Disappointed with Christmas - Luke 2:1-7, Matthew 2:13-15

© December 14th, 2025 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Advent

Recently, I saw a YouTube video where the host of the video had brought together his staff and told them they were going to compete in various challenges. He told them that the winner of the challenge would receive a new Toyota. Unfortunately, when they got to the end of it all, they realized that what he said was easily misunderstood (and this was intentional), because what the winner received was a new plush doll of the Star Wars character—a new toy Yoda! Needless to say, the winners were somewhat disappointed. He did something similar this year at Christmas, promising his competitors that the winner would receive a Hawaiian cruise. The winners received a picture of Terry Crews wearing a Hawaiian lei.

Maybe you’ve had experiences in life where you’ve been disappointed with the outcome—where what you received wasn’t what you thought it was going to be. Maybe it was a gift someone promised you, or maybe it was something else, like a relationship that didn’t seem to end up the way you expected, a job that was different than you’d planned, or an experience that just didn’t work out the way you thought it would. Most of us have had experiences where we were caught off guard by what happened, and you may have even struggled with disappointment because things weren’t the way you expected.

This morning, we’re going to look at how this may have been true for Mary and Joseph. We often see them as pillars of faith who stood firm in God’s plans (and they were that!), but they also surely had times of struggle and doubt and uncertainty.

My hope today is that if you find yourself in a season like that this Christmas, you’ll be able to find strength in the example of Mary and Joseph, and that we will learn what it means to walk in faith, even when things don’t go the way we planned. We’re going to look at several different principles that can hopefully guide us through the inevitable hard times of life.

Faith Means Surrendering Our Plans to God

The first principle we see in Mary and Joseph’s example is that faith means surrendering our plans to God. Mary and Joseph surely had dreams for what their lives were going to look like. Mary likely had been planning her dream wedding and dreamed about the life she was going to build with her husband.

Joseph was probably building a home for himself and his soon-to-be wife. He likely looked forward to the day they would be able to start having children together and may have dreamed about becoming a respected businessman in the community. But all of these dreams went by the wayside because God threw a wrench into the mix. The birth of Jesus, and the miraculous pregnancy that Mary experienced definitely complicated things.

Mary had to make peace with the fact that her marriage to Joseph may not happen. Joseph, though he desired to be kind to Mary, intended to break the engagement. But when an angel appeared to him and told him to go through with the marriage, he did. Mary also had to make peace with the fact that her dream wedding wasn’t going to happen. In fact, her wedding to Joseph would likely end up being a quiet affair. They were probably shunned by the community, because no one believed her story.

And they both had to come to terms with the fact that though they were going to be the parents of the Messiah, they would likely never be seen as well-respected members of the community again. While Mary is respected now, she likely did not receive much respect during her life. Many people suspect that Joseph died before Jesus began His ministry, so he probably lived the remainder of his life as somewhat of an outsider, as people always looked at him with a bit of a sideways glance.

Though neither one likely could have anticipated all the ways God would change their plans, they had to make a decision at the very beginning that they were going to submit their plans to God. They had to decide that His way was better, and choose to go His way, even though they didn’t know exactly what that would entail. They simply gave up their plans in favor of trusting His.

Mary’s response to the angel’s declaration is short, but significant,

38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her. (Luke 1:38, NLT)

She described herself as the Lord’s servant. She took a position of humility and submission, believing that the best thing she could do was submit her plans to God’s.

Admittedly, this is sometimes difficult. I know it was a challenge for me when I felt God was calling me into pastoral ministry. I had become enamored with the idea of becoming a doctor. I enjoyed the scientific aspect of things, and I liked the idea of being able to help solve people’s problems, but that wasn’t the most difficult thing for me to give up. What I really liked was the idea of being able to tell people I was a doctor. I liked the prestige that would come with that title. Giving up the dream that people would call me Dr. Goettsche was the biggest hurdle for me to surrender to the Lord.

I don’t know what that might be for you. God may not be calling you into pastoral ministry, or even to switch career paths. But there’s a good chance that trusting God will require you to give up some dream you’ve had, without any assurances of what will come instead. It’s the unknown that is often so difficult for us. My encouragement to you is to look at Mary and Joseph. Though the life they had didn’t end up being the life they’d dreamed of, it ended up being blessed in ways they could never have imagined. That is often how the life of faith works. Be willing to surrender your plans and instead submit to His.

Faith Means Trusting When Things Don’t Make Sense

The second thing we see in terms of the faith of Joseph and Mary is that they continued to trust God, even when what was happening didn’t make sense. Listen to how Luke records the birth narrative,

At that time the Roman emperor, Augustus, decreed that a census should be taken throughout the Roman Empire. 2 (This was the first census taken when Quirinius was governor of Syria.) 3 All returned to their own ancestral towns to register for this census. 4 And because Joseph was a descendant of King David, he had to go to Bethlehem in Judea, David’s ancient home. He traveled there from the village of Nazareth in Galilee. 5 He took with him Mary, to whom he was engaged, who was now expecting a child.

6 And while they were there, the time came for her baby to be born. 7 She gave birth to her firstborn son. She wrapped him snugly in strips of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no lodging available for them. (Luke 2:1-7, NLT)

These are familiar words, but they are worth thinking about. If you knew that you were to become the parents of the Messiah, you might expect that God would roll out the red carpet for you. You might begin to think that though people might not treat you well, God would ultimately make things go smoothly for the arrival of His Son. Sometimes we think this way. We think that if we’re doing what God wants, things should go smoothly. But that’s often not what happens. The good news is, we’re in good company, because it’s not what happened to Mary and Joseph either.

As Mary was nearing the end of her pregnancy, a sudden decree was issued that everyone needed to return to their ancestral towns to be registered in a census. Since Joseph’s family hailed from Bethlehem, he needed to return there for the census. Of course, his wife was now very pregnant. He faced a dilemma. Either he left her alone, potentially missing the birth of the Messiah (and feeling as though he had failed in the duties God had given him), or he ask his wife to make the long journey (around 90 miles!) to Bethlehem with him, potentially resulting in her having the baby along the side of the road somewhere or while they were in Bethlehem itself. The likelihood was high that she wouldn’t deliver at home as planned.

Surely this had to be a source of great frustration. Why would God allow the emperor to declare a census now? This was the moment all of history had been building towards—couldn’t God have stopped Caesar from doing this? Of course He could have! But God was doing something bigger…He just hadn’t explained it to Mary and Joseph yet.

In a similar vein, they had to feel frustrated when they found there was no lodging available for them in Bethlehem. Imagine Joseph, a new husband, and soon to be a first-time father desperately trying to find someone who could provide some sort of lodging for them. Most men (rightly) see it as their responsibility to protect and provide for their wife and children. Here was Joseph’s first major test as a husband and father and he surely felt like a failure. This was not how things were supposed to go!

But even in this, I believe Mary and Joseph continued to trust God. They believed that even though they didn’t know what He was doing, He knew what He was doing. They did the best they could, and trusted that God was in control of the rest. The outcome lay in His hands, not theirs.

Of course, with the benefit of hindsight, we can see that God had a purpose in each of these things. He was using them to fulfill prophecies made long ago, and He was setting up stories they couldn’t even anticipate yet. God did have a plan, even if it didn’t make sense to them.

Many of us can resonate with this experience. I’ve heard from many through the years who have told me they’ve been working to put their lives together, to start living for Christ as they should, and as they do, they keep meeting obstacle after obstacle. Sometimes people get discouraged when they face hardships, feeling like God must have abandoned them. But faith means trusting that God knows what He’s doing in every circumstance. It means trusting He’s still in control, even when the world feels out of control, and it means doing our best to be faithful in circumstances that are less than ideal.

Christmas is a reminder of how God often works in ways that are completely the opposite of how we might have expected Him to work.

Faith Means Obeying Rather than Questioning

There is one more aspect of the Christmas story that often gets overlooked. After Jesus was born, God told Mary and Joseph to flee to Egypt because Herod was coming to kill Jesus.

13 After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.” 14 That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, 15 and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.” (Matthew 2:13-15, NLT)

After all that had happened, God told Mary and Joseph to flee and go to Egypt. God did give them a reason why, telling them that Herod was going to try to search for Jesus and kill Him, but He didn’t give them any more details. He didn’t tell them when they’d be coming home, just that they should stay there until He told them to return.

Put yourself in their shoes. They had planned to come to Bethlehem to fulfill a duty. They went grudgingly, knowing they must obey the emperor’s order. They might have worried (or maybe, if they knew about the prophecies of the Messiah, even suspected) that they might end up having the baby in Bethlehem. But they still surely planned to return a short time later. They didn’t plan to be gone for years! They certainly didn’t expect that their journey back home from Bethlehem would take them through Egypt!

This is often what God’s leading looks like though. He usually doesn’t give us the whole picture at once. Rather, He leads us one step at a time. And as we look at this story, can’t you understand why God does that? If God had told Mary and Joseph all that would be required at the very beginning, they would have said, “There’s no way. I can’t handle that. Find someone else.” God doesn’t give us the whole picture because we might be overwhelmed. But Joseph and Mary could handle it—because they wouldn’t face it all at once. God led them one step at a time. It may not have been easy or the way they expected or even the way they would have chosen, but they were able to do exactly what God wanted, because He was leading them and enabling them.

We often face similar circumstances. As you look back on your life, you may be able to see situations that you never would have imagined you would be able to handle. You may see things that you certainly didn’t expect would be part of your story, but in hindsight you can see that God knew all along.

There are going to be more of those things in the future. Rather than wringing our hands worrying about what those things might be or demanding that God give us explanations or reveal the end of the story to us, we should simply strive to do what He is telling us right here and now. God may be leading you in a given direction. You may feel Him leading you to do something, maybe it’s to have a difficult conversation with someone, to weed something out of your life, to forgive a person you don’t want to forgive, or to step out in faith in a way that scares you. Whatever God is calling you to do, I encourage you to take a lesson from Mary and Joseph and do it, even if you don’t understand the why, the how, the timeline, or what’s next. God often doesn’t give us all of those things, but He does give us what we need. Real faith means obeying God instead of questioning Him.

Conclusion

It’s probably weird to think of the Christmas story as disappointing, because for us it is great news! But for Mary and Joseph, it was surely incredibly disappointing. Nothing about the Christmas story went the way they planned. Nothing about the coming of the Messiah met the expectations they had built up in their minds. I think there’s value in recognizing this, because that’s a pretty common human experience.

John Lennon, who was not a Christian, even recognized this. He famously said in one of his songs,

            Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans.

There’s definitely an element of truth in those words, but they miss an important truth that’s essential for us to understand: life isn’t random! While we may not understand everything that’s happening or why, God does. He has a plan. For the Christian, we find freedom when we learn to say that “Life is what God’s plan is for me, so I should submit my plans to His.” Maybe that phrase won’t fit as neatly into a song, but I think it better reflects reality.

So, what are we to do with all of this? What lessons should we draw from this part of the Christmas story?

First, when hard times come, don’t turn away from God, run to Him. I’ve watched lots of people face hardships in life. Most of us will face some sort of difficulties. Everyone’s hardships will be different, but most of us will face them at some point. I’ve noticed that there is a massive difference in the outcome of those hardships based on whether people run to God or away from Him.

Those who get angry with God and turn away from Him usually end up making destructive choices and running into things that compound their hardships. Life gets even more difficult because they end up doing things that are even worse. But those who run to the Lord often find that even though the hard times don’t become easier, they end up in a better place. Instead of the hardships destroying them, they tend to strengthen them, sharpen them, and focus them.

You will face difficult times in your life. You may be in one of those times right now. Let me encourage you to seek God’s will for you even in this time. Trust that He has a purpose and that He knows what’s best. He can see what’s coming and He will lead you—the question is will you trust Him enough to follow? Approach hard times with eyes of faith and we’ll learn what God intends.

Second, choose to rest in God’s plan instead of trying to figure it out. Many times we find ourselves trying to demand answers from God, imagining that if we just knew what God was trying to accomplish through this season, then we’d be ok with it. I have actually prayed that prayer on occasion! I remember praying, “Lord, I trust you, I just need to know how the story ends, then I can be ok with it.” And I felt the Lord clearly tell me in response, “If you really trust me, you don’t need to know how the story ends, you just need to trust the Author.”

We can find peace in troubling times when we learn to rest in God’s provision. While it’s important for us to make the best preparations we can and to do the things we know we should, ultimately we end up robbing ourselves of peace and joy when we insist on having all the answers. Most of the time, God isn’t going to give us all the answers. He’s not going to show us what’s on the horizon. He knows, but He will only reveal those things to us when we’re ready. If we approach our lives with this in mind, we can find great peace, even in the most tumultuous of times.

My hope is that Christmas isn’t disappointing for you this year. But if it is, if it’s not the way you planned, my hope is also that you can find rest in Jesus. Remember that the first Christmas was also disappointing—even though it was wonderful. It wasn’t the way anyone planned, but that’s because God’s plans were even better than anyone anticipated. When life is disappointing, I hope you’ll think back to the Christmas story and find the rest that comes from trusting the Author.

© December 14th, 2025 by Rev. Rick Goettsche SERIES: Advent