Fifteen days. It’s hard to believe. But there are only fifteen days until Christmas. Or less, since some will read this later. The weather turned cold all of a sudden here in northeast Indiana, like we needed the reminder that the season is upon us. Maybe I’ve been wrapped up in other struggles, family, church, life, that I didn’t realize what was happening, that the calendar was turning, the sand drifting through the glass. We even handed out little timers, tiny hourglass reminders that we are waiting. Mine sits on my desk, behind a pile, hidden away. It’s easy to forget that we’re waiting. To forget that we were told by the One we call Lord, to watch and to wait. We’ve become complacent, more or less, with the world as it is. And we forget to look forward. Or what we’re looking forward to. We just get caught up in our plans, our lists, our busyness that we forget.
It’s a list-making season. I know I’ve got to have them or I’ll forget stuff. Usually stuff that wasn’t my idea in the first place, but stuff the family needs done. At least that’s what I’m told. And I’m always one to do what I’m told. But I want to do it, don’t misunderstand. I’m not reluctant or anything. Well, not much. Or not all the time. It’s just that I need guidance. I need my list given to me, I need my rules of procedure to follow. I need to stay on target.
Like Joseph. I don’t know, of course. We don’t have a lot of background information on him, we don’t get his resume or his vital statistics. The church has filled in the blanks about Joseph over the centuries, but all of it speculation, we really don’t have a clue. Yet, if you look you can see some tendencies, some inclinations or leanings that tell us something about him. And he appears to be a planner, a thinker, a worker out of problems. Well, see if you agree.
Matthew 1:18-25 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
Joseph had a plan. He was well into it when it all went off the rails. He was betrothed to Mary. The romantics among us would like it to be a love story, a first glance head over heels story, and that Joseph worked and planned and organized himself into this almost to be wedding. Could be. The historians among us point out that many, if not most marriages in those days were arranged by parents and family members. It had been worked out, by Mary’s dad and Joseph, or Joseph’s father. But it happened, documents were signed, handshakes exchanged, it was a done deal. A plan on its way. Traditionalists have been troubled by Joseph’s disappearance from the story so quickly, so they invented a story that accounts for it. He was older, maybe even a widower, with kids (which also explains those pesky references to Jesus’ brothers and sisters – they were half siblings, thus preserving Mary’s perpetual virginity) and to fill his emptiness, to comfort his loneliness, young Mary was given to older Joseph, and thus the plan was in place.
The truth is we don’t know. What we know, because Matthew tells us is that there was a plan: when his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph. That’s the plan. A wedding on the way. But like many plans, it met an obstacle: she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Um, what? Well, Matthew knows more here than Joseph does. More than anyone does. An interruption to the plan. An interruption of the plan that is so severe that the plan simply cannot continue. This isn’t a bump in the road, it is a dead end. A non-starter. It just can’t be. A whole new plan is called for now. A whole new approach, a whole new relationship, a whole new way of treating the one who drove the plan off the side of the mountain.
When we join the story, Joseph is finishing plan B. What now? That was the question that had occupied his thinking for who knows how long. We don’t get told how Joseph learned that plan A wasn’t going to work. All Matthew says is that Mary was found to be with child. Who found her? How was she found? Does this mean Mary told him? Just out of the blue, like Luke says she found out, “hey Joseph, you’ll never believe...!” Or did others find out? Rumors, gossip. Were fingers pointed and whispers savored in the village they called home? Did someone run up to Joseph and say, “I hate to be the bearer of bad news but ...”? We don’t know. Somehow Joseph knew and had to go back to the planning table and decide.
It wasn’t easy. There is a dilemma hidden in verse nineteen. Matthew lays out the problem this way “Joseph was a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace.” Most folks would read part one of that verse as being a studious observer of the law. Righteousness was all about obedience to the practices of the people of God. Following the rules and regulations laid out by the scribes and Pharisees to define the right way to live with obedience to God. So, Joseph, we are supposed to hear lived a life of obedience to the law. But the law says it was his duty to expose Mary and the sin she committed to the community. So she could be punished, driven out, stoned to death. That was the law. There’s some debate whether by this time they were still stoning, but they were certainly shunning. She was supposed to be disgraced. Supposed to be. It was the only way to make sure the shame didn’t fall on him and his name and his family. He had to do this thing he didn’t want to do.
But he chose not to. Plan B was “dismiss her quietly.” Send her home to her family. Embarrassed, but not shamed because he wasn’t going to say why. That’s the quietly bit. Tear up the contract, send her home. It’s over. Not quite legal in the strict sense. But it was the plan. Having decided, he went to bed. To try to sleep. And did, somehow.
Because he dreamed. He dreamed himself an angel. We’re supposed to hear an echo in this. Joseph the dreamer, like his ancestor Joseph the dreamer, who dreamed himself a princedom in Egypt. Who dreamed himself out of and then back into the favor of his family. Now descendant Joseph dreams a new plan and his place in that plan. Plan C, that sounds oddly like plan A. But it is plan A redefined. Plan A resurrected. Ascended, intensified. The angel changes everything, and it is back to the way it was before. Like Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life, after the dream it all goes back to the way it was, but now it’s different. Exactly the same, but different.
Because Joseph is different. He’s aware of God’s Presence for one thing. He’s aware that he is a part of a plan he can’t imagine, let alone see. Blessed by an invitation to come alongside the redemption of history itself, the transformation of the world. Joseph’s plan A was to get married and raise a family and do the best he could with what he had. God’s reinterpretation of plan A was for Joseph to get married and raise a family, and be a part of the salvation of the world, to join in bringing life - abundant, eternal life - into the world.
See, I think angels are singing all the time. I think they are telling us that God is present, within reach, right here, born again in us, between us. But we’ve stopped listening. We’ve resolved to dismiss the Christ quietly, covered up with our busyness and our distractions, making our lists and hunting for the right gift that will make this Christmas special. When the angel says, it’s already special. You can’t make it any more special than God has made it. All you have to do is name it. All you have to do is receive it and make it yours. Make it you.
Shalom,
Derek
No comments:
Post a Comment