by CCW | 3 January 2016 15:13
Christmas really is all about what we are given to behold. To be sure, there is rather a lot to behold in the richness of Christmas, itself a twelve day wonder that not even twelve days can exhaust. After St, Luke’s story of the nativity and St. John’s theological tour de force, we have St. Matthew’s account. It sounds a more human and a more personal note. It is not by accident that the symbol for St. Matthew’s Gospel is a winged man. His account of the nativity shows us the perplexity of Joseph finding himself in the strange predicament of being betrothed to Mary who is found to be with child. Matthew quickly adds “of the Holy Ghost” but Joseph has yet to learn that. His initial response is to make private arrangements. “But while he thought on these things, behold…”
To behold is to pay attention. It requires something of us. What it requires is exactly what we see in Joseph. There is the equally outstanding measure of Mary, who is really in the background here, the figure of Joseph’s musings and perplexity. “How can this be,” it might seem he is asking, even though that is, quite literally, Mary’s question at the Annunciation. Matthew, of course, does not provide us with the account of the Annunciation to Mary; only Luke does. Here in Matthew’s account, however, is a kind of angelic annunciation to Joseph. In his quiet musings, “being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example,” he “was minded to put her away privily.” An angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream to direct him otherwise but only because he was thinking on these things, things which have all his attention.
Matthew’s account unfolds the story of Christ’s nativity through the quiet, humble eyes of Joseph to whom the angel speaks. His words to Joseph are like the angel’s words to the shepherds, “fear not.” What we are given to behold is something wonderful, something for all. Notice how Matthew, quite marvelously really and with great economy of words, unfolds all of the significant points. Mary is your wife. What is conceived in her is “of the Holy Ghost” – though what exactly he is meant to make of that remains unclear! “She shall bring forth a Son,” and, here is something else quite wonderful, “And thou shalt call his name Jesus.” The explanation is precise, “for he shall save his people from their sins.”
The name Jesus is Yeshua, Joshua, saviour, but here the point is explicit that this Jesus, this saviour, cannot be understood simply or even at all in terms of a worldly and a political saviour, the messiah of our economic or political anxieties, for instance. No. This is emphatically religious. “He shall save his people from their sins.” What really imprisons us is, of course, our sins. And, as if to make the point even more dramatically and emphatically, Matthew’s account recalls Isaiah’s prophecy and includes the key interpretation. Not only shall Joseph name him, Jesus, but this is understood to connect to Isaiah’s prophecy of the one born of a Virgin who shall be called Emmanuel, “which being interpreted,” Matthew adds, “is God with us.” All the Christmas themes of theological identity and grace are wonderfully and concisely presented to us by St. Matthew.
And all of the ambiguities, too. The ambiguities of Joseph’s quiet wondering about what to do, his thinking upon the dilemma of Mary’s pregnancy, being with child that is not of his doing! And yet, it is Joseph’s thoughtful and, dare I say, prayerful demeanour that makes him open to the company of angels, and open, as Mary is herself, to the things of God’s great making. Fear not!
Perhaps, no account of the nativity raises more skeptical questions than Matthew’s precisely because of the humanity of Joseph that confronts us here. It appears as a kind of gentle marvel of grace. And it is. It shows us something of the true workings of grace. Grace works upon the heart and the mind and places us in the company of the angels. Grace counters even our cynical skepticisms, perhaps.
The thoughtful gentleness of Joseph belongs to our Christmas contemplations. It places us with him enwrapped in angel’s thoughts, in the dreams of our better selves. It bids us behold the rich fullness of Bethlehem and helps us contemplate the great wonder of Christ’s holy birth. The ring of truth in the nativity narratives lies precisely in their simple honesty and simplicity. The quiet wonder of God with us turns the world on its head. What appears in Matthew’s account is the quiet dignity of it all, the quiet and humble dignity of Joseph and his thoughts, the quiet dignity that belongs to the wonder of Christmas, the wonder of what we are given to behold. God bestows a great and wonderful dignity upon our humanity in the simplicity and the lowliness of Christ’s holy birth. God’s ways are not our ways but in the birth of Christ, we are bidden to behold how God makes his way with us and in us.
A familiar story and yet how strange, really. We do not easily behold the quiet mystery of God’s engagement with our humanity, it seems. We do not easily grasp the gift of holy dignity bestowed upon our humanity in Christ’s birth. And so we look and pass, we come and go on our merry ways, the wonder of Christmas already behind us; the decorations and markings of the season already forgotten and packed away for another year. We forget that we are meant to stay in Bethlehem and behold in quiet awe and wonder the meaning of that holy scene. Here is the hope and the truth of our humanity. It is found in our being with God because of God with us, Emmanuel, but even more, because he is named Jesus, saviour. It is what we are given to think upon and behold.
Fr. David Curry
Christmas II, Jan. 3rd, 2016 re 2009
Source URL: https://christchurchwindsor.ca/2016/01/03/sermon-for-the-second-sunday-after-christmas-5/
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