Seeing Angels

Matthew 1:18-21

December 24, 2017 (10:00 a.m.) • Mount Pleasant UMC

Well, it’s the day of the night before Christmas—tonight is Christmas Eve, but this morning it’s still Advent. It’s December 24, and I’m wondering how many of you have not yet started your Christmas shopping yet? You’re waiting for those last-minute deals at the convenience store, right? Or you’re still looking for the gift for the person who has everything. We get so focused on the gift-buying and the gift-giving this season that by the time we get to this day, to the fourth Sunday of Advent, we can arrive exhausted and just ready for the whole thing to be over.

Centuries ago in a town called Patara (now in modern-day Turkey), there lived a young man who was a follower of Jesus. As the celebration of Jesus’ birth drew near, he wanted to find a way to rightly celebrate the birth of Jesus. He spent a lot of time in prayer and reflection, and he came this conclusion: the best way to celebrate this baby born in a manger was to find needy children in the community and do something to help them. Jesus, he remembered, was born in poverty, and his first bed was a cattle trough. The magi, he also remembered, brought the baby Jesus gifts to help the poor family. But this young man didn’t want to take credit for the help he gave; he remembered how Jesus said we should make sure out giving is in secret (cf. Matthew 6:3-4). So he made sure the gifts were given to the children in a way that no one knew who was responsible. Eventually, this young follower became a bishop and after his death he was canonized as a saint. His name was Nicholas, though we know him better as Saint Nicholas, and in many ways it’s because of his generous spirit that we continue to give gifts yet today (cf. Hamilton, Faithful, pg. 61). However, in the intervening centuries, the focus of our gift giving seems to have shifted toward what we can get and away from impacting those in need. I’m so proud to serve a church that takes the example of Nicholas seriously at Christmastime. That’s why we filled 630 boxes for Operation Christmas Child, and sent them around the world to children in need. That’s why we gave 200 gifts to 100 children of prisoners through Prison Fellowship’s Angel Tree program this past month, presents that were delivered last week. That’s why you gave about $600 to the Bishop’s Christmas Offering for children a couple of Sundays ago to provide camp scholarships and funds for children’s ministries across Indiana. And that’s why we hosted 120 children and gave them gifts through the 14th & Chestnut Christmas Party just a little over a week ago. It’s because of the example of Nicholas, and even more, it’s because of the one he followed, a baby who was born because of the gentleness and kindness in the heart of a carpenter named Joseph.

This Advent season, we’ve been exploring the story of Christmas through the eyes of Joseph, the step-father of Jesus. In the last few weeks, we’ve talked about who Joseph was, and the ways he influenced this boy who was entrusted to him. And we looked at the choice he made to be a father, to take on Mary’s shame and raise Jesus as his own. Tonight, we’ll look at what it meant for Joseph and Mary to travel to Bethlehem, but this morning I want us to think about what it took for Joseph to make the decision to obey God, a decision that altered the rest of his life. It took nothing less than an angel from God to change Joseph’s mind and his life.

Let’s remember where we are in the story. Joseph, as we discovered, is a tekton, an artisan and probably a stonemason, who lived and worked in Bethlehem. At some point early in their lives, his parents and Mary’s parents most likely arranged their marriage, and now the time has come, when Mary is somewhere around 13 and Joseph is likely just a bit older (though not everyone agrees on that point), for the formal engagement. After that point, they were considered husband and wife, but they were not allowed to live together or consummate their marriage until the formal ceremony, a year or two after the engagement. At some point in that process, Mary has been visited by the angel Gabriel who has told her that she will give birth to the Son of God, and that the baby will be conceived in her by the Holy Spirit. It’s a crazy story, and we can understand why Joseph doesn’t believe her at first. Joseph knows how babies are made, and it’s nothing like what Mary is saying happened to her. He has no choice but to conclude that she has been unfaithful to him. So, being a “just” man, he makes up his mind to divorce her quietly and move on with his life. He knew what kind of shame and disgrace Mary was in for, and Joseph wanted nothing to do with that. None of us would, really.

Matthew says Joseph has “considered” this, which means he has it somewhat firmly in his mind. He may still be wrestling with it somewhat, but he pretty much knows what he’s going to do. Do you know what that feels like? I think of it in terms of making a big purchase. You do your research, you check all the options and you consider the variables. Price, quality, dependability…which option is the best for your family? You Google it, you think through it, you may even talk to friends about it. But there comes a moment when you have to make a decision and go with it. That’s what Joseph has done. He’s thought, prayed, deliberated within himself, maybe even talked to his local rabbi. The big question has been this one: how can he be faithful to God if he takes a wife who, it appears, has been unfaithful—both to him and to God? Can he be a “just” man and accept Mary’s baby as his own? In his own mind, Joseph decides he cannot, and though he could order her death, he will instead exercise compassion and quietly divorce Mary. It will be like their relationship never happened.

And that’s when God steps in. Joseph goes to sleep, mostly decided about what he is going to do, and as he dreams, an angel comes to speak to him. Like his Old Testament namesake, Joseph is apparently a man who can more easily believe a dream than a real-life encounter with an angel (Card, Matthew: The Gospel of Identity, pg. 28). And that leads to three things I want to note about this dream. First of all, what’s amazing to me is the way God condescends to communicate with us in the way that is most effective, the way in which we will actually pay attention. There’s not a “one-size-fits-all” communication method that God uses. To Mary, the angel shows up in broad daylight. To the prophet Isaiah, the angels show up as beautiful, winged beings. To Abraham, God comes as a traveler—three travelers, actually—in need of hospitality. And to men named Joseph, both in the Old and New Testaments, he comes in a dream. My guess is that, for this hard working tekton, the only time God could really get his attention was when he was asleep and not focused on other things. God speaks to us in a way we can understand.

Which brings me to my second observation about this story. In the ancient world, especially in the Old Testament world, dreams were often considered a means of divine communication (cf. Wilkins, NIV Application Commentary: Matthew, pg. 76). Now, they didn’t believe that every dream contained something God was trying to tell them, but they did believe that God could and would sometimes use dreams to get a message across to human beings. It’s interesting, though, that in Matthew’s Gospel such a method of communication is confined to the very beginning. It’s almost as if, once Jesus is born, once God’s Son is on earth, he no longer needs to use that means to get his message across. Jesus is the message. So, do I believe that God still uses dreams to communicate? I think the answer now is the same as it was in ancient times: sometimes. Probably no one did more to draw attention to our dreams and their potential meaning than Sigmund Freud in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Freud emphasized the importance of the unconscious mind, he believed that the unconscious mind governs behavior to a greater degree than people suspect. His goal in therapy was to make the unconscious conscious, to help people understand their dreams and what they might say about their lives. Now, whatever you believe about Freud’s theories, we do know that very often the dreams we have flow out of our mind trying to work out problems or deal with things going on in our lives. I believe God can work directly in that wrestling, and even help us work through things that are puzzling us. Sometimes, still, the only way God can get through to us in our busy and noisy world is when we’re still and quiet and sleeping. But I don’t believe, any more than the ancients did, that every dream is a message from God. Some of my dreams are just weird and make no sense no matter how hard I think about them. Sometimes I’ll ask Cathy, my in-house counselor, what she thinks about a dream I’ve had, and usually she’ll just shake her head and ask me what I had to eat the night before. God can speak through dreams, but he doesn’t speak through every dream.

However, Matthew is clear that God was using Joseph’s dreams to speak and to communicate a message that would change the future of the world. God sent an angel—we’re not told, but I’ve always assumed it was Gabriel, the same angel who spoke to Mary—and the angel tells Joseph that it’s going to be okay. He should go ahead and marry Mary and raise the child because “what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (1:20). Mary hasn’t been unfaithful to you, Joseph. Quite the opposite. Mary has been willing to suffer all sorts of disgrace and shame for the sake of the mission God has called her to. Mary is the servant of the Lord, and now, Joseph, this is your chance to join her on God’s mission.

So what, do you think, an angel looks like? At this time of the year, maybe the most well-known image of an angel is this one. Take a listen.

VIDEO: “It’s a Wonderful Life: Clarence”

Most often, in the Scriptures, angels do look like ordinary people. Though there were some theological issues with the television show Touched By An Angel, one thing they got right was the “ordinary” appearance of angels. We have come to rely more on medieval paintings than on the Biblical accounts for our assumptions about what angels are like (cf. Carson, “Matthew,” Expositor’s Bible Commentary, Vol. 8, pg. 75). In the Biblical story, the word “angel” most often refers to a messenger from God, but the basic word is much more generic than that. The word means, simply, “messenger” and doesn’t necessarily imply anything of divine origin, which makes me want to ask: have you seen angels? I haven’t ever seen any of the winged and haloed variety, though I knew someone who once told me that the angel Gabriel hung out by her fire pit every evening. My (admittedly cynical) response was that I thought the angel who announced the birth of the messiah probably has better things to do than hang out night after night by a fire pit in rural Indiana. No, I’ve never seen something or someone who matched those medieval paintings, but I do remember a time when we were in seminary, coming home from Lexington, Kentucky, and we hit a patch of ice just as we were turning on the road to Wilmore. My friend and I got out to push the car out of the ditch, while Cathy was behind the steering wheel, but being seminary students, we weren’t really suited nor dressed for getting a car out of a ditch on a snowy, icy evening. Suddenly, there was a guy there whose name I never did get, who helped us push it out. We said thanks, he shook our hands, and he was gone. When I looked around, I realized there were no other cars around, nor were there any lights in any houses nearby. I suppose he could have been a neighbor who was out for a walk, but I’ve believed since then that he was an angel, sent to help us in a time of need. There have been other times I’ve seen what I later realized might have been angels, and I’ve read and heard enough stories to believe that God still sends angels—supernatural messengers—to help his people. Probably not to stand by fire pits, but to encourage, strengthen and give direction to his people, just as the angel in the dream did with Joseph.

But I also believe we see other sorts of angels each and every day, and we most often fail to realize it. Angels are those who help us see God’s plan for our lives, and often “angels” (or messengers) look like the people in our lives who keep prodding us, pulling us, pushing us to move forward with God’s plan, who help us say “yes” to God’s call. So let me ask again: have you seen any angels lately? In the last couple of months, due to my heart surgery, I’ve been in many places I’d never been before, particularly in doctor’s offices and rehab units, and I often get asked the question, “So what do you do?” (Only once was I asked if I was retired yet; I must have looked really tired that day.) When I proudly tell people I am one of the pastors at Mount Pleasant Church, I get all sorts of responses. One man, who attends another church in town, said to me while we were both pedaling bicycles at cardiac rehab that what he loves most about this church is the way you care for one another and for the community. This church has a reputation, he said, for hospitality. One of the ways we do that showed up in another conversation I had recently, where someone told me, “No one does funeral meals like Mount Pleasant does.” And they weren’t talking about the food particularly, even though the food is always great. They were talking about the ways we create a space and an atmosphere where a grieving family can find peace, encouragement, comfort and strength, where they can just have time to be together, share stories, and not have to worry about anything. Those who take care of all those details become angels to those in need, those who are hurting deeply in those times. Some of you have been the recipients of that kind of care. You’ve seen angels.

You angels show up in other ways, too. A couple of weeks ago, a bunch of you went out and sang Christmas carols to shut-ins and to nursing home residents. Every single week here, we have a group of women who go throughout the community to visit our shut-ins. They take them a bulletin or a CD of the service or a newsletter and on the first week of the month, they take them communion. None of those folks were or are looking for a reward or for recognition; they’re simply responding to God’s call on their lives and allowing themselves to be used as angels, messengers of God’s love. Others of you send cards, and I know that, though I haven’t lived in a nursing home, when I was in the hospital and when I was home full-time recovering from surgery, I so appreciated the visits in the hospital and the cards and notes that came my way while I was shut-in at home. The highlight of my day, most days, was going to the mailbox! (That is, until the hospital bills started showing up!) I’ve seen angels, and so have you.

And then I think about the everyday angels who do significant ministry here every week, doing the things Jesus told us to do. Jesus calls his church to feed the hungry, give the thirsty something to drink, invite in the strangers, clothe the naked, look after the sick and visit those in prison (cf. Matthew 25:31-46). The Scriptures over and over again call us to notice, reach out to and care for the least, the last and the lost. You’ve had a chance to do that through some of the ministries to children I mentioned earlier, but there are also angels who, every week, faithfully show up and sit with children in the nursery, teach kids and youth the Bible, or just love on them in a world that often shows so little love. And every week, we have teachers and helpers who show up, day after day, often in the building before some of us are awake, to teach preschool. They’re not just teaching ABC’s; they’re helping to grow character and introducing children to the savior—each and every day. And then there’s Upward Sports, where elementary kids are welcomed and loved and told about Jesus. Some of them get to play competitive sports for the first time, and as a non-athletic kid, I can tell you how powerful it is to be allowed to do that! Then there’s Grace Unlimited, where special needs kids, youth and adults find the love of God poured out on them. There is not another ministry like that anywhere in this city, and there are angels who come every Tuesday night to love on our kids. The same thing happens with those who are challenged by addictions. On Tuesday and Friday nights, when they come to Celebrate Recovery, they are surrounded by angels who provide a non-judgmental atmosphere of healing and hope. Every other Monday night, we have a group from here that takes Celebrate Recovery into the Vigo County Jail, and there are others who are mentoring prisoners out at the Federal Penitentiary. Jesus said, “Visit the prisoners. Look after the sick. Welcome the stranger.” Jesus himself welcomed children and outcasts and widows and those on the outside of life. I wonder: could this be what the writer to the Hebrews meant when he wrote, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it” (Hebrews 13:2)? I look out across this congregation and I see angels. You’ve seen them, too. Joseph had a divine visitor, but he and Mary undoubtedly also had less-heavenly angels who helped them as they prepared to welcome the savior of the world. The question I have for you this morning is this: how can God use you this week as a messenger, an angel, someone who brings good news to someone else in need?

So an angel comes to Joseph, in his time of need, at a critical moment, and reassures him that Mary has not been unfaithful to him. He can continue to be a man faithful to God and marry Mary. He can raise this child as his own. And that leads me to my third observation about this dream. In the dream, the angel gives Joseph a specific task: “You are to give him [the child] the name Jesus” (1:21). From Luke’s account, we know Mary was told Jesus’ name, but Joseph was the one who was given the specific instruction to name the child. Naming a child had never been a task exclusively expected of either the mother or the father (Carson 75), but the angel here is very specific. This time, it is Joseph’s task. Why is that so important? I think it may be for two reasons. One, it directly ties Jesus to Joseph’s family, which puts him in the lineage of King David. It was always prophesied that the Messiah would come through David’s family, so while Joseph wasn’t Jesus’ biological father, he would become his Dad the moment he named Jesus. And, along that same lines, I think Joseph doing that was also a way of drawing Joseph in. He may make the decision now to take Mary as his wife and to raise her son, but the moment he gives Jesus a name, he is connected to that child. It would be, in many ways, a public confession that this child is now his. The child would be known as Jesus, son of Joseph.

And so, “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus” (1:24-25). It might as well say, “Everything God said to do, Joseph did.” And when we wonder where Joseph found the strength to face the ridicule, the shame, the journey to Bethlehem that we’ll talk about tonight, we just need to look a couple of verses up and let Matthew remind us of one of the names the ancient prophet had given to the Messiah. He was going to be known as “Immanuel,” a word, Matthew reminds us, which means “God with us” (1:23). Joseph had seen an angel in his dream, but honestly that vision would not have been enough to get him through what were probably some very difficult days. He needed the reminder that God is with him, just like we do. Jesus is Immanuel. He is God with us, each and every day.

Christmas is often set in the midst of one of two situations. For some, this is a very difficult time because of loss or just the general blues. We sought to help with that this past Thursday in our Longest Night Service, but I know that just a short time of worship does not take all the struggle away. For some, this is a very dark time of year indeed, and they need the reminder every day, maybe every minute, that God is with them. God is with you. He is sending angels to surround you each and every day. Some of them you will see and others you will not, but they are there nonetheless. God is with you because the baby to be born is called Immanuel. The other situation is what research study after research study tells us, that people are more open to spiritual things this time of year than any other time of year. Christmas is a more open time than even Easter. And in our divided, frustrating, struggling world, we need a reminder that there is a savior who longs to be with us. God came to earth as a baby to be with us, and to, as Matthew reminds us, “save his people from their sins” (1:21). He does that when he comes near. Maybe this morning, you wandered in here not sure what to expect, just looking for a place to go to church for Christmas. Hear this good news: the God who made you longs to be near you, to be with you, to save you from your sin and love you. There is nothing you can do to make God love you more and there is nothing you can do to make God love you less. Let him come near you today, for he is Immanuel, God with us. It only takes a prayer, so let us pray.