On this fourth Sunday in Advent the Scriptures call us to remember Joseph, the forgotten
man of the Nativity; relegated to the back row, "no speaking part" in the annual tableau of the Holy
Family. It's certainly not hard to believe this little story about what can happen (or not happen) to a "Joseph"
character in the Christmas play.
A worried mother phoned the church office on the afternoon before the annual Christmas pageant to say that her
small son, who was to play the role of Joseph in the Christmas play, had a cold and had gone to bed on doctor's
orders. "It's too late now to get another Joseph," the director of the play said. "We'll just have
to write him out of the script." And so they did, and few of those who watched that night realized that the
cast was incomplete. (from "The Man at the Manger", a sermon for Advent 4, by Bass Mitchell, http://www.egroups.com/list/homily)
Can you imagine writing Joseph out of the script? But let's face it, he is pretty nondescript. He is easy to overlook
and leave out. You've got to have a Baby Jesus and a Mary, and angels and shepherds, and a few animals or two to
make your nativity look authentic, but sometimes the "Joseph" characters are not as crucial. After all,
many a church family has been known to substitute a Wise Man or shepherd for Joseph in the crèche scene
on occasion, and, to be honest, sometimes it's hard to tell them apart.
God didn't have that trouble long ago in Nazareth however. God chose Joseph to be the earthly father of Jesus,
and even though in the Gospels themselves, Joseph is mentioned only a few times (and not at all in Mark!), he is
a central character in God's plan, a simple man of love and character, a model for men and women across the years.
You can't get to Christmas in all of its glory without going through the plain carpenter called Joseph.
To be fair, Joseph had a lot on his mind. After all, he was engaged to Mary and suddenly she tells him she's pregnant.
Matthew tells us two quick things about the carpenter at that point. He tells us Joseph was righteous, and that
he was human. He had his own understanding of morality, and he was not about to be played the fool by anyone.
But Matthew is also quick to tell us one more sterling quality of Joseph. He's a thinker. "But after he had
considered this," writes Matthew, "an angel appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of
David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."
We pay a lot of attention gender-wise for Mary's "pondering all of these things in her heart" as proof
that she was the quiet contemplative in the family, and most of us have relegated Joseph to the periphery of intellectuals.
Sometimes he even comes across as somewhat dim-witted; just another dreamer.
This sort of reminds us of the Old Testament Joseph. If we call persons "dreamers" in a modern, secular
sense, we think of them as out of touch with reality. Only occasionally do people turn dreams into concrete possibility.
Biblically speaking, dreams tell us more about what is truly real than that which we can observe in the day time,
fully awake. Karl Jung confirmed that truth centuries later in a study of over 8,000 dreams which pointed to deep
spiritual truths on the part of the dreamer.
What do we really know about this dreamer?
There is an old Jewish saying, "You always know the mother, but you never know the father," and so it
was important on the eighth day at the circumcision to name the child. On that day, when Joseph says "his
name is Jesus Bar Joseph, this little boy legally became Joseph's son."
In a meditation about Joseph written by St.Bernardine of Sienna in the early 1500's she wrote:
"This is the general rule that applies to all individual graces given to a rational creature. Whenever divine
grace selects someone to receive a particular grace, or some especially favored position, all the gifts for his
state are given to that person, and enrich him abundantly."
"This is especially true of that holy man Joseph, the supposed father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and true husband
of the queen of the world and of the angels. He was chosen by the eternal Father to be the faithful foster-parent
and guardian of the most precious treasures of God, his Son and his spouse. This was the task which he so faithfully
carried out. For this, the Lord said to him, 'Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your Lord.'
"A comparison can be made between Joseph and the whole Church of Christ. Joseph was the specially chosen man
through whom and under whom Christ entered the world fittingly and in an appropriate way. So, if the whole Church
is in the debt of the Virgin Mary, since, through her, it was able to receive the Christ, surely after her, it
also owes to Joseph special thanks and veneration."
"For he it is who marks the closing of the old testament. In him the dignity of the prophets and patriarchs
achieves its promised fulfillment.
Moreover, he alone possessed in the flesh what God in his goodness promised to them over and again."
If such traditions bear witness to the vast spiritual character of this man, then of what was he afraid? In the
message of Gabriel to Joseph: "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife...."
points out a little noted difficulty. A man from the house and lineage of David, the lion of Judah, in entering
into a covenant relationship of the deepest order with a girl apparently from the priestly line of Levi. The sword
and the spirit, how can this be? The angel's words, do not be afraid to enter into such a covenant, stress a lack
of fear in the same way God has not been afraid to enter into covenants not only with "pure" Jews, but
Jews of mixed lineage and even non-Jews.
As I shared with you last week, Isaiah's prophecies to King Ahaz came at a time when Jerusalem was under siege.
Ahaz needed a sign, and he needed the sign now…not 700 years later. The commentary I've read suggests that the
"young woman" Isaiah was talking about was just as likely a young woman who was at Ahaz's court, to whom
Isaiah could literally point a finger and say, "Look, she's pregnant. She's going to have a son. And that
birth is the sign that God is with us."
There's a local TV station that ends its nightly newscasts with a report of how many babies have been born in the
region that day. Then they say, "Life goes on. Goodnight, everyone."
Likewise, the birth of this child, who may or may not have been something special, was a sign that even in the
midst of the chaos and destruction surrounding Jerusalem, God was still with them, life still did go on. In a very
real sense, that was (and is!) a miracle.
In today's world still a family can love their pregnant teenage daughter, and love the child she brings into the
world. If they seek to raise that child in an environment of love, who knows what kind of special person that child
will grow to be?
Isaiah had prophesied that they would name this child Immanuel, but the gospels tell us his name is Jesus. Why
the difference?
There are many ways of looking at the birth of Jesus, but two particularly have vied for our allegiance. There
is the incarnational view and there is the redemptive view.
In incarnational theology the stress is on God's affirmation of the human condition by God's coming to us and taking
on human flesh. "The 'word became flesh' and elevated the worth of all people because 'God loved the world
so much.'" So the incarnation serves as "God's endorsement of humanity". "Christmas is a time
to be reminded of our worth in the sight of our Creator."
Yet does "'Immanuel', which means, 'God with us'", actually mean that God wants to be with us because
God thinks being human is wonderful? Does God in Christ take on human flesh to affirm humanity, or does God take
on human flesh to save humanity?" The Christ child's real name is "Jesus", which means "he
will save". "He will save his people from their sins."
In Christ's birth, prophecy is fulfilled. The day dawns when God's people will be "saved", in the sense
of saved from their sin and thus reunited to God. It is in this sense that Jesus is "Immanuel". He restores
his people to their living God and thus "God is with" them. He restores the relationship of the lost,
of the sinner, to their creator God, so that they are with God and God is with them. The birth of Jesus is primarily
a redemptive act, rather than an incarnational act of God. Jesus comes to save, and if to save, he must take upon
himself human flesh. In our place he becomes the faithful servant of God, even unto death.
Christ's divine Sonship is at the very heart of the Church's worship. If Jesus of Nazareth is not God, then the
Magi, shepherds, angels, and the early Church are all guilty of the sin of idolatry.
Bishop Spong points out that the impetus in the Church to proclaim the virginity of Mary really came when science
realized that in procreation, it was not only the male who was important, but also the woman who provided the nurture
required to carry the new life to full term. The basic word in Latin for "womb" is nidus, "a nest."
When science realized that both partners had an equal share in the genes of a child, the Church realized that Mary
had a much more significant role in the course of salvation than was previously appreciated. Devotion demanded
that she become even more exalted above the expectations of mere mortals, and her purity and virginity began to
be taught as being critically important.
This desire to exalt the Holy Family above the general "run of the mill" populous like the rest of us,
runs rather counter to the whole spirit of the incarnation; that Jesus came to be one of us. Not just in our triumphs,
but also in our tragedies.
In 1861, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was filled with sorrow at the tragic death of his wife in a fire. That same
year, the War Between the States broke out, and it seemed there was no good news to celebrate. Two years later,
Longfellow was saddened to hear the his own son had been seriously wounded as an officer in the Army of the Potomac.
What could Christmas possibly bring?
Sitting down to his desk, on Christmas Day, Longfellow heard the church bells ringing, and in that setting he wrote:
I heard the bells on Christmas Day
Their old familiar carols play
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth I said
For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
Then pealed the bells more loud and deep,
God is not dead, nor doth he sleep.
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.
That is our message on this day when the world is once again plunged into war. God speaks to us in renewed dreams
of hope and joy, by angels who are all around us, and by his Word, born in Bethlehem's stable so long ago, and
born anew in our hearts with the life of every child today, and the courage of the parents who welcome them into
this dangerous and wonderful world, in this, and every year! Amen
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