Fourth Advent, 2004: 

The daughter told her young man that he would have to meet her father before she would be allowed to go out with him.  He came to the house a half-hour before their date for just that purpose.  The dad met the young man in the living room and said, “I just want you to know that whoever marries my daughter will be getting a wonderful prize.”

“Okay,” said the gentleman caller, “but first let me see the prize.”

Joseph might have thought he wanted to say that to God.  Perhaps he should have ask what he was getting himself into when he agreed to marry Mary and have a series of dreams that led from Nazareth to Bethlehem to Egypt to Jerusalem to Nazareth again.  That’s a lot of traveling.  I don’t know that we pay enough attention to the ministry of Joseph in the church.      

We get a little glimpse of who Joseph was from scripture.  Matthew says he was a righteous man, apparently not terribly jealous and not too driven to revenge or retribution.  He didn’t want to embarrass Mary when he found out she was pregnant and that the child was not his.  He planned to simply walk down to the public square when no one else was around and say three times, “I divorce you, I divorce you, I divorce you.”  That’s the way it was done but, only if you were a man, of course.  Women were considered property and were without rights, except those granted to them by the father or husband. 

Joseph planned to do that and then he had his first dream.  It was often thought that God visited people in their dreams.  For Joseph these night visions may have been closer to nightmares.  It may have gotten to the place that he was afraid to close his eyes, but Joseph was a good man, a righteous man and would not expose his intended to public disgrace and ridicule.  Would that we had more men like Joseph?

It might be helpful to understand a little more about this seemingly strange marriage custom of the Jewish people at that time.  The first thing that happened was an engagement.  Very often this was arranged while the two people were still children and was handled through the parents or a professional matchmaker.  And it very often was made without the couple involved having seen each other.  It was simply thought that marriage was too serious a step to be left to the whims of Cupid or the fickleness of the human heart.

The betrothal came next in the order of things.  This was the ratification of the engagement into which the couple had previously entered.  At this point the engagement, made by the parents or a matchmaker, could be broken by the woman if she was unwilling to go through with it.  But once the betrothal was entered into, it was absolutely binding.  The betrothal lasted one year.  During that year the two were known as husband and wife, although they had not the rights of husbands and wives as we understand them.  The betrothal could only be terminated by divorce.  It was at this stage that Mary and Joseph were.  They were betrothed.  Mary was legally known as Joseph’s wife.

The third stage was the marriage itself.  After the year of betrothal the marriage became official.  It was during the betrothal period that it was told to Joseph that Mary was to bear a child and that he must be called Jesus, “Jehovah is salvation.”  Joseph is told that the child to be born would grow into the Savior who would save God’s people from their sins. 

In Jewish thought the Holy Spirit had certain very definite functions.  We cannot bring to this passage the Christian idea of the Holy Spirit in all its fullness, because Joseph would know nothing about that.  We must interpret it is the light of the Jewish idea of the Holy Spirit, for it is that idea that Joseph would inevitably bring to this message, for that was all he knew.

According to Jewish thought, the Holy Spirit was the reality who brought God’s truth to human beings.  It was the Holy Spirit who taught the prophets what to say, it was the Holy Spirit who taught the people of God what to say, and it was the Holy Spirit who, throughout the ages and generations, brought God’s truth to people.  So then, Jesus is the one person who brings God’s truth to people.

Seen another way, Jesus is the one person who can tell us what God is like, and what God means us to be.  In Jesus alone we see what God is and what we ought to be.  Before Jesus came along people had only vague and shadowy, and often quite wrong, ideas about God.   People could only guess and grope.  Jesus could say, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”  In Jesus we see the love, the compassion, the mercy, the seeking heart, the purity of God as nowhere else in the world.  With the coming of Jesus the time of guessing is gone, and the time of certainty is come.  Before Jesus came people did not really know what goodness was.  In Jesus alone we see true personhood, true goodness, and true obedience to the will of God.  Jesus came to tell us the truth about God and about ourselves.

Also, the Jews believed that the Holy Spirit not only brought God truth to people, but also enabled people to recognize that truth when they saw it.  So then Jesus opened people’s eyes to the truth.  People are blinded by their own ignorance, they are led astray by their own prejudices, their minds and eyes are darkened by their own sins and their own passions.  Jesus can open our eyes until we are able to see the truth.

Life is quite different when Jesus teaches us how to look at things.  When Jesus comes into our hearts, he opens our eyes to see things truly.

The Jews especially connected the Spirit of God with the work of creation.  In was through the Spirit that God performed the creating out of nothing work.  So, then, in Jesus there came into the world God’s life-giving and creating power.  That power is come to bring order of our disordered life.  That power, which breathed life into that is which there was no life, is come to breathe life into our weaknesses and frustrations.

Finally, the Jews also connected the Spirit, not only with the work of creation, but with the work of re-creation. When people are dead in sin and in personal weakness, it is the Spirit of God that can awaken us to life anew.

So then, in Jesus there came to this world the power that can re-create life.  He can bring to life again the soul that is dead in sin.  He can revive again the ideals that have died.  He can make strong again the will to goodness that has perished.  Jesus can renew life, when people have lost all that life means.

Jesus enables us to see what God is and what people ought to be.  Jesus opens the eyes of our minds so that we can see the truth of God for us.  Jesus is the creating power come amongst us.  Jesus is the re-creating power that can release the souls of people from the death of sin.

All of that is behind the passage from the Gospel of Matthew for today.  God is indeed Emmanuel.  God is indeed with us.  Amen.