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Sermon for Advent 4A

December 23, 2001

Well, we’re almost there: it’s almost Christmas! Tomorrow night many of us will gather here again, to hear again the old familiar story of how Jesus was born in a stable in Bethlehem, to sing our favorite Christmas carols, to celebrate the Feast of the Nativity. But we are not quite there yet—before we celebrate Christmas we must celebrate the final Sunday in Advent; before we hear the story of Jesus’ birth, we must hear the story of what happened before Jesus was born, what happened to prepare the way for Jesus’ birth. In our Gospel lesson this morning, we hear the story of the Annunciation to Joseph, the story of how the Angel of the Lord comes to Joseph in a dream and gives him both a promise and a challenge.

The promise is the promise of Immanuel, God-with-us, the promise of the fulfillment of the prophecy Isaiah had made so many centuries before, the prophecy that a virgin would conceive and bear a child, a child who would refuse the evil and choose the good, a child who would bring good to all God’s faithful people. It is the promise of the birth of Jesus, whose very name means “Salvation,” who will save his people from their sins, who will overcome the alienation and separation that keeps people from God, who will take on the whole of human life, with all its strength and weakness, all its joy and pain, all its sorrow and celebration, all its clarity and confusion, who will take on the whole of human life, so that the whole of human life can be lifted up into God, the whole of human life can be made the place and the sign and the instrument of God’s eternal and unending love. The promise made to Joseph is the promise of Immanuel, God-with-us, in every part of our lives.

The challenge given to Joseph is the challenge to believe in that promise, to trust in that promise, to act on that promise—even when his reasons for trusting the promise may seem flimsy, even when the evidence for the promise may seem as insubstantial as a dream.

And that fact is that, at just that point in the story, Joseph has very little reason to trust in the power of promises. Joseph is engaged to Mary—they’ve not completed their vows yet, but they are promised to each other. Now the story doesn’t give us details of Joseph’s inner feelings—but I think we can assume that Joseph is like any other bridegroom: he has hopes and dreams, he loves Mary and he is looking forward to spending many years in companionship with her, he wants to have a family and a home and a life together.

And then he discovers that Mary is pregnant. Matthew, the narrator of the story, has no hesitation about saying that the child is from the Holy Spirit, the child is from the faithfulness of God—but Joseph doesn’t know that yet. As far as Joseph can tell, there’s only one reason why Mary would be pregnant, and that is that she has been unfaithful to him. Their vows aren’t even completed yet, and already, Joseph thinks, Mary is breaking them. And he is devastated, he is heartbroken; all his hopes and his dreams, all his plans for a family, all his expectations of life with someone he loves, they are all gone, all wiped out by a broken promise. And it’s not just Joseph’s personal feelings that are involved—there’s also the matter of the Law. The Torah was very specific about punishment for women who were guilty of adultery: according to the Law, Joseph should accuse Mary publicly, where she would be humiliated, she would be shamed, and the crowd would take her out and stone her, throw rocks at her, until she became so bruised and battered that she died. And for all his heartbreak, Joseph doesn’t want to do that to Mary, he still loves her, he doesn’t want to expose her to that kind of humiliation and danger and death. So he decides to end their relationship quietly, to break off the engagement, to send her back to her family, to dissolve all the promises between them.

And that is when the Angel comes to him in a dream and says, “Joseph, Joseph, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife. The child that is within her is not the result of a broken promise, but the child is the fulfillment of the promise of God. This child Jesus will save you from your sins, and fill your life with the love of God.” The angel says that if Joseph will trust in the promise of the birth of Jesus, then Joseph also will know God-with-him, God transforming Joseph’s sorrow into joy, Joseph’s hurt into healing, Joseph’s confusion into knowledge of the love of the Lord. What Joseph must do is act on that promise, and play the part in the story that God has given him to play.

And Joseph does. He does trust in the promise, and he does take Mary as his wife, and the child is born, and they do name him Jesus—and the rest of the story we know.

In the Gospel Joseph is given a promise and a challenge—and that same promise and challenge are given today to us. For us too, the promise is Immanuel, God-with-us, the promise that if we will let Jesus be borne in us, then we too will know God’s love transforming our sorrow into joy, our hurt into healing, our confusion into knowledge of the love of the Lord. But, like Joseph, we must trust in that promise, and act on that promise—even when our reasons for trusting seem flimsy, even when our evidence for trusting seems as insubstantial as a dream.

Several years ago a member of the parish we were attending then shared her story of how she had put her life back together after she had been abandoned by her husband. She had come here from England to be married, and had left behind her family and her friends and all her familiar life just for this marriage. And at first they seemed to have a happy life together: they bought a home, they had children, and everything seemed to be going just fine. But then, suddenly, he left her—and there she was, with children to raise and bills to pay and pieces of a life to pick up, and no visible support system to help her. She was devastated, she was heartbroken, she was afraid—and she called her mother back in England for some word of encouragement and advice. Her mother listened to the whole story, and then she said, “Before you do anything else, before you make any decisions, read all of Psalm 119, from beginning to end—and then call me tomorrow and we’ll talk.” So she did.

Now some of you may be familiar with Psalm 119. It is the longest psalm in the whole Book of Psalms. It begins, “Happy are they whose way is blameless, who walk in the way of the Lord! Happy are they who observe his decrees and seek him with all their hearts!”—and it goes on pretty much in that same vein for 176 verses. Well, my friend read all of Psalm 119, carefully, prayerfully, looking for inspiration and guidance. And the next day she called her mother back and said, “I did what you asked, I read the whole psalm; but it didn’t really seem to say much to me, it didn’t seem very relevant to my situation.” And her mother said, “Oh my dear, it has nothing to do with your situation. But I know that if you have the patience to read all of Psalm 119, then you have the patience to deal with anything.”

Now on one level my friend wanted to say to her mother, “That’s just plain silly! Having the patience to read a psalm and dealing with being abandoned by your husband are two entirely different things!” But on another level, my friend knew that her mother was right. Having the patience to read Psalm 119 before making any decisions, before doing anything else, was a sign of trust, it was a sign of faith, it was a sign that deep down she really did believe that God was with her and God wouldn’t let her down. God’s promise to her was Immanuel, God-with-her, even in her sorrow and fear, even in her hurt and confusion, God-with-her to transform her abandonment into courage and strength and a deeper knowledge of God’s love. And she knew that she could trust in that promise, even if her reasons for trusting seemed flimsy, even if her evidence for the promise seemed as insubstantial as the patience to read a single psalm.

And that is God’s promise to us, too. The promise of Advent, the promise that leads us to the birth of Christ, is the promise of Immanuel, God with us, to share the whole of our lives, and to lift up the whole of our lives in salvation and peace and grace and love. And we can trust in that promise, and we can act on that promise, for the last Sunday in Advent, and for the celebration of Christmas, and for all our times to come.

In the Name of God: Yahweh, Jesus, and Holy Spirit. Amen.