We are just days away from Christmas, and I hope that this season has been full of hope, joy, love and peace for you. I hope that you have had time to reflect on the promises of the Advent season, the season in which we prepare ourselves for the coming of Jesus.
It’s funny that the modern Christian church spends four weeks—the season of Advent—preparing for Christ’s coming, because the first Christmas was a total surprise that sort of snuck up on everyone involved. And it’s funny that this fourth Sunday of Advent is usually thought of as the Sunday of Peace. It wasn’t very peaceful for at least one of the story’s leading figures, a humble and righteous man named Joseph.
Michael Lindvall, a Presbyterian pastor and outstanding writer, tells a story which he calls simply “The Christmas Pageant.” It is about a mythical Second Presbyterian Church in the mythical town of North Haven, Minnesota. One year, the young mothers of Second Presbyterian surprised the whole church when they decided they would not do the annual Christmas pageant in the traditional way.
Alvina Johnson had directed the church Christmas pageant for forty-seven years. In all that time, there had not been a single change to the script, which came, by the way, straight from the King James Bible. For generations, the pageant narrator had read the story of Jesus’ birth from Luke 2 in this way: “And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judaea, unto the city of David, which is called Bethlehem; (because he was of the house and lineage of David) to be taxed with Mary his espoused wife, being great with child.”
The first step the women took in revamping the Christmas pageant was to expand the number of angels and shepherds and animals in the script so that every child could have a part. We can appreciate why they did that. All the children would be involved. Great!
On the morning of the pageant, however, the mothers decided to make one more change—one that caused a little more excitement. They decided to take the script for the pageant not from the King James Version, but from the Good News translation of the Bible so the young kids would understand it better. So there was no more quaint and beautiful language about Mary “being great with child.” As Mary and Joseph walked up the aisle of the church, the narrator read the words of the Christmas story from Luke 2 from the Good News translation which reads like this: “Joseph went to register with Mary who was promised in marriage to him. She was pregnant.”
At these words, the little boy playing Joseph stopped in his tracks, looked at Mary and said, “Pregnant? What do you mean, pregnant?”
The congregation burst into laughter. For the first time in 47 years, everyone in the church knew exactly what Joseph must have been feeling when he first heard the news of Mary’s pregnancy. “Surprise, Joseph!”(1)
But there’s something that’s always puzzled me about our Bible passage this morning. You know what I would like to ask Joseph? “When did you know, Joseph? When did the angel tell you that Jesus was not your child?”
Scholars tell us that Matthew tells the Christmas story from Joseph’s perspective, while Luke tells the story from Mary’s. Today’s lesson is from Matthew. In those days, a couple was often engaged in childhood, when their parents arranged for their future marriage to each other. Then, when they reached marriageable age, they entered the period of betrothal. The betrothal period usually lasted for one year. It was a preparation year before the actual wedding.
By now, everyone in the town considered Joseph and Mary to be husband and wife, even though they did not live together and had not consummated the marriage yet. But a betrothal could only be broken by a divorce decree. It was serious stuff. And then after about one year of betrothal, the marriage ceremony took place and the husband and wife officially lived with each other.
Sometime during the betrothal period, Joseph had this dream when the angel of the Lord came to him and told him, “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. 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.”
A year of betrothal is a long time for a young couple to wait. The theme song from the musical Rent is titled Seasons of Love. The song tries to capture the essence of how quickly a year goes by, and how important it is to live every moment with love. The opening lyrics go like this:
Five hundred twenty-five thousand/ Six hundred minutes
Five hundred twenty-five thousand/ Moments so dear
Five hundred twenty-five thousand/ Six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year?
In daylights, in sunsets/ In midnights, in cups of coffee
In inches, in miles/ In laughter, in strife?
Five hundred twenty-five thousand/
Six hundred minutes/ How do you measure a year in the life? (2)
Five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes—is that how long Joseph and Mary had to put up with the gossip and contempt and questions from their family and neighbors? Everyone assumed they had not consummated their marriage, yet Mary was pregnant. Conclusion? She’s an adulterer. Solution? The Law prescribed stoning her to death! These are the types of very real fears Joseph and Mary had to deal with when they were chosen by God. That’s why we don’t just celebrate Christmas as one day in the life of the church. We celebrate a whole season of Advent, which means Coming. But really, we should name it the season of Waiting. Because the whole Christmas season is about waiting on the promises of God. Waiting and trusting in God’s faithfulness, even when it’s hard. Even when it doesn’t seem to make sense. It was undoubtedly hard for Joseph to make sense of it all. So how can we call this last Sunday in Advent the Sunday of Peace? There are some ways.
First of all, it’s a reminder that knowing God’s character and knowing God’s faithfulness allows us to have peace in any circumstance. Joseph’s story is a great example of this. Says the Gospel of Matthew: “This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
“But 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. 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 conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means God with us).
“When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.”
It is evident that Joseph had great faith in his young bride-to-be. He also had great faith in God. That is the only source of real peace.
A woman and her husband were preparing for their daughter’s wedding. The day before the wedding, the church held a mission conference. When the woman and her husband came by to decorate the church, they found that the mission organizer had forgotten to take the mission banner off the pulpit. They thought the motto on the banner was a good message for a wedding too. The banner read, “Worth the Risk.” (3)
When Joseph originally heard the news of Mary’s pregnancy, he was going to very discreetly arrange for a divorce. He was a kind and merciful man. He could have had her stoned for adultery—a very public, humiliating and painful death. It would have brought shame on her whole family. The fact that he even considered this divorce option tells us that he was unsure that marriage to Mary was worth the risk . . . until the angel of the Lord came to him.
And that brings me to my second question from today’s Bible passage: Why did the angel of the Lord wait until after Joseph had considered his options? Why did God make Joseph wait before He told him who Jesus’ real father was? I believe it was because it’s in the waiting rooms of life that we discover what we really believe about God.
How do we react to our times of waiting? Do we get angry, scared, cynical, self-pitying? Or do we focus on who God is and look for ways that God could be working in our situation? How do we use our times of waiting? Do we complain or try to work out all the various options? How do we react?
A man posted on the web the story of his first skydiving experience. The skydiving instructor told the students that when they reached a certain spot, he would motion to them to grab hold of a bar in the doorway of the plane. Then they were to roll out of the door, and then watch for his signal to let go of the bar and dive out into thin air. The skydiving instructor ended his instructions with these words: “Now when you grab on and roll out, I’m going to tap you on the helmet when it’s time to let go. And when I do, that’s NOT the time to start a conversation with me. I don’t want this to be like: ‘Who me?’ ‘Yes you.’ ‘Let go?’ ‘Yes!’ ‘Now?’ ‘Yes, now!’
“If you want to start a conversation with me I will peel your fingers off the bar if I have to.” (4) While you’re standing at the exit door is not the time to ask questions.
One of the inspiring things about the story of Joseph and Mary and their young son is that, when God gave them the news that Mary would give birth to the Messiah, neither one started a conversation with God. They just obeyed. They acted in faith.
Acting in faith is really the message of Christmas. It takes faith to declare to the world that a poor Jewish carpenter born 2,000 years ago is Immanuel—God with us. It takes faith to say that Jesus came to save us from our sins and restore us to God. It takes faith to say that God’s plan for the salvation of the world only comes through Jesus Christ. It takes faith to say, “Come into my life, Jesus, and change whatever you need to change to make my life pleasing to God.”
Let me tell you about a young college student from a Buddhist family whom we’ll call Anne. Anne’s parents had raised her with two major priorities: loyalty to her family and academic success. So when Anne became a Christian in college, her parents were really upset. They thought Christianity was a cult. And they thought Anne’s new faith would alienate her from the family and distract her from her studies. As Anne grew in her faith, the gulf between her and her parents widened.
Finally, Anne’s parents they kicked her out of the house. Her father said to Anne, “You don’t have any parents. To you we are dead. You ungrateful daughter. You can just go!” Imagine how painful it was for her to find Jesus and lose her family.
Some of Anne’s friends from her Christian fellowship group took her in. It took seven months before Anne’s parents would speak to her again. Fortunately, however, their attitude toward her has been softening.
Anne could have given in to their pressure and given up or hidden her faith for their sake, but she hasn’t. As she says, “Jesus is worth fighting for. Even if I have to be disowned ten billion times, I will do it. I just want to cling to Jesus. He promised us a hundred times [as much blessing] if we have to leave our family.” (5)
Author Charles Swindoll once wrote, “Courage is not limited to the battlefield or the Indianapolis 500 or bravely catching a thief in your house. The real tests of courage are much quieter. They are the inner tests, like remaining faithful when nobody’s looking, like enduring pain when the room is empty, like standing alone when you’re misunderstood.”
Joseph knew that he would be standing alone. He knew he would be misunderstood. The men of his town would gossip. The women of his town would sneer. His family may very well turn against him and his new wife. But Joseph trusted the promises of God. And he knew it was worth the risk to follow God, even when it wasn’t easy.
At the start of World War II, the British government’s Ministry of Information created a set of three posters to keep up the morale of the British people as they faced a brutal war with Germany. Each poster bore the crown of King George VI and a simple message in white typeface against a solid color background. The first poster read: Your Courage, Your Cheerfulness, Your Resolution Will Bring Us Victory. The second poster read: Freedom Is In Peril. Defend It With All Your Might.
These posters were plastered all over Great Britain as powerful reminders to the British people that they may not be able to control the circumstances around them, but they could choose how they responded.
A third poster was also created by the Ministry of Information, but it was not released. Most copies of it ended up destroyed after the war. But a few copies of it survived. This poster also has the crown of King George VI and white typeface on a solid color background. But its message read simply: Keep Calm and Carry On. (6)
Keep Calm and Carry On. Isn’t that what Joseph and Mary did when God told them that they would bring God’s Son into the world? And isn’t that a sign of their great faith and courage? That kind of faith and courage comes from trusting in God’s character and God’s promises. That kind of faith and courage comes from submitting to God’s will. In this season of waiting, I pray that you will find the Peace of God that comes from trusting in Immanuel—God with us—in all things.
- Good News from North Haven (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992). Cited in “Making a List: God’s Quiet Work,” Sharon Rhodes-Wickett, http://www.westwoodumc.org/sermons/2004sermons/Sermon_12.19.04.pdf.
- Seasons of Love by Jonathan Larson from Rent. Jonathan Larson--Composer, Lyricist and Librettist (Copyright 2016 by SKG Music L.L.C.; Released: Jan 1, 1996).
- Cited by Terry Hartsell Kenne, Winston-Salem, North Carolina, Christianity Today, Inc./CHRISTIAN READER.
- Posted by Lord Fancy Pants, Sept. 22, 2017. https://ask.metafilter.com/313796/Funny-first-person-stories-about-doing-something-dangerous.
- Anne’s name changed for security reasons. “Was Gaining God Worth Losing My Family?” By Suan Lee Campbell https://www.cru.org/us/en/how-to-know-god/my-story-a-life-changed/losing-all-to-gain-much.html.
- “The Story of Keep Calm and Carry On,” YouTube video, 3: 01, posted by Temujin Doran, www.youtube.com /watch? v = FrHkKXFRbCI& sns = fb. See also Keep Calm and Carry On: Good Advice for Hard Times (Kansas City: Andrews McMeel, 2009), introduction. Cited in Max Lucado, You’ll Get Through This: Hope and Help for Your Turbulent Times (Thomas Nelson. Kindle Edition), p. 215.