Sent to Love

Matthew 1:18-23

December 13, 2015 • Mount Pleasant UMC

Sermon Study Guide

A week from tomorrow, December 21, is traditionally called the “longest night.” That day, the winter solstice, has the least amount of daylight and has, for some, become the symbol of this season of the year. Though we talk about joy and we sing happy carols, for some—even for some who are gathered here this morning—the Christmas season is not a happy time. It’s a time when you can’t help but remember that you have lost someone you cared about this past year. Or you’ve lost someone in a previous year around Christmas, and the season only brings up painful memories. For others, the lack of daylight contributes to a sort of funk, a blue mood during these days. We even have a name for it: “Seasonal Affective Disorder,” or “SAD.” Whatever the circumstance, maybe you come to church and paste on a smile, but you’re not feeling all that joyful. And you look around at the smiling faces here and wonder if anyone else feels like you do.

I can tell you one person I believe knows what a “blue Christmas” feels like, and that’s the earthly father of Jesus—Joseph. No one has a more difficult task or a difficult role in the whole Christmas story than this simple carpenter from Bethlehem. Only Matthew tells us his side of the story, and so it’s to that Gospel we turn this morning as we continue our Advent journey. We’ve been exploring what it means that Jesus was “sent,” because that’s the language he uses of himself. He was sent. He didn’t arrive here by accident. He was sent by the heavenly Father. And if he was sent, that means he came to do something. The first week, we talked about how Jesus was sent to reconcile, to heal broken relationships. And then, last Sunday, we talked about Jesus being sent to liberate, to set free those who are held captive by the stuff of their life. So far, we’ve seen those themes come through the stories of Zechariah and Mary, as Luke tells them, but this morning, I want us to turn back to the front of the New Testament. Matthew tells us the Christmas story from Joseph’s viewpoint because Joseph has a very important message to remind us of. Jesus, his step-son, was sent not just to reconcile and liberate but also to love.

There is, quite honestly, not a lot we know about Joseph. A bit later in the Gospel, Matthew does tell us Jesus was known as “the carpenter’s son” (13:55), which would make Joseph a tekton, a word that can be translated as carpenter or woodworker or stonemason. We usually picture Joseph building houses, because that’s what carpenters in our own time do, but in first-century Galilee, very few homes would have been built with wood. Wood was scarce there (still is), and so most houses were built with stone. So Joseph may have built doors or roofs; he may have repaired farm tools. Or he may have worked with stone. Whatever the craft, Joseph was a tekton, but he was not an arch-tekton, or a master builder. (You can hear our word “architect” in that phrase.) Joseph was a common, humble laborer, the kind of person who works hard and does quality work, the kind of guy you could call to do a job and know it was going to be done well (Hamilton, The Journey, pgs. 39-40).

We also know Joseph was a descendent of King David, the greatest king Israel ever knew. It had been a long time since Israel had been under the rule of a legitimate king—Herod was a puppet of Rome—but Joseph would have been part of that royal line. And he was from Bethlehem, David’s hometown. A lot of the movies picture Joseph living in Nazareth, but we’re not told that in the Gospels. He was probably living and working in Bethlehem, and was in the midst of that year of betrothal every Jewish marriage required. Marriages were largely arranged, set up between the parents, and the process would begin with an announcement of engagement. Then there was to be a year in which the man and woman were considered legally bound together, but they did not yet live together as husband and wife. Instead, the man was to spend that year preparing a place for the two of them to live once the formal marriage took place (cf. Vanderlaan, Echoes of His Presence, pgs. 11-19; Augsburger, Communicator’s Commentary: Matthew, pg. 27). So Joseph is doing that, perhaps in Bethlehem, working and preparing, when somewhere along the way he finds out that Mary is pregnant.

Neither Matthew nor Luke tell us how Joseph found out. Is it possible he found out while Mary was visiting her relative Elizabeth in nearby Ein Karem? Do you suppose Mary told him herself or did he hear it through the rumor mill? However, he found out, he obviously does not believe her story about the angel nor the fact that she was still a virgin. If he had believed it, he wouldn’t have had to wonder what to do about it. In his mind, there could only be one real reason why Mary was pregnant: she had been unfaithful to him. And Joseph knew, as any good Jewish man knew, that what to do next was entirely in his hands. Within the constraints of the Jewish law, he was allowed to order Mary’s death. Kill her and the child within her. According to Deuteronomy 22 (v. 23-29), Joseph could have her taken to the city gates and stone her to death. Joseph faces a moment of literal life and death as he “considers” what to do (cf. Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 27).

We learn about Joseph’s heart when we read about his decision. He is a compassionate man, for one thing, because he decides not to pursue the death penalty. Rather, he will “divorce” or “dismiss” Mary, which was the only other way he could formally end a betrothal (Augsburger 27). He doesn’t want to harm Mary, and in fact, what he does will actually be worse for him than for her. For, you see, once the divorce happens, it’s bound to come out to the larger public that Mary is pregnant. It will become obvious sooner or later. The natural assumption of the people in Nazareth and perhaps elsewhere would be that Joseph had slept with Mary, maybe while she was in Ein Karem, and then turned her out. The shame of the unplanned pregnancy would be on him and not on her. She would be able to return to her family, she would live, and he would be the one whose motives would be questioned. And that’s why I think Matthew calls him “righteous” (1:19, NRSV)—not because he obeyed the letter of the law but because he was a man concerned with justice and compassion, truth and grace (cf. Hamilton 44-45).

Is it any surprise that, in the midst of this story, Matthew reminds us of a promise made centuries before that the one coming would be called “Immanuel”? That name, “Immanuel,” means “God with us” (1:23). And Jesus began to be “God with us” at the very moment he became a baby in Mary’s womb. He was “God with us” as he was born in the midst of the mess and the muck of a feeding trough in a stable. He was “God with us” when he ditched his parents and stayed behind in Jerusalem for three days. He was “God with us” when he walked the streets and encountered those who had lost loved ones, who were hurting physically and spiritually, who were making difficult decisions. He was “God with us” in the pain and in the rejection of the cross. And he remains “God with us” because he is risen from the dead and, at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel, he promises to be with us to the very end of the earth (28:20; cf. Wright, Matthew for Everyone, pg. 8). This baby in Mary’s womb is, from the beginning to the end of history, “God with us.” There is no where we can go where he isn’t already. God the Father was working in Joseph’s heart even before Jesus was born, reminding Joseph of his presence, no matter what the future held. God with us…Jesus is God who was sent to love in the midst of the most painful circumstances of our lives.

He is with us in times of uncertainty and fear. We had just finished worship but I hadn’t left the church yet when the phone rang. I picked it up and on the other end of the line was a church member who had just left. “Can you come?” they urgently said. “Dee has been in an accident.” Dee, too, had just been in worship and her husband was out of town. I got the location and headed out, breathing a quick prayer. When I came upon the scene of the accident, it was worse than I imagined. The ambulance was already there and a doctor who happened to be in the backed-up line of traffic was barking orders. I couldn’t see much but in the absence of Dee’s family, they allowed me to ride in the ambulance with her. We arrived at the hospital, and a few of us from the church gathered around her bed to pray. Dee was in pretty bad shape, and she would remain so for the next several weeks, but there was a peace that came into that hospital room that I can only explain as the presence of God. Even when her husband arrived, he had a sense of God’s presence in the midst of the uncertainty and the fear. Over the next few weeks, there were more miracles than I have time to tell you about this morning, and somehow, slowly, Dee recovered. Those of us in her hospital room that first night, honestly, didn’t give her much chance, but even when we give up, God is not done yet. She was here a couple of weeks ago in worship, in fact, and I tell her every time I see her she’s a walking miracle. But the greater miracle, I believe, was God’s presence in the middle of that time of uncertainty and fear. God with us, because he loves us.

God is with us in the times of waiting as well. On my first Sunday preaching here, I shared a bit about my heart murmur, a condition discovered during my senior year in high school but one that never really caused my any problems or discomfort. Until seminary, that is. I began to have shortness of breath, and long story short, I ended up in the hospital. That first night in the hospital, all by myself, I began to have a serious discussion with God. We didn’t know, at that point, exactly what was wrong, and we were going to have to wait until the next morning at least for some answers. I began to remind God that I was in seminary answering his call, didn’t he know that? Classes were starting the next day, didn’t he know that? How could this be happening right now? And in the midst of that discussion, alone in that hospital room, I began to have this sense of God’s peace overwhelm me. “I am with you,” Jesus reminded me. Immanuel—God with us—because he loves us. He is with us in the times of waiting, when we are between diagnoses, when we are between jobs, when we are waiting on an answer, when we are not sure what comes next. God is with us, surrounding us with his love. Jesus was Immanuel, God with us, sent to love.

He is with us in times of pain. They had been married over sixty years, and he had dropped her off near the curb so she could go on into the store while he parked the car. By the time he got back to the store, she had fallen and hit the back of her head. She was unconscious. They rushed her to the hospital and she lay in a coma for two or three weeks. After a time, he called me to let me know they were going to discontinue life support to see if she could breathe on her own. “She wouldn’t want to live like this,” he told me. “God has been so good to us, and God will carry us through this, too.” He had absolute faith that God could heal her, but he also loved his wife so much he didn’t want her to continue to suffer, to be in pain. So he traded her pain for his own as he let her go. Through that time of loss, which happened right after the Christmas season, he gave a powerful witness to the presence of God in the midst of his own pain. Immanuel, God with us, God loving us in the coming of this baby boy in Bethlehem. He is with us in our pain, maybe at this time of year like no other time.

There is a form of worship we’ve largely lost in the American church today, yet it forms the single largest category of worship in the book of psalms. Nearly 40% of the psalms can be classified as lament, worship that recognizes and even gives thanks for God’s presence in the midst of our difficulty, our pain, our hurt. You see, it’s like this: on any given Sunday, you may come to church glad, mad, or sad. You’re likely worshiping with people struggling to count their blessings. Meanwhile, it’s certain that somewhere in the world, and also right here, God’s children are going hungry, falling ill, being persecuted, or going through another form of suffering. It takes courage to trust in the one who is Immanuel in those times. It takes faith to believe in the one who is Immanuel even when answers aren’t coming. It takes strength to know that the one who is Immanuel is broken right along with us—sitting in the heap of ashes alongside us. Have you experienced worship like that? Let’s take a few moments as I share a song sung by Michael Card called “To a Broken God.” Use this as a prayer time and listen for the ways Jesus is Immanuel to you, right here, right now.

VIDEO: To a Broken God

Jesus was sent to love by being God with us, Immanuel. Richard and Ray were best friends growing up. The two of them did everything together: bought a car together as teenagers, double-dated together, went to school together and so forth. They even enlisted in the Army together, and ended up on the front lines together. One night, they were sitting in a foxhole, remembering the “old days” and eating a chocolate bar when suddenly a live grenade dropped into the foxhole between them. Ray looked at Richard, smiled, dropped his chocolate bar and threw himself on the live grenade. He was killed instantly when it exploded, but Richard’s life was spared. When he returned home, Richard studied to become a Catholic priest, and at his ordination, he was instructed to take the name of a saint. The first name that came to his mind was his friend, Ray Brennan, and so Richard Manning took Ray’s last name as his first name, becoming Brennan Manning, a now famous author. Years later, Brennan was visiting Ray’s mother and he asked her, “Do you think Ray loved me?” Mrs. Brennan got up off the couch, shook her finger in Brennan’s face and shouted, “What more could he have done for you?” Brennan later wrote that, in that moment he had a realization. He saw himself standing before the cross of Jesus, asking, “Does God really love me?” And he saw Jesus’ mother Mary pointing to her son on the cross saying, “What more could he have done for you?” (Smith, The Good and Beautiful God, pg. 142).

Jesus was sent to love, and he did that by being born in a stable, living a life for us to follow, and giving his life for our salvation. He loves us, he really loves us, and he is with us. Not only in times of difficulty, but also in times of joy. The joy of crossing important milestones. The joy of two becoming one in a marriage ceremony. The joy of a baby being born. The joy of Christmas and families coming together. The joy of hearing the words, “cancer free.” The joy of a person turning their life around. The joy of simply being alive. Jesus is Immanuel, God with us, pouring out his love on us because he was sent to love. He is with us in times of joy. And in every other situation life throws at us. He is with us because he loves us.

Joseph experienced that on at least two occasions, I believe. Just when he had decided to divorce Mary, he goes to sleep. He thinks everything is settled. Then an angel shows up in his dream. Why the angel didn’t come until now is anybody’s guess, though it seems as if Joseph is the sort of person who could more easily believe a dream than a real-life encounter with an angel (cf. Card 28). And the angel tells him to go ahead and take Mary as his wife; everything will be okay. Oh, and by the way, Joseph, name the baby Jesus, a name which means “God saves.” So, without another word, without a word of argument, when Joseph wakes up, he makes the journey to see Mary, and he goes ahead and finalizes the marriage. He will still take upon himself the shame of the unplanned pregnancy, but he will raise the child as his own—something he is only going to be able to do if God is with him.

And the second time he experiences the presence of God with us? I believe it had to be at the time when Jesus was born. We’ll talk more about that on Christmas Eve, but I just know from my own experience as a father that there are few moments that rival the holiness that surrounds the birth of a child. I would imagine that Joseph, as tired as he was, knew the truth of Immanuel, God with us, that dark night in Bethlehem, in the shadows of a stable, as the boy he would raise as his own was born. At that moment, what the angel had promised him came true—this whole experience really was in God’s hands from the beginning. And it’s okay. Immanuel. God with us. Sent to love.

Now, before we get too warm and fuzzy, let’s remember than main focus of this Advent: as Jesus was sent, so are we. Jesus said, “As you [Father] sent me into the world, I have sent them into the world” (John 17:18). As he was sent to reconcile, so are we. As he was sent to liberate, so are we. And as he was sent to love, so are we. And if ever a world needed to see and experience the love of Christ, now is the time. A world of ever-increasing terrorist attacks, shootings, gang wars, drugs, addictions, broken families and angry politicians—the world needs Jesus’ people who are sent to love to actually love those around them.

That begins in our families. Our world would like to define love as “buying more things” or “spending more than last year.” From Black Friday to Christmas, there is always the implication that it’s up to you to buy things to really show your love for your family, while at the same time keeping the retailers afloat. But the one who is love incarnate showed love by spending time with us, becoming God with us. What if rather than spending extravagant amounts of money we spent extravagant amounts of time with each other? What if, rather than hiding behind our smartphones, we engaged in conversation? And what if we simplified our family celebrations, spending less while giving more? Remember, as I said a couple of weeks ago, this is not your birthday or mine. This is Jesus’ birthday we’re celebrating. What if our biggest gift this season was given to him, the one who was sent to love? And what if the biggest gift we gave to our families was our undivided attention, imitating the one who was sent to love as Immanuel?

We are also sent to love our neighbors, and while the Bible and the Gospels in particular often expand that to include pretty much everyone we come in contact with, this morning I’m just talking about those who live around you. In their book, The Art of Neighboring, Dave Runyon and Jay Pathak suggest that we have lost the skill of getting to know our neighbors, of really living in our neighborhoods. They suggest we draw a grid with our own homes at the center and focus on getting to know the eight houses immediately around us. Now, I know that our neighborhoods are not laid out as neatly as this grid would suggest, but the point is this: do you know those who live nearest to you? Do you know their needs, their desires, their questions and their fears? Because if we don’t know them, we can’t really love them. Honestly, in our past appointments, when we’ve lived in a parsonage, it was a bit harder to do. People who have lived there any length of time know that the house was a parsonage and that I was the “religious professional.” I got the sense that any time I talked with someone, they were either telling me they already had a church (whether or not they did) or they were on edge because they were afraid I was going to start preaching to them. It’s been sort of fun to move into a neighborhood this year “incognito.” I’m in “stealth mode” because I’m not automatically known as a religious professional. So it’s given me the chance to get to know some folks before they find out I’m a pastor. Now, I haven’t done as well as I should. I can only fill in part of the boxes on my grid, but I’m working on it. And we don’t just get to know our neighbors so that we can get them to come to Mount Pleasant. That would be great, but we get to know them so we can love them as Jesus does. We get to know them so they can experience Immanuel, God with us.

And then the third area I want to highlight is that we are sent to love the world. Last night, we got to be part of the Missions Dinner here and we celebrated the good work of several missionaries and mission organizations around the world, while at the same time raising much-needed funds to support that work. And I got to thinking about how thankful I am for those who have answered God’s call, in a very tangible way, to go around the world, to be Immanuel, to love the world as Jesus would. But that’s not just the call of missionaries. We are all sent to love. And that seems to be increasingly difficult to do in a world built on fear, on hating “the other,” on control and exclusion. As I’ve read remarks from politicians and Christian “leaders” over the past couple of weeks, in the wake of terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernadino as well as the shooting in Colorado, I keep asking myself if these things are what Jesus would say. Jesus, remember, came not for “us” alone but for the world: “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16). And don’t forget the next verse: “For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him” (John 3:17). When we speak and act in condemning ways toward “the other” or even toward those who share the same faith as we do, I don’t believe we’re acting as Jesus would. He wasn’t sent to condemn; he was sent to love. I’ve been disappointed in politicians from both sides of the aisle and in Christian “leaders” of every stripe. Not that I think I have all the answers. I’m struggling, too, in a world of hate and fear. And though I don’t always live it out perfectly, I know that I am sent to love, to be Immanuel, God with us—maybe especially to that person who is nothing like me.

So who is God sending you to love this Christmas? Maybe it’s someone you know who is struggling this year, someone for whom this might even be their first “blue Christmas,” or their twenty-first. By the way, tonight at 6:30 p.m., we’ll be having a “Blue Christmas” prayer service, a time of hope and healing for those who struggle during this season. Maybe you might want to invite someone to come and join you tonight. But, even beyond the service tonight is this question: who is God sending you to love? That family member whom you’d rather stay far away from this year? That neighbor who is always doing things that annoy you? The terrorist, the person from the other religion, the person whose political views could not be more different than yours? Who is God sending you to love this Christmas? Jesus was sent to be Immanuel, God with us, so that we could know the full extent of God’s love for us. Today, he continues to show that love through you and me. We love others so that they can receive the gift of hope this Christmas. Let’s pray.