A “Why’s” man
I wonder how many of you would hazard a guess as to which word I find the most troublesome in the English language? Despite its diminutive size it’s a word that has plagued me most of my life. It’s the word ‘why?’
Any of you who have ever been parents have, I’m sure, wished on more than one occasion that the word ‘why’ had never been invented. “Why must I go to bed now?” “Why can’t I have a pellet gun?” “Why must I wash my hands before dinner?”
Yet, paradoxically, for all it’s potential aggravation, it’s a word that I for one have never been able to do without. You see I have a questioning mind. I’m one of those people who wants to know the why of things. It’s not good enough for me that I can observe something happening – I want to know why, and how, it happens.
A lot of you would have been here last Sunday and listened to Father Mario. After I got home I spent a lot of time thinking about the challenge he gave us to be more open about our real thoughts and feelings, particularly when it comes to sharing these with God. All of us have worries, all of us have anxieties and all of us have doubts and we do ourselves, and God, a disservice when we hide them away behind blank eyes and a false smile. The more I thought about it, the more appropriate it became, in my mind, to challenge myself in this way at Christmas.
The cynic in me began to whisper, “How much of your joyous celebration at this time is an excuse for you to put your brain into neutral?” To stop asking the question ‘why?’ and just go with the flow.
Please don’t misunderstand me, I’m not for one moment suggesting that any of our jubilation at the birth of our Saviour is misplaced or insincere – but I do wonder whether the familiarity of the Christmas story, and the celebration that surrounds it, sometimes encourages us to become blasé.
Imagine if you had woken up this morning and the headlines blazed “Young mother claims she is a virgin!” Or maybe on the back pages, “Young man gets word from an alien!” There’s very little chance you would have accepted those statements at face value. And there are many things in the Christmas story that, were they to refer to any circumstances other than the birth of Christ, would immediately start to raise questions in our minds, well certainly in mine!
Take for starters the relationship between Joseph and Mary as we have it described. Firstly we are told that they are pledged to be married. Then we hear that Joseph is considering divorce – but as far as we know there hasn’t been a wedding yet. Then she’s called his wife and still there’ve been no wedding bells. What’s going on? Is Matthew confused? Not at all. In fact he is writing in the context of the Jewish marriage procedure of the times.
The first step in this process was an engagement and this was often concluded between the respective parents, sometimes while the couple were still children. Marriage was considered far too serious a matter to be left to the vagaries of feelings!
The second step was the betrothal, which was to all intents and purposes a contractual ratification of the engagement. Once entered into it was legally binding and the only way out was through divorce. This period of betrothal lasted a year and during this time the couple were referred to as man and wife although they did not enjoy the rights of marriage. It was only at the end of this year that the marriage proper took place. So now we understand that Mary and Joseph were officially betrothed and that is why the only way out for Joseph was divorce. And Mary would have been called his wife throughout this period even though it was before the wedding.
There are many other such questions in the Christmas story that naturally arise even without addressing the imponderables of divine conception and the virgin birth. And lest anyone wonders where I stand, let me nail my colours to the mast – I firmly believe in both.
But this morning I want us to explore a very small ‘why’ that occurs in this story. In verse 21 we hear the angel say to Joseph “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?” The very appearance of the word ‘because’ always begs in my mind a ‘why?’ Why does the name Jesus imply he will save his people from their sins? Why should a name carry so much import? So I thought we would look a little closer this morning at why the Messiah was called Jesus.
I’m sure we’ve all heard the phrase, “What’s in a name?” and often when we name our new born children we try to find a name which has some significance.
Unfortunately many names which seem quite ordinary and familiar nowadays have lost their deeper meaning with the passing of the centuries.
Some years ago Judi’s mom found some postcards in a small bookshop in Oxford. Each of them was headed with a name and then followed a definition of that name as it would have originally been understood. She bought one for each of our family including our three sons. It was uncanny how much each name reflected the character of the person. Let me read you Judi’s. “Judith is from the Hebrew meaning woman from Judea. A lady who has the ability to teach others. Has a great love of life. Always keeps calm. And the bit I like best! A one man woman! Lastly something I can testify to – a true sincere friend.” I think her mom and dad got it just right when they called her Judi.
At one level the name Judi denotes the woman I love but at another level its underlying meaning hints at who she is and what’s she’s like.
So let’s look at why Joseph was told to name the child Jesus? Today that name has a great deal of significance for us – today it carries connotations of deity and majesty. But this wouldn’t have been the case then. Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua which was very common in biblical times. At least 5 High Priests had been called by that same name and Josephus, the Jewish historian of the time, referred in his writings to some 20 people with the name Jesus. So here was Joseph, confronted by an angel who tells him that his betrothed wife is already pregnant by divine intervention and he is to call the baby the equivalent of ‘Bob!’
I’m not sure I would have had the faith in the same circumstances to follow such instructions!
But let me pose my first ‘why’. Why did God choose a name for his son that in all probability a whole bunch of other boys in his street would have shared? Precisely I believe to endorse the essential humanity of his son. In the first chapter of John we read those well known words – ‘In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.” Then later in the chapter we read “The Word became flesh and lived for a while among us.” A young man called by the name Jesus would, in those times have been considered to be approachable, touchable; someone who could live among us unobtrusively just like everyone else, until it was time to reveal himself.
And when that time came, God revealed himself just as his name had implied, as a real and approachable human being.
When Jesus stretched out his hand to heal, it was with a real human hand. When he spoke and the demons quaked it was with a real human tongue. The feet that Mary anointed and washed with perfume were real human feet, dirty and dusty. And his tears, shed at the news of the death of his friend Lazarus, were as salty as yours and mine. Jesus was human in every way, in name and in nature. As the writer to the Hebrews described, “we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathise with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way just as we are – yet is without sin.”
But, and here is the wonder of Christmas, just as we saw that Judi’s name has a meaning at one level but also carries a much deeper implication, so the name of Jesus, while it characterizes his ordinary humanity, also denotes a far greater significance. Although the name Jesus had passed into common usage, it had an original and deeper meaning which is “Jehovah is salvation.” Or as the psalmist said it in another way, “He, that is God, he himself will redeem Israel from all their sins.”
One of the dangers of this season of unfettered joy and celebration, when we centre our thoughts on the babe in the manger, is that we lose sight of the awesome and holy God of creation - the God of whom Habbakkuk the prophet said, “Your eyes are too pure to look on evil; you cannot tolerate wrong.” In our natural state of sin we are in need of redemption and salvation, if we are to enjoy an eternal relationship with God. And Jesus by his name and through his sacrificial crucifixion provides that way of salvation. It is only through his name that we can approach our holy and righteous God with confidence.
But none of this would have been known to Joseph on that first Christmas. Rather he was a young man whose well-ordered life had suddenly been thrown into complete confusion. The girl he loved and intended to marry was pregnant and he was expected to believe that the baby she was carrying was the Son of God. And someone purporting to be an angel had appeared to him in a dream and strongly suggested that he give the baby a really ordinary name.
But, thank goodness it was Joseph and not me, for not once do we hear even the hint of a ‘why’ cross his lips. Instead we read that he woke up and did what the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. She gave birth to a son, and Joseph, maybe to the surprise of family and friends, did indeed give him the somewhat boring and commonplace name, Jesus.
But it was a name that was to prove to be far from commonplace, far from ordinary – because it was a name that had been chosen by God before the beginning of time. It was a name that would echo down through the centuries; a name that would draw men to him; a name that would offer redemption and salvation and a name that one day will cause every knee to bow and every tongue to confess that he is Lord to the glory of God.
So let us remember this Christmas not just the wonderful birth of our Saviour Jesus but also the faith and trust of Joseph, who never asked “why?” and agreed to a name that one day would mean eternal life to all who believe on it.
Amen.
