Panzer Liturgical Service
I imagine that the number one complaint minister’s get in the weeks leading up to Christmas is that we don’t start singing Christmas carols soon enough. And it’s no wonder. Even here in Germany we started seeing the stores filled with holiday gift items and decorations in late November – Black Friday sales abound. If we live out our Christian faith with the assumption that we are a microcosm of the larger society, then it would totally make sense to start singing “Joy to the World” and “Silent Night” as early as we wanted to spread that good news.
But let’s assume for a minute that the Church’s life is not merely a small reflection of what’s going on around us, but that we hold values and customs that are in opposition to the collective values of the world. How would we then reinforce our code of conduct – our particular hearing and acting out the Christmas story? And what that mean for the place that Christmas and its celebrations have in our lives?
If you ask the average person, most would say that Christmas is the most important day in the Christian year. I would beg to differ – and liturgical history bears witness – believing that Easter is actually the most important day in the Christian calendar.
The early church began to mark the resurrection of Jesus from the very beginning. These Christians came together to worship and break bread on the first day of the week, declaring each Sunday as a little Easter. The season of Lent was born as a time of preparation for converts and rededication for those who were already members. As time went on the gospels were written to the next generation, and questions about who Jesus was and where he came from emerged. Matthew and Luke both address the question of Jesus’ birth, but from different perspectives and different sets of facts. It is only after 200AD that the Church begins to celebrate Jesus’ birth at all. Just as Easter is prefaced by Lent, Christmas has a similar time of preparation called Advent. Our four-week Advent celebration is mean to set Jesus’ birth into a particular context so that we understand where he came from and how he fits into the narrative God’s reign in the world.
Year A readings in the Revised Common Lectionary make this transition even starker. For the last three weeks, we have really heard nothing specific about Jesus’ birth. Instead, we have followed around our friend John the Baptist, weirdly dressed and proclaiming a sometimes-confusing message of once and future hope.
On this fourth Sunday of Advent, we finally encounter a principle in the Christmas story – Joseph. But Joseph doesn’t have much to say. Instead, we hear about a dream he had concerning the troubling news of his fiancé’s unexpected pregnancy. The final outcome is the story as we know it, but I’d like to look a little more closely at why this dream is so integral to how we might live out our faith in Jesus today.
First, if you go to the 17 verses that preface our encounter with Joseph, we find the genealogy of Jesus. I imagine that it’s a part of the story that we are most willing to skip over, but I think it gives us a big clue to how revolutionary Jesus’ story will become. You know, Jesus’ family line has some really questionable characters in it; including Tamar who was abused by her father-in-law, who then tried to kill her, a reference to the wife of Uriah, also known as Bathsheba, who had an adulterous relationship with David, and other members with dubious histories.
Matthew, written to share the story of Jesus with the Jewish community, would have known that this is not the pure, unblemished line the people were expecting the Messiah to come from. Even so, this is the family whom God chose to save the world and become incarnate within and implicant in the narrative is the question – “If God can save the world with this family - imagine what God can do with you?”
Second, when we pick up in verse 18, there is no real birth narrative here. Jesus is born sometime in verse 25, but we don’t know any of the details about what the scene looked like. What we eventually pick up from Matthew’s details of the birth is the visit of the Magi – and even that may not reflect what we expect.
So why is this part of the story important? Well, it gives us a peek into the mind and heart of Joseph, who we know little to nothing about, only that he is a righteous man. You see, Joseph had a choice to make. He could follow the law or he could take on the task that the angel gave him. Jewish marriage customs dictated that an engagement proceeds the actual wedding ceremony. At that time, a dowry was paid by the bride’s family to the groom and a contract drawn up. During the time of the engagement, the groom made preparations for married life and the couple got to know each other before living together. The concept of falling in love would have been as foreign as the idea of space travel during that time.
For Mary to become pregnant during her engagement to Joseph would have been the most serious violation of the contract between them and special rules within the Torah existed to spare Joseph the burden of honoring the broken promise. As a kind man, he wished only to send her away, but before he could finalize that decision, this dream sets him on a very different path. Joseph throws off the shackles of doing what it legal for the burden of doing what was right, kind and good. Righteousness is no longer bound by the law, but also by the heart.
Ultimately, the story of Jesus is about seeing how God acts in the lives of those whom he calls. Joseph was completely within his rights to send Mary away with nothing. But instead, he names Jesus as the angel instructs, claiming him as his own son and cementing Jesus’ place in the line of David, fulfilling the prophecy in a way that was totally unexpected.
During Christmas, we often focus on Mary and what it was like to be a teenage mother in a Middle Eastern society. We think about her bravery in accepting the task given to her and we hold her up as an example to all people in being a brave follower of God’s call. This Sunday we are also given the opportunity to think about Joseph… about how he trusts the call that Mary has answered and how he is willing to claim a child that isn’t his, becoming an integral part of the Christmas and Christian story. This week, I hope you’ll reflect on the ways that God is calling you to be like Joseph.
If nothing else, this passage reminds us that God works through real people with the real challenges going on in their lives. Jesus didn’t come in a fairytale setting but was born to a young peasant girl in a desperate situation. He didn’t choose political or business success stories to be the bearers of the Christmas message, but a single man with conflicted doubts of how he should deal with a sticky situation, who wanted to do the right thing but needed a little angelic guidance to finally figure out which path to take.
What does it mean to not just believe the story of God’s coming in the world, but to enter into the story and live it? The reality of the Christmas story only comes alive to us once we enter it ourselves, and live in the midst of its glory and uncertainty. This story asks us how much we trust that God will fulfill the promises made to us. It asks us to expand our understanding of “God with us” really means. And if we reflect on it long enough, we realize that we bear much more responsibility for being God’s presence than we have often been willing to take on ourselves.
Let’s face it – we’re pretty good at following through on the stuff we start ourselves, but often fall down on the job when we have to support the ideas and projects dreamed up by others. But that’s what the job of being a Christian is all about… But to be a Christian and a Christ-bearer in the world today, that is precisely what we are called to do… to take responsibility for the work of the Spirit. If we are not being the hands and feet and voice of Christ in the world around us, then we are not living up to the promises we made at our baptisms and reaffirmed at our confirmations… we need to do better.
If there is anything we can take with us today, it is the belief in Emmanuel – “God with us.” Jesus – “God saves.” These are the reassurances that God gives to us to know that while there is a lot of work to be done, we are never alone.
Peace, Deb
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[1] Robb McCoy & Eric Fistler http://www.pulpitfiction.us/show-notes/198-advent-4a-dec-18-2016
[1] Ibid.
[1] David Lose, http://www.davidlose.net/2016/12/advent-4-a-god-really-with-us/