1. Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our
Heavenly Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The message from God’s Word this evening is
taken from Matt. 1:18-25 and is entitled, “We
Still Need Him, Our Immanuel, Our Jesus.”
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2. I’ve been so busy these last several days that I
actually caught myself thinking, “Why did
our Lord have to be born at Christmas? It’s already such a busy time!” Such
thoughts are ridiculous, but they contain a serious point. Our lives have
become just as “overbooked” as our schedules. And in our hearts, just like our
calendars, everything can become turned around. The unimportant things rob us
of the time we need to spend on what really is important. Even our celebration
of Christmas can become one more thing on our “to-do” list.
3.
Tonight,
you hear proclaimed to you once again the good news of the birth of your Savior.
What I hope to do tonight is help you truly to hear the good news, to hear it
in a way that will change your lives, to let it fill your hearts and your homes
with the joy, peace, hope, and the love that it brings. How can that happen? Amidst
all this busyness, what will ready
us to hear, truly ready our hearts and homes for Christmas?
4. Tonight’s text comes early in Matthew’s Gospel,
but it’s not the very beginning of what Matthew wrote. Before he tells the
story of what happened right before and after Jesus’ birth, he reminds us that
we’re already in the middle of a story. Jesus comes in the middle of a story
that stretches all the way back to David, to Abraham, and even beyond that.
Matthew wants his readers to have this whole story in mind before they hear what he
has to say about the coming of Jesus. So, if you and I are going to be truly
ready to hear some “Christmas good news”
this year, we need to take a few moments and recall our human history and our
troubled relationship with God. Remember, our story goes back to Adam and Eve
in the Garden of Eden. You remember how beautifully that story began . . . but
you also recall how tragically it turned. Adam and Eve were turned out of the
garden and into a world they’d filled with sin.
5. But there’s a much more personal history we need
to recall. V 18 begins our text by introducing a pair of human characters just
as important to our story as Adam and Eve are. “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother
Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, . . . ” Scholars remind us that
betrothal was almost more important legally than the wedding itself. The
promises exchanged at the time of betrothal were just as binding as the wedding
vows. Although the word used here does mean “engaged,” it also suggests the
ideas of courtship. This isn’t primarily the record of what almost became the
most tragic divorce case in history. This is a love story! It’s a story about
the love between Joseph and Mary, and it is a story about the love between God
and man.
6. Advent and Christmas can serve as a time when God
“woos and wins” our hearts. God knows the weakness of our hearts. Like our
first parents, we’re ready to suspect him of unfaithfulness without any reason
at all. God is acting too slowly or moving too fast. God isn’t good enough to
me, or he’s too good to my neighbor. God isn’t listening to my prayers. But,
God takes the time to win our hearts back to himself, reminding us of his past
faithfulness and filling us with hope for a future. If the story of his coming
to us is to be a story of salvation, it must also be a love story.
7. The world of Joseph and Mary was no dream world
where everyone lived happily ever after. Mary, the girl Joseph loves, is
promised to him but not yet married to him. And now Joseph learns that she is
pregnant. She may have tried to convince Joseph that this pregnancy was a gift
from God, but Joseph couldn’t see it that way. What could have prepared him for
the events that were happening to him? See the anguish in Joseph’s heart! He
knows he has a right to divorce Mary. The decision is made. He will divorce her
quietly, not exposing her to public shame. But, see the anguish of Joseph’s
love. He has resolved on what to do, but he goes to bed still considering!
8. Joseph is the first person we meet in Matthew’s
Gospel who is called “righteous.” He’s the first person to be called righteous
in the whole New Testament. Joseph teaches us that righteousness will do what’s
right. Righteousness is all about relationships being what they should be, with
no pretending. Righteousness won’t be satisfied until a relationship is nothing
but love, truth, and honesty. There’s no battle here between righteousness and
love. The struggle that troubles Joseph is the knowledge that it can’t be
righteousness if it’s not also love.
9. That’s why it’s so great that in Matthew 1:20 we
read, “But as [Joseph] considered these
things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying,
‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is
conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’ ” It had been a long time
since a son of David had ruled as king in Jerusalem. Still, the angel was
asking a lot of this carpenter. All of his dreams had to be put “on hold” so
that God could fulfill his plan. Mary would now need his care. And a baby! Joseph’s
Mary was a pregnant mother before she was a bride. But, Joseph doesn’t complain
fear, or question these things. The only response we ever see in Joseph is his
humble obedience to the Word of God. We needed a Savior whose love story of
coming would teach us humility, obedience, and patience.
10. Joseph and Mary both know that the child she’s
carrying isn’t Joseph’s. But, Joseph is given the father’s task of naming the
child, without the privilege of choosing the name. The angel tells him, “She [Mary] will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his
people from their sins” (v 21). And then Matthew the evangelist himself adds,
“All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
‘Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name
Immanuel’ (which means, God with us)” (vv 22–23).
11. People are often puzzled by this passage, which
seems to give the child two names. It’s important that they be kept together.
Jesus is the name given to this child by God. This child truly will be what his
name claims: a Savior, for he will save
his people from their sins. It’s the very heart of the good news. Remember
what will happen to this Jesus as he grows up and begins to carry out the work
that his Father has given him to do. He
will die on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. The only way we can understand how it is that
this man Jesus is true God and that he’s come to save us from our sins is by
remembering that this man is also called by that other name, Immanuel. He is
God with us. God comes to save us from our sins by first becoming one of us and
taking our sins upon himself. God’s loving righteousness will set all things
right in a way that is both perfect righteousness and perfect love. He won’t
destroy his creation and start all over again. Neither will he allow us to
perish in our sin. He will come to be with us. He will become man. And he comes
as our Immanuel.
12. But, it’s not enough for us simply to know this
child as Immanuel. Will this Immanuel come to punish those who’ve turned away
from him? If that’s true, then Immanuel—God with us—is the last thing we’d want.
For us, it can mean nothing but judgment for our sin. That’s why we must know that this Immanuel is
also Jesus. This is “God with us to save us.” These
are the “wonders of his love” that we
sing about at Christmas. God doesn’t come now in judgment with all his avenging
angels. No, he comes to be with us to save us, and he comes in a way that
doesn’t terrify us but comforts. He, the Father’s Firstborn, allows sinful man
to nail him to a cross and dies in our place. So, the angels of heaven appear
not with swords but “in their choir robes,” filling heaven and earth with the
sound of rejoicing.
13.
This
Christmas, not only are family and friends gathering to celebrate the birth of
our Immanuel, but we’re also gathering as God’s people to celebrate what he’s
done for us. I’m sure there are still many things we would like to enjoy and
also get accomplished this Christmas. But what’s most important? What absolutely
must happen to ready not only our homes but also our hearts for Christmas? May Joseph and Mary and the angel and John
the apostle help us answer that question. May they teach us again to hear the
good news as our Christmas love story, the story of God’s love for us, and may
they ready our hearts to receive our Immanuel, our Jesus, as he comes to us
once again this Christmas. Amen.
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