If you only had Matthew’s Gospel,
what would you have?
Last week we looked at the
opening of Luke’s Gospel and his version of the Advent narratives, his “orderly
account.” He begins with Zechariah and Elizabeth and the birth of
John the Baptist who would come to prepare the way, then on to Mary and the
miracle birth. But if you only had Matthew, what would you have?
No
Annunciation to Mary
No visit to Elizabeth and the
Magnificat
No detail on John’s miraculous birth
No enrollment calling people to Bethlehem
No over-crowded inn
No stable, manger, sheep or cattle
lowing when the baby wakes
No boisterous angel choirs or adoring shepherds
If you only had Matthew, what
would you have? You would have Joseph.
Across the ages we venerate Mary
and sing about shepherds who watched their flocks by night; we are hushed by
the wonder of angels sweetly singing o’re the plains, and the mountains in
reply echoing their joyous strains; we even tell tales of an innkeeper who
isn’t really there, a drummer boy who is only fiction and kindly beasts who are
only assumed. But we have none of that in Matthew. Matthew begins with what we
in our day consider to be the somewhat boring details of Joseph’s genealogy,
tracking back across the centuries to show the connection of this baby with all
that has gone before, linking Jesus through Joseph to the long journey of faith
from Abraham and Isaac, David and Solomon, through the exile and the Babylonian
captivity, all of it building to the birth of this child. He focuses on
Joseph’s dream and Joseph’s response, and in less than a sentence he tells the
whole of the birth story itself.
Then he fast-forwards—possibly
three or four years later—to the mysterious visit of the magi from the east
followed by Herod’s brutal response with the slaughter of Bethlehem’s babies.
And of course it is Joseph who comes out the hero once again. He has another
dream and saves the child as the family become refugees in Egypt.
So if you only had Matthew and
you only had Joseph, what do you have?
- You have the promise: “Don’t be
afraid.”
At the risk of repeating myself
from last week, here it is again--the monotonous message of the angels,
repeated in every passage of every Gospel like a broken record to Zechariah and
Elizabeth, to Mary and the shepherds, and now to Joseph: “Don’t be afraid.”
It is the redundant promise which
provides the reoccurring theme running through the whole story. When God calls, when God acts, when God moves,
the first promise is the promise to cast out our fear. “Don’t be afraid.” Though
it may indeed be frightful to find yourself in the presence of an angel, though
life may indeed have frightful elements in it and there may be, in fact, plenty
of things to fear, if God is present and active, his first invitation is the
invitation to get beyond fear as the primary force in your life and discover a calm center in the midst
of the crisis.
The angel always begins by
saying, “Don’t be afraid.” No matter how
bad the news and no matter how panic-stricken the news reporter may sound, do
not allow fear to control and dominate your life. Yes, the world can be
frightful (and who knows that better than Joseph,) but the world will not have
the last word. God is also present and by his grace, we will not fear.
If you only have Matthew and you
only have Joseph, once again you have the promise that comes to everyone in the
story… “Don’t be afraid.”
- And if you only have Matthew and you
only have Joseph, you have a name:
“Jesus…Immanuel.”
Matthew borrows from the Old
Testament prophet, once again to make the connection with the long prophetic
history of covenant faith and he gives this child a name:
“You shall call his name Jesus, because he
will save his people from
their sins. Call him Immanuel, which means ‘God with us.’ ”
Matthew takes Isaiah’s words of
comfort and assurance from another time and another century and offers them as
the name of the one who comes among us, even this child, even Joseph’s son. As
Charles Wesley says it:
Veiled
in flesh the God-head see
Hail the incarnate
deity
Pleased with us in
flesh to dwell
Jesus our Immanuel.
(Charles Wesley, “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing,” UM Hymnal page 240)
When you strip away all the
frills and flourishes, all the angel wings and starlight; when you take away
the shepherds on bended knee, the sheep in the hay and the cattle lowing; when
you get right to the heart of it, this is what lies at the very heart of
Christmas: God has not left us alone. God is no longer just “out there,” but has
come to be one with us--to live in our flesh, to share in our lives, to
experience our pain, going with us all the way to our death, in order to make
known God’s unending, unfathomable, undeserved, unlimited love.
I came across a column I clipped
from the Ann Arbor News a few years
ago by columnist Jo Mathis, entitled “Crazy
World Could Use Direct Word from God.” She
offers the laundry list of everything that’s troubling in the world--religious zealots who want to kill the
infidels (meaning you and me); wars,
diseases and natural disasters; the
ugliness of hate and racism, and the
prevalence of violence. Then she says:
“I’ve
come to the conclusion there is only one answer—God is going
to have to get down here and settle things
once and for all. Sure
it would be a little freaky if the world
came to a halt and there was
God in a burning bush or a chariot of fire,
but I say it’s time.”
Well I say God has already done that.
God has already come down here to
settle things once and for all. God has already spoken. He has spoken in the
form of a child born to Joseph and Mary, spoken through the parables of an
itinerant teacher and healer, spoken in the life of one who has inspired the
ages, spoken ultimately from a cross and an empty tomb. And if we are not going
to listen to the Word he has already spoken, there is little chance we will listen
to the next one either.
When I go to church growth
conferences, I listen to all the ideas and suggestions, and I often say to
myself, “I already know more than I am doing.” And in all truth, we probably
all do. God could send another “direct word” into this crazy world, but the
fact is, we already know more than we are doing. We have heard, and we have
seen God’s word made flesh in Jesus Christ.
-We
already know that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.
-We already know that
we should love our enemies and pray for those who
despitefully use us.
-We already know that the peacemakers are
blessed and shall be called the children of
God, that the meek are blessed and will inherit the earth; that the
merciful are
blessed because they shall receive mercy.
-We
already know we should forgive 70 times seven.
-We
already know we should turn the other cheek
-We already know that it
is more blessed to give than to receive.
-We
already know that love bears all things, believes all things, hopes
all things, endures all things, and that
love never ends.
We have already seen and heard
the word from God and we have beheld his glory, glory as in the only begotten
Son of the father, full of grace and truth. Frankly, we already know more than
we are doing. We already know this one
named Jesus, who came to save us from our sins; this one called Immanuel, which
means God is with us…already, here and now, one with us.
When I was in college, I traveled
with a drama troupe called “The King’s Players.” One of the plays we performed
was called “For Heaven’s Sake” by Helen Kromer. In it there is a poem
which I can still, after all these years, repeat from memory:
I’m
nothing, I’m nobody, no one,
But
someone made something of me;
He
lived in my flesh and he walked in my bones
And
he saw all the grief that I see.
He
knew what I know of tormentors,
This
haunting and howling within;
Of
the blood that can spill and the bone that can break
And
the flesh with the nails driven in.
He
hung on the cross as a creature
Wearing
my sin-spattered cloths;
And
the pride in my flesh died with him when he died
And
my raiment was new when he rose.
This
clothing I wear with a difference—
It’s flesh that the King entered in!
He put there his love and his almighty law
And it never can be what it’s been.
I’m nothing, nobody, no one,
I’m someone in Christ who’s in me;
And
I’ll put on his flesh and I’ll walk in his bones
And a part of his body I’ll be.
(Helen
Kromer, “For Heaven’s Sake!” page
56)
If you only have Matthew and if
you only have Joseph, you have a promise, you have a name: “Immanuel, God with us.”
3.…And
you have a task.
The angel said, “Joseph, Game
On! I’ve got a job for you. Take Mary as
your wife. She will bear a son, and you will call his name Jesus. Get up and
get going. It’s time to move out of the comfort zone of the carpenter shop and
take up the task of carrying the Christ into the world of corrupt rulers and
down the road of struggling refugees. You are entrusted with the task
of
preserving the gift
of
nurturing the message
of
caring for the good news.”
And maybe that’s why we prefer
Luke’s version.
Perhaps we prefer an Advent
focused on looking back across the ages to the warm memories of shepherds in
the fields and silent nights, a baby in a barn and adoring angels. Perhaps we
prefer a Hallmark Christmas by Currier and Ives or the Thomas Kincaid version,
all misty in glowing candlelight and glimmering snow, and of course Luke’s
gospel has its place.
But Matthew won’t leave us there.
If your lead character is Joseph,
the Christmas story becomes the story of awesome responsibility, a tale told in
the face of warring worlds, unjust rulers and suffering refugees, in the presence
of families huddling in hiding and babies born in barns. If your lead character
is Joseph, the Christmas angel comes
with calling, a task. There is work to be done, and it’s up to you to do it.
Several years ago, Marjorie
Holmes wrote a fictionalized version of the nativity, attempting to fill in the
blanks, telling the love story of Joseph and Mary. It was “Two From Galilee.” After
the word from the angel, she describes the conversation between Mary and
Joseph, capturing his struggle with the call and the task:
Mary: Joseph, you don’t believe…for
all your reading of the scriptures, you don’t believe.
Joseph: Mary, I do believe. I do
believe God will keep his promises. The Christ will come, someday. But not now,
not to us in our time, in our town, to us and our neighbors. Not to you and me.
No, no, this great event will happen far away, to other people. That will make
it credible and safe. People will not have it—they will not have evidence that God
will keep his promises, not if it is personal. Personal involvement in God’s
plan is too terrible. It costs too dearly.
(Marjorie Holmes, “Two From Galilee”, page 209)
Ah, Joseph, you are so right. We
all want to see God at work…someplace else. We want to see God’s kingdom come,
God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, but we would prefer it was
through someone else. We want to see the promises fulfilled, but certainly not
here, not now, not in our time and our town, certainly not through us. It is
too terrible. It costs too dearly to become personally involved with God. But
to encounter the angel of Advent is to become a part of the mission and
calling. The task given to Joseph becomes our task as well--carrying the Christ
into the world.
Well, if you only had Matthew’s
gospel, all you would have is Joseph,
…and if all you have is Joseph,
you have the promise, you have the name and you have a task. And Matthew says
that in simple trust, “When Joseph woke
from sleep, he did as the angel commanded him.”
May it be so. Even in us. Even
today.
