This week at our house the Christmas decorations have been going up. It’s funny how even the hanging of the decorations have their traditions and rituals about them.
Once every waterglobe is set out, once all the candles are lit, once every piece of evergreen garland is restretched from its long stay in the box for the past year, and once every ornament is hung on the tree,
then comes the traditional Christmas decorating refreshments and the traditional Christmas video to officialy kick off the Christmas season in the Garrison household.
This last bit of tradtion - the video - is a bit different from my own childhood. I grew up in the days before VCR’s, so we were forced to wait until the “How The Grinch Stole Christmas” and “A Charlie Brown Christmas” came on the television and my parents were then forced to see them one more time.
But my children have the priviledge of watching these whenever they wish - and the two I mentioned are among the chosen few we watch the evening the Christmas tree goes up.
I still see them every year at Christmas, and in fact we just have. They may not be as fresh in your memory as they are mine...
but do you remember how Charlie Brown searches for the true meaning of Christmas and how Linus tells him the Christmas story recorded in the second chapter of Luke?
In that region there were shepherds living in the fields, keeping watch over their flock by night. Then an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, and they were terrified.
But the angel said to them, "Do not be afraid; for see--I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you: you will find a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger." And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favors!" (Luke 2:8-14)
Then Linus turns to Charlie Brown and says, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
What is Christmas all about? Lets define it this way: Christmas is the divine action of the living and gracious God through the gift of Jesus Christ as our Savior, and the human response to accept this gift.
Have you ever stopped to wonder, how would the Christmas story be different if Mary or Joseph’s response been different tof God? In Mary we see the response of a woman to events I couldn’t possibly understand. I don’t imagine she could have either. The ramifications of being pregnant before marriage were great back then and SHE KNEW she had committment no questionable behavior. Yet she accepts the actions of God that are too grand and lofty for us human to understand, and she accepts them by all appearances so easily. She responds to a difficult situation as God’s servant. Amazing.
Tonight we have the story of Joseph. Joseph does not have the physical evidence and knowledge that Mary has concerning Mary’s premarital behavior. He only has the word of Mary and the visit of an angel in a dream.
Today we would be extremely skeptical of both.
I’m not too sure we can truly understand the severity of Joseph’ perdicament. Premarital sex and babies born to unwed mothers, even teenagers as Mary was, are so common anymore that we hardly blink when we learn of such a case. We just accepts such situations as common and normal occurances within our society.
Situations that make us stop and think have become much more complex, the definitive black and white lines difused in to shadows of gray.
Last Sunday, Advanced Cell Technology announced it had cloned a human embryo for the first time in America. Their purpose is not for cloning human beings, but to aide in stem cell research. They are searching for cures and treatment for diseases like Diabetes and Parkinson’s. They are interested in something called theraputic cloning, where a person’s own DNA could be used to grow new organs needed for transplant - like a heart or kidney - without the problems of rejection to donated organs and tissues.
Not only were they able to follow standard cloning techniques to develop human embryos to the sixth division level, but interestingly enough, they were able to cause an egg to begin division without any fertilization at all.
John Rennie, editor-in-chief of Scientific American magazine was quoted as saying, "You hesitate to describe it as a virgin birth, but it is sort of in that vein."
Abortion rights activists and moralists are in an uproar. Yet there are those who claim that what Advanced Cell Technology accomplished really isn’t anything at all, nor does it begin to meet the purpose suggested for their studies and experiements in the first place.
Rival scientists pointed out that the ACT team did not even get close to creating embryos large enough to take stem cells from. Only one of the eggs survived as long as the six-celled stage, and they all stopped growing after a few hours.
"Do you call this thing an embryo?" asked stem cell expert John Gearhart of Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. "I would have been more impressed if they’d got these things to blastocysts."
A blastocyst is a very early stage of pre-embryo, (PRE-embryo?)consisting of about 100 cells in a hollow ball. Stem cells cannot be harvested from a smaller group of cells.
But Michael West, chief executive officer for the company, said that had the embryo been placed in a woman’s womb, it could possibly have grown into a human being.
Yet he states:
"We took extreme measures to ensure that a cloned human could not result from this technology," Seeming to reverse tracks again, he then responds, "Scientifically, biologically, the entities we are creating are not an individual. They’re only cellular life. They’re not a human life."
Is it or isn’t it? The issue goes even farther.
In August, three researchers considered mavericks in the scientific community said they planned to clone people to help infertile couples, but experts told a meeting of the National Academy of Scientists the three lacked the needed skills.
***
In light of such discussion, its hard for us to understand the same level of controversy facing Joseph with the information Mary has given him. It sounds like just another scenario we could see on Jerry Springer. Believing that she is, indeed pregnant would not be so hard. Transgressions in faithfulness and integrity happens too often in our society.
But believe her story concerning her innocence, her story behind the conception. WE wouldn’t believe it...how difficult it must have been for Joseph to accept.
You know, Joseph is not a part of the biblical narrative of Jesus for very long. He basically disappears from the scene before any of Jesus’ adult ministry. We don’t have a lot of details about Joseph, but we can gather some very good insights into his character from our story this evening.
First, Matthew writes that Joseph is a righteous man. In other words, Joseph was one who took the law very seriously. Within that ancient Jewish culture, there would be no separation between the laws of the faith and the laws of the land. In today’s times, Joseph would not be one who would break the speed limit. It would say something about his character - who he is, and would then be saying something about his faithfulness to God.
Joseph loved doing what was right, following the law.
I believe Joseph also loved Mary. In Jewish culture, the marriage of Joseph and Mary would have been an arranged one, worked out by the parents of the bride and groom. Their engagement would have been official for a year before the wedding and actual marriage. During the time of the engagement, however, they are still bound legally to one another. That is what Mattew is making reference to when he speaks of Joseph breaking the engagement.
It would legally be a divorce and would be quite scandalous.
Joseph, by all that is right , all that is legal - and remember he loves the righteousness of the law - by all that is right, Joseph could have made the breaking of the relationship with Mary a very public and legal one.
But it wasn’t even what he was THINKING about doing. He was wondering if there was a way he couldn’t end this thing quietly, and I believe it is because he really loved Mary. Though his heart must have been broken by what he perceived as infidelity on Mary’s part, he didn’t wish to see her hurt anymore than her situation would already bring her pain.
Or, maybe, because the engaged couple often didn’t really know each other before they were married, maybe it was just the way Joseph was.
Joseph loved what was right, but he also loved what was just. Not only could Joseph make it a very public and disgracing affair, but he could, by right - by law - have Mary brought up on charges and killed for adultary. It was THAT serious. Yet again, he thought of bringing an end to the engagement quietly. Perhaps Joseph saw that no one, not himself, not Mary, not even God, would be served by the legal statutes in this case.
Though it would be legally right, it didn’t make it the right thing to do.
But then our story takes a supernatural turn. Joseph has a dream. In the dream God tells Joseph not to be afraid to proceed with his wedding to Mary, for the child she is carrying will save people from their sins.
What a dream. What an astronomic vision. What an incredible, unbelievable message for Joseph. This child Mary is carrying that is not his, that will cause some raised eyebrows and whispers from their family and neighbors... this baby will save people from their sins.
That anyone has the power in some way save people from their sins would be to much to comprehend but that this very child he would be taking responsibility for, would be growing up in his home, would be under his care and supervision...
I can even begin to imagine what must have been going through Joseph’s mind at such news. Today in our unbelieving, doubting society, we’d think we had too many enchiladas the night before. Very few would give the dream credibility.
Yet, Joseph loved God. I don’t believe he could begin to comprehend what these words from God would mean. I’m sure he could never fully understand the significance in the child Mary was carrying. Yet if nothing else, something within him must have realized God was served better by being wed to Mary than by ending the relationship.
Perhaps he felt he could serve God more faithfully by raising this child as his own, bringing this child up in the faith. Joseph would know he could offer this child the heritage of his faith, the love of God, if not true paternity. In his marriage to Mary, there is a small salvation that takes place whereby her status is changed from unwed adulteress to wife and mother, and where Jesus’ status is changed from illegitimate to first born son. Maybe Joseph would see that such action would result in better serving God, is more just, than doing what is righteous by legal, humanistic, earthly standards.
Our story seems to indicate that there was no hesitancy, no question of the vision on Joseph’s part. When he awakes, he does exactly as he was told in his dream. He weds Mary, and brings her home to be his wife. When the baby is born, Joseph names him Jesus, as instructed. Jesus, a version of the name Joshua, “God with us.”
Have you ever stop to wonder what it was about Mary and Joseph that made them the chosen earthly vessels for the mighty act of salvation given to us by God?
What was it about them that not made them the chosen parents of Jesus, but gave them the power, courage, strength to respond affirmatively? What particular character did they have that led them to accept such incredible news as coming from God to them in such an unusual, even controversial way?
What is it specifically about their faith that made them so strong, so close to God that they could accept such incredible news as a Godly event and act?
To tell you the truth, I’m not sure that there is a label, an identifiable quality or characteristic about them, a name to what it is about Mary and Joseph,
but I know I want to be like them.
From the moment Joseph woke up, it was the beginning of a journey Mary and Joseph began together, following God in a way they never had before. The result of their journey was salvation, not only for themselves but salvation for all the world.
They could have said no. Either one of them could have changed the Christmas story as we know it, but they didn’t.
Because of their faithfulness and the decisions they made, we have the gift of God’s Son, our Savior for our sins.
As we think about the Christmas story, as we wait for our Savior to be born among us again I wonder, what delicate situation is God asking us to deal with right now?
Before Christmas morning gets here, what difficult decision do we each face? What controversial decision do we need to make? What issue is God visiting us about?
We can all probably think of an issue:
a relationship issue
a moral one
a financial decision
a matter of generousity
maybe its the way we’ve been with our children,
maybe its the jokes we’ve been telling at work,
maybe its the language we’ve been using,
maybe its the commitments we need to make to walk closer with the Lord, to attend church more, read our Bible more regularly,
maybe its a call from God we’ve been ignoring, maybe we are being called into full time Christian service.
Whatever it is, just like Mary and Joseph, we can bet its something that impacts more lives than just our own.
As we move closer to Christmas, what will our answers be? How will we respond to the delicate situations facing us? What will our decisions of faith be?
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
