"The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel" --which means, "God with us." 24When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. Matthew 1:18-25
Introduction
What do you like most about Christmas? Family, presents, the spirit of joy that fills the air. There is something majestic, mysterious, and magical about this time of the year. This is a special season of the year that exudes all that is good if only for a little while so you can take a moment to realized how great it is to be alive.
There are a few versions of the Christmas story that are prevalent today. There’s the Gospel according to Matthew, where the focus is on Joseph, his dream and wise men and the star in the East. There's the Gospel according to Luke, where we get the shepherds and the angels and the fact that there was no room in the inn. And then there’s the Christmas Card version of the season where we get a glimpse of Matthew's picture, Luke's picture, and whatever we like to add to make it a festive, joy-filled and memorable occasion.
The passage in Matthew is our focus today. This story, as it is told, speaks for itself about life with its challenges, choices and consequences. What started as a joyous moment quickly becomes a challenging circumstance requiring a choice with consequences.
The Advent season of Christmas provides and promotes invaluable aspects to experiences that enhance our appreciation for living. Expectations are a part of life. Who is it who doesn’t live without expectations? It has been said that expectations are the key to life. Without expectations, imagine how empty life would be. We live hoping and reaching to achieve our potential and possibility. “Oh but a person’s reach should exceed his grasp or what’s a heaven for?” (Robert Browning)
Only by setting high expectations can we make our dreams a reality. We are told that the sky is the limit. Notice pregnancy throughout history has filled people with expectancy about life and possibilities.
Opportunities provide the possibility of expectations to be achieved. Opportunities are all around, abounding in an infinite variety, providing the staircase that you can take beyond the mundane to the sublime.
Fulfillment is the result of expecting, and utilizing the opportunities available.
Advent/Christmas is about expectation, opportunity, and fulfillment.
Consider what it means that Advent is about
expectations, opportunity and fulfillment.
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Monday, December 19, 2022 |
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Matthew begins simply:
"This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child unnaturally." (1:18)
Joseph was expecting to get married and found himself confronted with a dilemma.
Let's look at the evolving developments through the eyes of Joseph as, we too, embrace the birth of Jesus and its implications for our lives.
Firstly, something unexpected interrupted desired expectations.
Notice that Matthew just states simply what his readers already knew, without embellishment:
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Mary and Joseph were betrothed.1
- They had not "come together," that is, cohabitated with each other.
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2But Mary had begun to "show," she was pregnant.
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The conception was from 3the Holy Spirit, not man.
We knew these things and so did Joseph -- except for the source of the conception. In Matthew's account we learn how Joseph came to understand what happened. The story is familiar to us, but let's examine Joseph, the person chosen to raise Jesus.
Joseph is faced with a conundrum (a challenging problem).
Consider what it means when expectations are disrupted with the unexpected.
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Tuesday, December 20, 2022 |
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Breaking off the relationship, but not making a big deal of it, seemed to be the most honorable thing to do, and if Joseph’s part in the Christmas pageant ended here, we could understand and respect him as a man of faith.
Joseph's name was a proud name; it recalled the ancient Jewish name of one of the twelve patriarchs, Joseph the son of Jacob who was sold by his brothers into Egypt and who later became second to Pharaoh in power over all Egypt, saving his family from famine (Genesis 30-50). The origin of the name Joseph provides insight here. “Rachael called his name Joseph and said the Lord will add to me another” (Genesis 30:24). Joseph means, may God add. Ponder what God has added to life.
Joseph was no doubt older than Mary. Would be husbands needed to be established enough to support a wife before they could enter into marriage. They were legally obligated to provide with food, clothing, and shelter.
We know from later in Matthew's gospel that Joseph was a carpenter by trade (Matthew 13:55). But the town of Nazareth was small enough that carpentry wouldn't have been all he did. Carpenters and other tradesmen would also keep a garden and a couple of animals for food and perhaps do some subsistence farming to eke out a living in this agrarian society of rural Galilee. But when townspeople needed some carpentry done that was beyond their own skills and tools, Joseph would be the one they sought.
But carpentry didn't make Joseph wealthy -- not by any means. The offering Mary and Joseph brought to the temple on the occasion of Mary's purification from childbirth was the offering of a poor man, a pair of doves or pigeons (Luke 2:24; Leviticus 12:8).
Carpentry was Joseph's world, and the world that Jesus grew up in. He played in the wood shavings on the floor of his father's shop. Carpentry was Joseph's trade and the trade he taught his son. Jesus learned from Joseph to saw and plane, drill and smooth. He watched his father -- the local contractor -- make business contracts and deal with customers. Jesus saw it all.
Humans tend to take things for granted as if safety, health, food, shelter and other amenities of life are naturally given; while vulnerability, hunger, illness, pain and suffering are someone else’s problems. We come to know that fortune and misfortune come to everyone. Challenges and changes, conflicts and crisis, conundrums and choices are a part of living and loving, a part of expectations, opportunities and fulfillment.
Consider what it means to respond thoughtfully
when the unexpected intrudes upon your life.
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Wednesday, December 21, 2022 |
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Secondly, live through the opportunity, regardless of what it takes.
We begin to see the character of Joseph to whom Mary was betrothed:
"Because Joseph was a righteous person and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to put her away quietly." (1:19)
Matthew says that he was "a righteous man." "Righteous" (NIV, NRSV) or "just" (KJV) is dikaios, "pertaining to being in accordance with high standards of being morally correct, upright, just, fair," "interested in doing the right thing, being honorable, just, good."
He had but two qualifications to play a part in the Christmas drama – he was a descendent of David and, for whatever reason, he was God’s choice. He was a common man who dared to be obedient to God’s will for his life. We are told that he had an epiphany, an awakening, by “an angel of the Lord in a dream.” (Matthew 1:20). He was going to be obedient to what he perceived was part of God’s plan.
He was told “don’t be afraid to take Mary home as your wife because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (Matthew 1:20-23). His name shall be called Immanuel, meaning God with us, not against us but with us through the twists and turns of the interruptions that eclipse our expectations with the unexpected. God is with us.
Consider what it means to perceive the presence of the Lord
in the midst of life’s unexpected interruptions.
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Thursday, December 22, 2022 |
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Have your expectations ever been in the way of seeing God’s presence in your life through the unexpected? Just maybe perplexing predicaments is where we experience the reality of the Lord's powerful, pervasive presence.
God’s ways in the world are such that we can delight and rejoice when God moves outside of our expectations and reaches people where they are rather than assuming that they’ll figure it all out on their own.
Joseph took time to muse and reflect on what was happening and came to a conclusion in a dream. But there’s more. According to Matthew, Joseph had a dream in which an angel of the Lord appeared to him and told him that the child in Mary’s womb was of the Holy Spirit and that he should become as a father to the child.
Yet, according to Matthew, Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. The scripture says he “took his wife to himself; and didn’t know her sexually until she had brought forth her firstborn son.” (Matthew 1:25)
Consider what it means that the Lord’s Presence can provide
an opportunity to exceed the expectations you sought to achieve.
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Friday, December 23, 2022 |
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Thirdly, faithfully wait for the fulfillment.
Let God surprise you with one of those "Oh My God!" moments. Think about it?
We wait for Christmas with great expectations about what we want to receive: presents under a tree, family and friends unwrapping gifts, sharing with one another.
Celebrating the birth of the Christ Child reminds us that God faithfully fulfills promises. His name shall be called Immanuel as predicted in Isaiah 7:14.
Wait it out and see how God can surprise you with the interruptions that alter your expectations.
The best thing we can do when working through managing the
unexpected which has interrupted our expectations is to make sense
of life as we navigate our way through any confusion.
There is a lot of reality out there that requires our reckoning, a bewildering assortment of values from which to choose; an obstacle course to manage;
a sizeable of chaos on which to impose order; a network of systems that calls
for resistance or compliance. We have to do this reckoning,
choosing, managing ordering, resisting and complying with self that is
housed in a vulnerable body - a heartbeat away from death - all within a span
of time at its longest is all too short. ~G. Ernest Campbell (104)
We have two resources which are given to us to cope. These are experience and expectation. Experience is about a remembered past. Fortunately, all the ground we break is not fresh. We stand on the shoulders of our predecessors. Each generation does not have to discover anew everything. History is there to broaden our understanding. There is the history of others and our own personal history. Remembered bouts of disappointments and recollections of good fortune let us know that repeat situations keep coming up and yesterday can help us.
Joined to experience is expectation. We can recall the past, but we can also project a future. We know that certain courses will lead to predicable ends. Practice does makes perfect.
Experience and expectation enable us to live. Some lean more to experience, that is we tend to be past oriented. Others are given to expectation which is future oriented. Both are necessary. All experience and no expectation would produce a cautious dullness. All expectation and no experience would issue in fatal recklessness.
Biblical faith goes beyond both! Read the bible with the throttle of your imagination wide open. History is more than repetition, because God's good news keeps breaking through. Beyond experience and expectation is surprise. Whence come such surprises.
Consider the surprises in your life that have gone beyond your
experience and expectation to surprise with a, "I can’t believe it!" moment.
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Saturday, December 24, 2022 |
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The bible is replete with instances in which God surprises. Most notable is the birth of a child in a manager.
All across the world today, Christians are gathering to worship. They worship Jesus Christ. Why? This great homage, published as “The Incomparable Christ”, tells us:
More than nineteen hundred years ago, there was a Man born contrary to the laws of life. This Man lived in poverty and was reared in obscurity. He did not travel extensively. Only once did He cross the boundary of the country in which He lived; that was during His exile in childhood.
He possessed neither wealth nor influence. His relatives were inconspicuous and had neither training nor formal education.
In infancy He startled a king; in childhood He puzzled doctors;
in manhood He ruled the course of nature, walked upon the waves as pavement, and hushed the sea to sleep.
He healed the multitudes without medicine and made no charge for His service.
He never wrote a book, and yet perhaps all the libraries of the world could not hold the books that have been written about Him.
He never wrote a song, and yet He has furnished the theme for more songs than all the songwriters combined.
He never founded a college, but all the schools put together cannot boast of having as many students.
He never marshaled an army, nor drafted a soldier, nor fired a gun; and yet no leader ever had more volunteers who have, under His orders,
made more rebels stack arms and surrender without a shot fired.
He never practiced psychiatry, and yet He has healed more broken hearts than all the doctors far and near.
Once each week multitudes congregate at worshiping assemblies to pay homage and respect to Him.
The names of the past, proud statesmen of Greece and Rome have come and gone. The names of the past scientists, philosophers, and theologians have come and gone. But the name of this Man multiplies more and more.
Though time has spread nineteen hundred years between the people of this generation and the mockers at His crucifixion, He still lives.
His enemies could not destroy Him, and the grave could not hold Him.
He stands forth upon the highest pinnacle of heavenly glory, proclaimed of God, acknowledged by angels, adored by saints, and feared by devils, as the risen, personal Christ, our Lord and Savior. ~Tim Challies
Consider what it means that God surprised us by coming to dwell with us in the flesh to save us from the destruction we cause ourselves.
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What Child Is This
Andrea Bocelli and Mary J Blige
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2412 Griffith Ave
Los Angeles, CA 90011
Phone: (213) 748-0318
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