Matthew 1:18-25

If your family opens up a Bible on Christmas morning to read the story of Jesus’ birth, chances are you’re not going to be turning to the Gospel of Matthew. There is no manger scene, no shepherds, no beautiful chorus of angels. It is not poetic or lovely. In fact, it’s kind of messy, and awkward, even a little scandalous.

Nobody wants to have a Christmas morning conversation with the kids answering the question, “What does ‘consummate’ mean?” (NIV) You can try to get around that and read the NKJV, but an especially thoughtful child might ask, “He didn’t know her? I thought they were engaged!” Awkward. Messy. If you’re having a family Sunday with the kids in the service this week, best of luck to you! (Actually, I’m sure it will be great. Just use the NRSV!)

Our passage follows the genealogy of Jesus (Matthew 1:1-17), which is traced to Joseph. This is interesting considering Joseph was not the biological father. Of course, he would be, functionally and truly, Jesus’ father, and that’s what seems to matter. In fact, Joseph himself has to be convinced that he should, indeed, proceed with his marriage to Mary and become this child’s father, not to be afraid.

Why would Joseph be afraid? Marriage and having a baby are both major life changes that might cause one to fear, but it seems that above all Joseph’s righteousness was the issue. Joseph “was a righteous man,” a law abiding, upstanding, moral man with a good reputation. Continuing his marriage to Mary, who was already pregnant (with someone else’s baby), put all that on the line.

The news of Mary’s pregnancy was not good news to Joseph. As much as we all love babies and romanticize pregnancy, we are very familiar with situations in which pregnancy doesn’t seem like good news. It can happen before we’re ready, when we can’t afford it financially, or after we understood our family to be complete.

Couples who long for pregnancy might find the early, easy, or rapid pregnancies of others as difficult news to bear. (By the way, please keep these couples in mind as you speak of pregnancy and childbirth. Infertility is often a silent and deeply painful experience. Simply acknowledging the reality of that struggle can be helpful.) And then, of course, there are the complicated situations of pregnancy out of wedlock, suspicions of infidelity, and due dates curiously close to 9 months after a wedding.

Jesus’ birth story in Matthew reminds us how often pregnancy, or more broadly, the being and becoming of families, can be a situation of strife, fear, or even scandal. It de-sanitizes the typical Christmas portrait of the holy family and their newborn child, reminding us of the messiness of it all. And yet, we see how God shows up and weaves this messy family together, calming fear and encouraging faithfulness, even when things get hard and righteousness is on the line.

This pregnancy didn’t seem like good news, but it was good news, the best news! This child would “save his people from their sins” and be the true embodiment of the promise of “Emmanuel,” God with us! Just like King Ahaz needed a physical sign of God’s presence to calm his fears about the political alliances of his enemies (Isaiah 7:10-16 and v. 22-23 of our text), the whole world needed a sign that God is with us, and Jesus was both the sign and the full embodiment of that truth!

But Joseph didn’t know any of that. Until God spoke to him through a messenger in a dream, Joseph just knew that his fiancé/wife (there are plenty of resources out there if you need more on their marital status) was pregnant, and it wasn’t his baby. In Mary and Joseph’s culture it probably wasn’t heartbreak that Joseph was experiencing, but his pride may have been broken, and again, his righteousness was on the line. Things were not going as planned, not as Joseph had planned and not as things are supposed to go according to what is right and acceptable in society, but nevertheless God did seem to have a plan and Joseph was being invited to participate.

In order to participate in God’s saving activity in the world, Joseph would have to swallow his pride, risk his own righteousness, and proceed with a questionable marriage marked with scandal. He would have to embrace the messiness, rather than dismiss it quietly. He would have to believe the unbelievable, that this awkward situation could actually be good news.

What a thought that even the father of Jesus needed convincing that Jesus’ life was good news! How strange, that God would enter the world in a way that could only be perceived as a scandal, or as the miraculous work of the Holy Spirit…and really, would you have believed it was the Holy Spirit?

Perhaps there is some good news — holy, wonderful, life-giving news — that doesn’t seem like good news to people in your congregation. Perhaps there are situations that seem scandalous, scary, or unfair, or that cause them to worry about what others will think.  Or perhaps there is something that the Holy Spirit is stirring up within your church, something that puts reputations on the line, something that can only be understood as scandalous or miraculous, depending on whether or not people recognize the presence of God in it.

Could it be true that in some way, no matter how messy the situation, every time a child is conceived it’s a reminder that God is with us? And that’s a big us, not a little us. Even for those who are experiencing infertility, we can choose to see the seemingly ridiculous gift of children to the poor, the drug-addicted, and the unwed as a sign of God’s goodness, offering invitations to those who seem unworthy or ill-equipped to participate in the life-giving work of bearing, birthing, and raising children.

Joseph, the righteous man, was invited to be the parent of a child that wasn’t biologically his own. He was invited to participate in the saving work of God in the world by embracing the messiness of his situation and believing that God was in it, bringing salvation through it. God called Joseph to let go of his fear and choose embrace over perceived righteousness, and through Joseph’s obedience he became the human father of the very embodiment and presence of God in the world.

God is with us. May we believe that it is so. May we accept the invitations we are given to participate in God’s saving work in the world, even if they put our perceived righteousness or our reputations on the line. May we be people who let go of fear and choose to join in the work of bearing and embodying the presence of God in our world.