Christmas It’s About Accepting Things We Don’t Like
12/20/ 2020 Matthew 1:18-25 Colossians 3:12-17
2020 has been quite a year for us. How many of you have had to accept some things that you did not like, that were forced upon you this year? Some of us did not like the quarantines, the masks, the social distancing, and the way we had to attend work or school because of Covid-19.
Some of us did not like the cancellation of our proms, our games, our parties and our family gatherings. Some of us did not fully enjoy being limited to our house with our family members.
Well guess what. Covid-19 has actually been preparing you for today’s message on Christmas. When we think of Christmas all kinds of memories and fantasies come to mind. We think of family time together, visiting relatives, eating lots of food, getting and giving presents, Christmas carols, decorations and having a wonderful time.
Yet when we go back into time in the first century, we find a very different atmosphere was present. Some people were inconvenienced, angry and upset, that they had to leave family members to go register in the towns in which they had been born. Caesar Augustus issued a decree that a census should be taken of the entire Roman World and everyone had to go back to the town in which they had been born.
Some were hungry, because there were no fast food places along the way. Travel was difficult. There were not a lot of hotels and motels on the route, and Siri and Mapquest had not been invented yet. Imagine walking 20 miles and ending up in the wrong little town because at the fork in the road you went right instead of left. Caesar’s decree had been forced upon them, and they had little choice but to accept it.
We sometimes have this false view of God which probably comes out of Santa Claus. We think Christmas is simply about making us happy with a wonderful gift.
But if we look into the Scriptures, we find that God is not always interested in making us happy or causing us to feel as though we are super blessed. God is interested in changing us so that we can be used by God.
One of the greatest gifts that you can give this Christmas to someone who gets on your nerves at times is the gift of acceptance. It can be liberating for you and a blessing to the other person. You see God is not always going to change another person to make them more to our liking. Disappointments are going to be a part of our relationships to one another. There are no perfect families, marriages, homes or relationships.
God had sent the angel Gabriel to Mary, a young virgin who was engaged to be married, and told her that she would give birth to a son who would be the Savior of the world.
Mary explained to the angel, he had the wrong girl, because she had never had sex, and therefore couldn’t be pregnant. The angel told her, the Holy Spirit would come upon her, and she would become pregnant through a move of the Spirit.
Mary was delighted to be used by God, and she told the angel, “Let it be done according to your word. I am all in as your servant.” Everything is great for Mary, until she has to try to explain this to Joseph.
This good news of being pregnant by the Holy Spirit was anything but good news to Joseph. Didn’t this angel know where he lived? If she was telling the truth, why didn’t God say something to him? This all sounded mighty convenient, since she had been gone for the last three months anyways.
Women, how would you feel being accused by the person you love and expect to marry, of having had sex with another man? This person that you thought you knew, you now seem not to have known him well at all.
How could he think so little of your honor and your relationship to God to even have those kinds of thoughts about you? Where was the trust in your relationship. This isn’t the kind of thing where a person says “I’m sorry” and you move one.
Men, how would you feel probably having heard a rumor that your finance, Mary, might be pregnant. We know how fast gossip travels. Three months earlier, Elizabeth had talked about a special son Mary was going to bear. That news may have reached Joseph before Mary did. Why was she there for 3 months?
What would be your reaction if your fiancé told you, she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit? Especially when you have been living apart since the start of your engagement period to make sure she was not pregnant. You knew the two of you had not come close to having sex.
Can you imagine how heated their argument must have been over Jesus, God’s, gift to the world. I can imagine Mary thinking, “I don’t need you in my life anyways. I don’t want a man who thinks of me as some kind of a prostitute
I can imagine Joseph thinking, “What kind of a fool do you think I am? Why would you make up such a story. I couldn’t trust you to be alone for 3 months, and you think I want to trust you for life. If you’re lying about this child, what other lies are you going to tell in the future. I can’t believe, you’re the one who did the wrong, and now you’re trying to blame me for being upset.
They both went away angry and confused that day. They both had decisions to make. Mary had to decide if she thought there was any hope for this relationship. If she had not felt Jesus inside of her, she might have thought she was losing her mind.
It seemed as though only Elizabeth believed her story of this miraculous conception of the Son of God. Even if Joseph changed his mind to go through with the wedding, she didn’t know if she would be willing to accept a man who had hurt her so deeply. The Scriptures do not tell us what the next step she took was, but it does give us more insight into Joseph.
We find that Joseph was a man who was trying to live his life in obedience to God. He was very angry and upset over what Mary had done to him. She not only betrayed him, but was going to destroy his reputation in the community as soon as this thing got out.
His name was going to be attached to this child, and he didn’t even know who the father was. Nobody was going to buy into this child as being the “Savior of The World” no matter what Mary said. People would think both he and Mary fools, for trying to pull a fast one to cover what they assumed was their sinful actions.
Joseph could have made an attempt to save his reputation, but it would bring shame and disgrace on Mary for certain. Their engagement was much more binding than what we consider an engagement. They were at the stage in which you had to go through actual divorce proceedings.
Joseph wrestled with how do you make the most of this terrible situation. Joseph thought his only option was to get a divorce. But he chose to do a private divorce in order to spare Mary some humiliation.
But the catch was since he was not publicly stating the reason for the divorce, he would be financially responsible for this child that Mary was carrying inside of her womb.
Wow, Jesus has not even arrived fully in the world, and he’s causing trouble for people. We like to think that Christmas revolves around peace on earth and goodwill to all, but when you really look at those involved in that first Christmas you see a lot of pain, frustration and anger.
We can easily understand why Mary does not want to accept Joseph, and why Joseph does not want to accept Mary. They both are looking at things totally from their own viewpoint.
I want you to think about someone in your life who is hard for you to accept because of something they have done, something they do, or something they might have said. It may be, because they have a different opinion that you do on a certain issue. Or they were raised with a different set of values. Or they see the world through a different set of lenses.
Think for a moment about the kinds of things we let irritate us about other people. They sing too much. They sing too loudly. They don’t clean up after themselves. They always arrive early. They always arrive late.
They are too loud. They don’t talk enough. They spend too much time on electronic gadgets. They don’t approve of the choices we make. They won’t spend enough on Christrmas. They spend way too much at Christmas
We don’t approve of the choices they make. They think they know everything. They smack their lips chewing gum. Their hairstyle gets on my nerves. They’re just too bossy. They won’t fill up the ice trays. They won’t put down the toilet seat. They always get the front seat in the car.
What if Jesus said, “For this Christmas, I just want you to accept this person as one for whom I died. It doesn’t mean you have to agree with them, or approve of what they do, but accept them as they are, realizing they might not ever change. Would you do that for me?” How many of us are thinking to ourselves, Jesus would never do that to me?
The world tells us, “If you don’t agree with my position, then you are wrong and you are a hater.” The word of God tells us, that we can love those with whom we disagree, but we don’t have to approve of the way they live. Jesus loved the woman caught in adultery, but he never said adultery was a legitimate activity in the eyes of God.
Jesus loved the prostitute who poured perfume on his feet, but he never said prostitution was a good thing. Jesus loved Peter who had a problem with anger and prejudice. Yet Jesus never said anger and prejudice were good things to have in our lives. Our acceptance of a person does not mean we are accepting all their behaviors.
Jesus shows us that we can love those with whom we disagree, and that we are called to do it. Remember this, your way of seeing a situation is not the only way it can be seen.
I know we think we know why another person keeps on doing something that irritates us, but we really don’t. Sometimes the behavior has nothing to do with us. Sometimes the other person isn’t even thinking about us. Are we willing to ask God to give us the grace to let go of our own prejudices and love and accept this person?
If you didn’t know the story of Christmas and how things turn out, what advice would you have given Mary concerning Joseph? What advice would you have given Joseph concerning Mary?
The reality is, we do not always know what God is doing in a given situation. We don’t always know when God is telling us to just accept something as a reality, and trust Him to give us the grace to deal with it. We don’t have to keep drawing lines in the sand and telling people, unless you cross this line to my side, I will not accept you as you are. Acceptance does not mean approval. It means I am still willing to love you.
Mary wanted Joseph to take everything that he knew about God and about biology and choose to throw it overboard and believe her. Joseph wanted Mary to deny that she had had a real encounter with an angel and admit that she had fallen into sin and betrayed him. Neither of them realized they were asking way too much of the other person.
Sometimes we are asking for more than we think when we decide to not love and accept another person until they meet our requirements. What requirement did God ask of you before choosing to accept you and to love you? I think is while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us. The reality is that God didn’t draw a line in the sand. How many of us are grateful for that?
The fate of the world was hanging in the balance of Mary and Joseph coming to the point of accepting each other. We do not know what hangs in the balance of our choices to choose to accept someone with their behaviors or our choice to refuse to accept them as they are.
What will it cost us in the future? A divorce. Someone not speaking for years. Never getting to know our grandchildren. The loss of our church family. Dying with bitterness and loneliness.
It would be great if the person wasn’t addicted to alcohol or drugs. It would be great if they were more responsible financially. It sure would help if they would speak to us with softness and kindness in their voice.
But sometimes we have to wait a little longer on God to finish doing what He’s trying to do in us. Sometimes we want others to see our side of the story, but we really don’t want to see their side without writing in an exception for us.
God finally intervenes after both Mary and Joseph are at the end of the rope. We don’t know if Mary got word that Joseph was considering starting divorce proceedings or not.
God sent an angel to Joseph in a dream and said to him, “Look Joseph, don’t be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 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.”
Now how many of us would have said, “Lord if this is really you talking to me, let me have the dream one more time?” We can always find a reason to ignore what the Lord is saying. Joseph knew the word of God.
He remembered that verse of prophecy from hundreds of years earlier that said, “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and will call him Immanuel. (Immanuel means God with us.)
The gospel writer Matthew tells us, that when Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. Joseph went to bed thinking he didn’t want a thing to do with Mary or her child.
He woke up transformed by the power of the Holy Spirit and was willing to do whatever was necessary to further the plans and purposes of God. You may be one day, one dream away from a major change in your situation.
It wasn’t easy going over to Mary’s father and apologizing for calling his daughter a liar and a loose woman. It wasn’t easy humbling himself before Mary to ask her forgiveness. Why should she believe an angel spoke to him in a dream when he didn’t believe an angel spoke to her in person. Following Jesus Christ always crucifies our pride again and again.
Mary had to humble herself as well. She had to admit, Joseph had a legitimate reason to feel as he had felt. She had to apologize for thinking his faith was far less sincere than it really was. You see when she told the angel, “be it done to me as you have said”, she wasn’t thinking about what this was going to do to Joseph. She just wanted to be used by God.
Now if you have two people who are trying to be faithful to God, having to accept something they didn’t like on the first Christmas, why are you surprised at your predicament.
The one who really had to accept something they didn’t like the first Christmas was God. God made the choice of accepting people who wanted nothing to do with him. All of us at some point have said no to God, “just let me live my life as I want to live it.”
Only God could see that for God to leave us alone as we desired that would mean, each and everyone of us spending eternity in hell for the payment of our rebellion against God.
God also knew that if he did not send us a Savior, not a single one of us would have any hope of salvation. For the price of our sin is death, which involves eternal separation from God.
Jesus Christ did not pay for our sins lying in a manger. He paid for our sins dying on a cross. He accepted us even before we were willing to accept Him, even though we were the one in need.
Christmas involves accepting things about ourselves that we might not like. The first is that we will never be good enough to go before God on our own. We are professional broken down sinners. We need a savior who is outside of ourselves to present our case for mercy to God. It’s not just other people. We too have a problem.
Second we need to accept that when Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me” Jesus knew what he was talking about. He didn’t come to be one of many saviors of the world, He came as the Savior of the world.
Third we need to accept the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ as proof that we too shall one day rise from the dead.
Finally we need to put our trust and confidence in the work of Jesus Christ in order for us to be saved.
