Jesus: Our Great Disruption and Our Only Hope

Advent 4

A Advent 4 – December 22, 2013

Text: Matthew 1:18-25

Our Redeemer Lutheran Church, Grand Prairie, Texas

+ INJ +

Grace and peace be with you, from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

So, last weekend, Steve and I went and got our Christmas tree. We had to look a couple of different places for just the right tree, but finally we found it and we shoved it into the back of his SUV and hauled the thing home. Once home, I went about the work of preparing the tree-receiving area and Steve went about the work of getting the tree stand on. We carried the tree in, plunked it into the corner, between two windows in the living room, straightened it up, and – bammo! – we were all set.

Except…now the furniture wasn’t right. The couches had to be moved up, the coffee table, too, and the side chair got relocated to another room. And – even worse – the tree is in the spot where our dog Max’s big, puffy dog bed usually resides, so we had to find a new spot for that, too.

Max has not been happy with his new spot. At first, he sort of glared at the tree and refused to use his relocated dog bed. He’s finally made some peace with the tree and is beginning to settle into his new spot. But Max is a creature of habit and he really doesn’t like things to be disrupted.

Does that sound familiar at all? Do you know anyone else who meets that description?

Well, I certainly know people like that, including myself. I like my plans, I love my calendar, I write lists of things, and generally like some organization to this kind of thing in my life. But life brings disruptions – some of them are really quite joyful, actually – like getting word of someone who’s just had a baby or a last minute visit from a friend who lives out of town.

But some disruptions are quite difficult to manage – or quite painful, even. And even as Christian people who are called to live in hope, disruptions have this way of entering in to our lives and messing everything up to a point where we can feel that we have lost hope.

Today’s gospel lesson is a story about disruption: the story of Mary’s pregnancy and the birth of Jesus from Matthew’s perspective. Matthew is the gospel writer who shares with us what Joseph’s experience of Jesus’ birth is.

Our text tells us that Joseph and Mary are “engaged” – except that’s tricky because they actually were more than engaged – they were betrothed. If we compare betrothal to our modern terms, it sort of falls in between engaged and married. Betrothed couples were legally bound to one another – remember that marriages back then were almost always arranged by the families – and so to break off a betrothal required an actual divorce (unlike breaking off an engagement today).

Whatever the case, Joseph and Mary have yet to live together as husband and wife when Mary becomes pregnant. Joseph obviously knows that he’s not the father and so their story of beginning their lives together as husband and wife takes a much different turn as Jesus becomes the Great Disruption in their plans.

Matthew shares with us that Joseph was considered a “righteous” man – meaning that if Mary had committed adultery (how else would she have gotten pregnant, after all), he had grounds to divorce her. In fact, he had grounds to have her killed – the punishment for adultery – but Matthew also shares that Joseph was “unwilling to expose her to public disgrace.” And so his solution to this disruption is to set her aside quietly, and for each of them to go on their separate ways.

And then God intervenes. Joseph has a dream – an amazing dream – a prophetic dream – in which an angel explains the situation to him: this child is not any child. This child is conceived by the Holy Spirit and his very name will describe his purpose. Call him “Jesus” – which is a variant of “Yahweh saves” – because he will save people from their sins. And then the angel alludes to Isaiah 7 – Joseph, as a righteous man, would’ve certainly known this Scripture – “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."

Imagine for a moment the roller coaster ride this was for Joseph. Hoping to be wed to Mary, he finds out she’s pregnant and decides to divorce her – hope is all but lost. Then he has this dream with this angel and this explanation and hope – which is so very relentless – begins to take root once again. Joseph takes the pregnant Mary as his wife, and the Great Disruption – Jesus - is born to save people from our sins. God with us, in the flesh.

The story of the Christ Child from the perspective of Joseph bids us to ask the questions: Where can we find holiness in disruption? Where can we find hope in disruption?

So, if our Christmas tree is somewhat of a disruption, where do I find holiness? (Can I?) I do, actually – in looking at the many ornaments we have – many of them gifts from people who have been quite dear. The holiness is found in those relationships – in the blessing from God that each of those people has been to me throughout my life.

But where does hope come in? Reminders of Jesus hang on our, too – Jesus, the great Hope of the world.

Three weeks ago, I preached that Advent is a season that lays hope continually before us. Advent has emerged a bit differently for us this year - between the ice storm and the stewardship program – but hope is most definitely here for us. I quoted Luther as saying, “Everything that is done is done by hope” – and so, today on this last Sunday in Advent, I invite you to think about where hope has appeared this month for you. What have you done by hope?

Your Christmas shopping and baking, your hard work in preparation for some time off, your financial commitments to Our Redeemer for 2014, your prayers for loved ones – and so many other things, all done with hope.

We pray: Jesus – our Great Disruption and our Only Hope – give us faith to trust in your love – love that lifts us, love that fills us, love that never lets us go. Amen.

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