Matthew 1:17-25
Celebrating the Incarnation
Woodlawn Baptist Church
December 10, 2006
Introduction
Show the video, “Mary Did You Know?” by Mark Lowry.
What a moving song about the great child born in Bethlehem to the virgin Mary! Did she know? We know that she didn’t know. She knew He was destined for greatness, but she had no idea at his birth that His greatness would ultimately put Him on a cross to pay for her sins. In fact, Scripture seems to indicate that none of His family understood it, and most of them didn’t even accept Him to be the Savior until after the resurrection.
From our view 2,000 years after the fact we like to think that we would have believed; that we would have understood. We like to think that had we been around in that day we would have recognized Jesus as the Son of God: as the Lamb of God, but I’m not so sure we would have. One writer asked the question this way:
What have you heard and seen this Christmas? Oh, you say, had I been there at Bethlehem that night I would have seen. I would have understood. I would have known it was the Christ child. Would you? There is one way of knowing: Ask yourself what you have seen and heard this Christmas Season.
· When you watched the news last night did you see chaos and strife, or did you see sheep without a shepherd?
· When you went out to do your shopping did you see only hordes of people in the stores, or did you notice the worried expressions on some of their faces—worried because they are facing this Christmas without employment or enough money and they don’t know how they are going to make ends meet?
It really is a question to ponder, not whether any of us would have recognized Jesus in His day. Do we recognize the Incarnation today? Do we understand how marvelous God was and is because of what He did in sending Christ to earth? All the other great religions of the world insist that you aspire to be like their gods through your righteousness, but the Bible insists that God became like us so we could obtain His righteousness!
That’s what Christmas is about. The world says that Christmas is good when there are plenty of presents under the tree. It says that Christmas is great when we have lots of family and good health and a turkey on the table. But I want to tell you that none of that is necessary for you to celebrate Christmas. In fact, you may be going through difficult times right now. You may be struggling to make ends meet in addition to the pressure of buying gifts. You may be hurting over having to spend Christmas without some loved one.
Christmas can be a dark time for some, but even in our darkest hours, perhaps especially in our darkest hours we have great reason to celebrate the incarnation of Christ. I hope to demonstrate that to you today and remind us all of some reasons to celebrate it this Christmas. There are three assertions about the Incarnation found in this passage I want you to consider.
Read Matthew 1:18-25.
The Incarnation Was A Planned Event
Matthew 1:18 says,
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit.”
I like Luke’s rendering of what happened. Luke 1:26-38 tell us that an angel of God visited Mary and told her that the Lord was with her and she was blessed among women. The appearance and announcement of the angel scared Mary, so the angel reassured her that she had found favor with God, then he said to her, “And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus.” He went on to tell her about Jesus, but she asked the natural question,
“How can this be, since I do not know a man? And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.”
When Mary was found to be pregnant everyone was surprised. Mary was surprised. She had never had sex with any man. Joseph was surprised. His fiancée was pregnant! Mary’s family had to have been surprised as well as those in the community. The pregnancy would have been the talk of the town, but I want you to know her pregnancy was no accident – it was the greatest planned pregnancy the world has ever known!
John wrote in the Revelation that Jesus was the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of, or the beginning of the world. Peter wrote that the death of Christ was foreordained before the foundation of the world. God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit, the holy Trinity determined in eternity past, before the earth was even created that Jesus would die for our sins. The only way He could die for our sins is if He first lived in the form of a human being: thus the incarnation, the enfleshment of God.
In Genesis 3:15 God began to reveal to man what had already been on His mind. “I will put enmity between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heal.” Hebrews 10:5 says, “Therefore, when He came into the world, He said: But a body you have prepared for me.” The entire Old Testament is the story of God preparing a body for the Lord Jesus Christ. That’s what Matthew 1:1-17 is all about: the preparation of a body. Adam thought Abel was the one, but God raised up a Seth. He preserved a Noah. He called an Abraham out of Ur, raised up an Isaac and used the likes of Jacob. He delivered the great-great-grandparents of Jesus through a Joseph and a Moses and even a Canaanite prostitute named Rahab. He overlooked the sons of Jesse until He found a David.
The Old Testament is many things to us, but it is most assuredly history – that is, His-Story, the story of the planned pregnancy and the incarnation of Jesus Christ. Paul said in Galatians 4:4-5,
“But when the fullness of time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the Law, to redeem them that were under the Law, that we might receive the adoption of sons.”
The incarnation of Jesus Christ may have caught Mary and Joseph and all the rest of the world off guard, but God was simply working His plan – a plan that had begun in eternity past as He looked into the present to see the likes of you and me.
The Incarnation Created Problems
Many of you remember the social repercussions of being single and pregnant in the ‘50s and ‘60s. They were no better in Mary’s day. “The betrothal period served as a time of probation and testing of fidelity. During that period the bride and groom usually had little, if any, social contact with each other…Mary’s virginity was an important evidence of her godliness.” Virginity was held in high esteem, and was a mark of honor and integrity and purity. Mary’s pregnancy immediately called into question her reputation as an unfaithful girl. Matthew 1:19 shows us Joseph’s obvious pain.
“Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly.”
Joseph knew he wasn’t the father. All he could conclude was that Mary had been unfaithful. He had been shamed and humiliated, but to show you the kind of great love he had for Mary, Scripture never indicates that Joseph was concerned about himself. As painful as the situation must have been, his concern is for Mary. His concern is that the community not make an example out of her for the others.
I mentioned last week that Jesus expanded our view of God. I am amazed at the number of good and well-meaning Christians who hold to the idea that if we are in the will of God then the way will be easy and comfortable. If God had wanted Joseph and Mary’s lives to be comfortable and easy then He would have left them alone! He turned their world on its head and brought to them shame and trouble. In fact, when they took the baby Jesus to the temple to dedicate Him to God the old man Simeon told Mary, “Behold, this child is destined for the fall and rising of many in Israel…yes, a sword will pierce through your own soul.”
The incarnation of Christ didn’t just create problems for Mary and Joseph. It created problems for King Herod who thought this news of a newborn king was a threat to his throne. The incarnation created problems for hundreds of parents who lived under the rule of King Herod when he became outraged over the deception of the wise men. The Bible says that “he sent forth and put to death all the male children who were in Bethlehem and in all its districts, from two years old and under…”
“Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright?” We sing about Christmas like it was some sort of quiet and tranquil event, but the incarnation of Christ was anything but calm and peaceful. For Jesus to be born two parents lived in shame. For Jesus to be born hundreds of innocent babies and toddlers were put to death. For Jesus to be born countless parents lived with grief and sorrow. Add to all of that the trouble Jesus presented for the Jews as He grew, the trouble Jesus presented to the pagan idol worshippers under the preaching of Paul, and the trouble Jesus presents in our own lives as we live for Him. “Think not that I came to bring peace. No, I came to bring a sword…” Yes, the incarnation created problems for everyone involved. Not only that, but…
The Incarnation Was Filled With Promise
Matthew writes that…
“while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.”
I said at the beginning that the incarnation is great cause for celebration. Knowing that God had planned the whole thing with us in mind gives us reason to celebrate, but knowing that the incarnation created problems for everyone involved doesn’t seem like such a celebratory thing. However, when we stop to realize that it was because of our sin, because of our darkness, because of our wickedness, because of our iniquities that Jesus had to come in the first place, the promise He brought with Him makes it all worthwhile! “He will save His people from their sins.”
The whole world was filled with darkness, so John wrote, “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness…” The problems the incarnation created were like the invasive cuts of a surgeon trying to root out some terminal cancer. The pain of the cut and the scars it leaves behind are unpleasant, but are bearable when we realize the alternative. The incarnation created problems for many, but what would have been the consequences had He chosen not to come? Praise God we never have to know! It’s no wonder John could say with such vitality, “Behold, the Lamb of God which taketh away the sins of the world!”
More than anything else the incarnation was about hope. Listen again to the words of the old man Simeon as he held the infant Jesus in his arms,
“Lord, not you are letting your servant depart in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation which you have prepared before the face of all peoples, a light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel.”
Those are words of hope that would never have been uttered had God left us in our sin. But God did not leave us in our sin. “He made Christ, who knew no sin, to be sin for us; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.”
· Because of Christ we have life!
· Because of Christ we have hope of eternal life!
· Because of Christ we have the promise that Christ will come again to call us home!
· Because of Christ I don’t have to pay for my sins.
· Because of Christ I’m on my way to heaven!
· Because He lives I can face tomorrow!
· Because He lives I have victory! “Thanks be to God, which gives us the victory through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
None of it would be possible had it not first been for the incarnation of Christ.
Conclusion
I am thankful to live in this day and time. I am thankful I don’t have to have to decide what to believe about Christ with the information available to them in that day. We are blessed to have the full Word of God to read and see who and what Christ was and know what He did for us. Had I lived in that day I may have rejected Christ as the blasphemer so many others thought He was. But today I can know that He was God incarnate, Jesus Christ our Lord!
Have you yet come to that conclusion? Have you seen yet that Christ was born to live and die and rise again for your sins? Have you ever repented of your sins and called on Christ to save you? Will you do that today? Will you come to Him who has offered to us all the greatest gift known to man?
Child of God, are you walking through troubling times right now? Are you experiencing dark days you did not ask for? Look up! Those days are but for a moment! There is light at the end – the glorious light of the Son of God! Take heart in knowing that He cares for you and knows the pain you carry. He knows the burdens you bear. He knows about that thing causing you to fret and worry. They are the very reason He came – to redeem a fallen and broken world.
Today let’s celebrate the Christ child – the incarnation – the enfleshment of God, who, for His great love for you and me chose to walk a mile in our shoes so that we might know the victory that ultimately only comes through Him.
