Community Church Sermons

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A – December 23, 2001

"Dreams of Love!”

Matthew 1:18-25

 

Well, we are getting very close now. Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. All the Advent decorations are in order. All the Christmas characters are poised to make their way to the stable. Do you see them there? The wise men from the East – it will take them another couple of weeks to get there. The shepherds out in the fields keeping watch over their flocks by night. They’ll make it to the manger on Christmas Day, and be the first to welcome the Holy Child. Mary is there – exhausted from her long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, and already experiencing contractions, I would guess. And, of course, there’s Joseph. Good old reliable, responsible Joseph.

 

We don’t talk much about Joseph, you know. Probably because his story in the Bible is only about as long as these few verses in Matthew and Luke. Then Joseph disappears from sight, and nobody knows what happened to him except that early traditions indicate he may have died at an early age.

 

And yet, despite the lack of information we have about Joseph, we can learn great things because, in his story, God is revealed in a beautiful way.

 

You know, people often ask me if I believe in the Virgin Birth. After all, this is the twenty-first century, and we pretty much have figured out the biological mechanics of how babies are conceived and born. During the course of my ministry, I’ve known one or two teenaged kids who found themselves unexpectedly pregnant. And I daresay they were wholly unsuccessful in their attempts to pass the pregnancy off as a miracle from God! Their parents and friends didn’t buy that one at all!

 

A goodly number of reputable Bible scholars tell us that the Virgin Birth story may have been developed in the early church as a means of proving the Divinity of Jesus. This, they say, was necessary in a world where even Roman emperors were said to be virgin born in order to lend credence to their claim to be gods. And there are plenty of theologians who will point out that it doesn’t take a Virgin Birth to truly make Jesus the Son of God and the Savior of the world.

 

So people ask me if I believe in the Virgin Birth. And I – very modern, technologically advanced, twenty-first century person that I am, answer… “I DO!” I truly do.

 

It’s not that I disagree with what science tells us. I mean, biology is biology. Neither do I argue with historians who rightly point out how things were with claims of deity in the ancient world. And I even agree with those theologians who point to the baptism of Jesus and not his birth as the evidence of his role as Messiah. No, I accept all those points.

 

But one of several things that leads me to take a deeper look at the story of the Virgin Birth – this wonderful account about Joseph and Mary struggling with the reality of an unexplainable pregnancy - is the fact that the story was told! The fact that it was written! The fact that the early Christian Church accepted and revered the story.

 

There are other stories, you know, of the birth of Jesus.

 

For instance, there is a little known book called “The First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ.” Its authorship is attributed to Caiaphus, the high priest during the time of Jesus’ life. In this ancient book, the Christmas story is given a little pizzazz when baby Jesus, nuzzling at his mother’s breast, suddenly looks up at her and says, ““Mary, I am Jesus the Son of God, that word which you brought forth according to the declaration of the angel Gabriel to you, and my Father has sent me for the salvation of the world.” Quite a mouthful for a newborn baby!

 

Those of you who attended our evening of Dialogue with members of the Knoxville Islamic Society may remember that one of the speakers read a passage from the Koran about the birth of Jesus. He rightly pointed out that it is a passage not found in the Bible, and in fact, it is probably based upon this little known Gospel I just mentioned. In the Koran’s version of the story, Jesus looks at his mother and says, “Mary I am the servant of Allah. He has given me the Gospel and ordained me a prophet…” And little baby Jesus goes on to say things that prove Islam’s claim that Jesus is special as a prophet, but not as the divine Son of God.

 

Oh, there are lots of ancient stories about the birth and life of Jesus.

 

Going back to the “First Gospel of the Infancy of Jesus Christ,” an old Hebrew midwife is found to help Mary deliver her baby, and upon touching the child, the old woman is made whole. And eight days later, when it comes time to circumcise the child, Jesus is circumcised there in the cave, and the old Hebrew midwife takes the foreskin, and preserves it in an alabaster jar containing spikenard. And she gives this jar of – well, pickled foreskin you might say - to her son who is a druggist for safekeeping. And some years later, a sinful woman procures this jar. Her name turns out to be Mary. And one night, this sinful woman Mary invades a dinner party where she breaks open the alabaster jar and pours out the perfumed preservative on the feet of a man named…Jesus…just before his death, and then wipes his feet with her long flowing hair.

 

Fascinating stories most of us have never heard before, interwoven with the Biblical accounts of Jesus’ life. And there are many of them from that period of time. But interestingly enough, none of them ever made it into the Bible. And I think we ought to ask, “Why?”

 

I believe it was because the early Christian community found it extremely important to filter out spurious stories whose only purpose was obviously to try to prove the Divinity of Jesus. The early Christians found it crucial to preserve the truth, and some well-meaning folks just tried too hard to make Jesus God. Stories about speaking to his mother moments after birth. About killing neighborhood children who irritated him during his childhood – and then raising them from the dead when their parents objected. About forming clay pigeons from a mud puddle, and making them fly away. They wanted so much to prove Jesus’ divinity that they stretched the truth. Imagine that? There was political “spin control” going on way back then! But the Christian community seems to have worked very hard at trying to weed it out!

 

All these impressive, miraculous, spectacular stories! And yet none of them found their way into the accepted canon of the New Testament. Except one.

 

The story of the Virgin Birth. A young woman is found to be pregnant with a child conceived by the Holy Spirit. Her fiancé, Joseph, doesn’t believe that story for a second. And the account of Joseph’s struggle over this unfathomable experience is, in my mind, part of what makes this story so beautiful, so true, and so important.

 

When we meet Joseph, it is in the middle of the night. He is in bed, tossing and turning.

 

Mary is pregnant. The baby is not his. What is he to do?

 

Now the Bible tells us that Joseph is a righteous man. That means he is a man who wants to do the right thing. Great! But how do you know the right thing to do when life gets so confusing? You realize as well as I do that life isn’t always so clear. Sometimes its not all blacks and whites, but lots of shades of gray. So when you face an important decision, or a moral dilemma, or a crucial choice, how do you figure out the right thing to do?

 

Fred Craddock says there are two options available to Joseph. First, he can get the opinion of people in town. Somerset Maugham once said that the most fundamental and strongest disposition of the human spirit in civilized society is to get the approval of the people around you. Do an overnight tracking poll and find out what others think. Put it out to your golfing buddies. “What do you think I ought to do?” Talk it over with the folks at work. “How do you think I should handle it?” Get on the phone. Write some letters. Dial up the Psychic Hotline. Call up Dr. Laura and ask her the question: “My fiancée Mary betrayed me. She’s pregnant with another man’s baby. What do you think I ought to do?”

 

You see, Joseph has the option of telling everybody how wronged he has been, how he is the victim of Mary’s betrayal. He can go and talk about it to everyone who will listen. He can spread news of her sin everywhere.

 

But do you see the beauty of Joseph? He won’t do it. Joseph won’t do it. Matthew tells us that Joseph will not disgrace Mary. He will not expose her. He will not humiliate her. He will not take option one.

 

So what is Joseph to do?

 

Maybe he can get some religious advice on this dilemma. And over there are some friends, just coming home from church. And so Joseph runs over and tells them the problem. “What do you think I should do?”

 

“Just do what the Bible says,” they all chime in together. “You won’t go wrong if you do what the Bible says!” And that’s option two.

 

What do you think about that for an answer? Many of us have heard that all our lives. Just do what the Bible says. But there’s a problem with that. Here’s what the Bible says to do in exactly this kind of circumstance. Its in Deuteronomy 22. Listen:: “She is to be taken out and stoned to death in front of the people.”

 

That’s what the Bible says to do.

 

I don’t know about you, but I get a little worried about people who are always thumping the Bible as though you can just open it up and find a passage that clears everything up. You know, you can quote the Bible before killing a person to justify the killing. “An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth.” It’s in the Book. “If a man finds something displeasing about his wife, let him give her a divorce and send her out of the house.” It’s in the Book. “Let the women keep their heads covered and their mouths shut.” It’s in the Book too, you know. Is it any wonder then that people can take the Bible, or the Koran, or any other collection of scripture and come to the conclusion that they must blow up an airliner filled with innocent people as an extension of the judgment of God? After all, its in the Book!

 

But Joseph does not take this option either. In fact, he rises to a point that is absolutely remarkable for his day and time. You see, he loves his Bible. He knows his Bible. But he reads his Bible through a certain kind of lens – the lens of the character and nature of God who is loving and kind. And so Joseph arrives at a magnificent decision based upon his own understanding of the Bible as seen through the love of God. He decides, “I will not harm her. I will not abuse her. I will not expose her. I will not shame her. I will not ridicule her. I will not demean her value, her dignity, or her worth as a person. I will protect her.”

 

Now where does it say THAT in the Bible????

 

Well, it says it in the very nature and character of God.

 

Fred Craddock again comments on this passage that Joseph is probably the first person in the New Testament who learned how to read the Bible. And like Joseph, you and I are to read the Bible through the spectacles of the grace and goodness and love of God. Craddock writes:

 

“If in reading the Bible you find justification for abusing, humiliating, disgracing, harming, or hurting, especially when it makes you feel better about yourself, you are absolutely wrong. The Bible is to be read in the light of the character of God.”

 

So what is Joseph to do about Mary?

 

I think one of the truly beautiful parts of the story is that Joseph, having rejected the option of making a decision based on popular opinion, and having refused the option of reading the Bible irresponsibly, is finally left with only one thing to do.

 

He goes to sleep and dreams. He lets himself dream about the right thing to do. He lets himself dream about what will be best for Mary.

 

Joseph dreams dreams of love! Of grace!

 

Many of us come to this Christmas season not with the question of “What should I do about Mary?” but rather “What should I do about Tom…or Sue…or Bill…or mom…or grandpa…?” “What should I do about my enemies…those who are homeless…those who are hungry…those whose lifestyles I disagree with?” ”What should WE do as a Christian church about our neighbors, and those who think differently than we do?”

 

Sometimes, we spend every waking moment thinking about how we can exact revenge. Sometimes, we expend all our energy on devising ways to get others under our own control. Sometimes, we exhaust ourselves trying to figure out how to prove others wrong and ourselves right. Sometimes, we toss and turn all night long, agonizing over how to get our way.

 

But Joseph took another tact. He dreamed dreams of grace - about doing what was truly right. He dreamed about what was in the best interest of the other. He exhausted himself trying to imagine what a kind and gracious and loving God would do.

 

And the Bible tells us that, as Joseph dreamed these dreams of love, something miraculous happened! An angel came, and revealed the way. And it was completely different than either the opinions of the world or the superficial requirement of scripture.

 

The angel told Joseph to marry the girl! So Joseph took Mary as his wife. And Christmas came!

 

Seems to me that many of us are looking for Christmas to come into our homes and families, our relationships, our church, and our world. And it all starts, I believe, when we are willing to expend our energy dreaming new dreams about others.

 

Dreams of love – about our spouses, our families, our neighbors, our world, and even our enemies. What is the right thing for me to do in God’s eyes? What is the best thing to do for the sake of the other? What would God do in the situation I’m facing today?

 

When you dare to dream dreams of grace, miracles happen! Angels sing a new song…and Christmas is never far away!