United to a Miracle

Trouble in the Text

Have you ever thought about what went through Joseph’s mind leading up to the first Christmas? I mean, just put yourself in his shoes for a minute.

Imagine that one evening, after a full day of work, you went to dinner. You arrive at your favorite restaurant and order your favorite drink, say Coca-Cola, and you order the drink that you know your fiance would like, say water with lemon, because that’s who you’re meeting on this evening. You start to browse the menu, even though you pretty much already know that you’re going to get the same kinda thing you always get, and wait for your fiance to arrive.

You look up as she makes it to the table and goes to sit down, and you can’t help but notice that she looks a little flustered. She definitely wants to say something, but she maybe doesn’t know how. So you wait patiently for her to find her words, and then she shares news that changes everything. She tells you that she is pregnant. And that sentence hits you like a ton of bricks, because you aren’t married yet, you haven’t slept together yet. So there is no way that you are the father.

Which can only mean one thing, that someone else is.

You feel betrayed, you feel alone, you feel devastated. You get up from the table and walk straight to your car, drive straight home, and slump down once you’re inside - unable to process what has happened. The only thing you know for sure is this, you cannot marry this person anymore. You don’t want to hurt them, but you cannot be with them.

And that tracks for us today. Joseph was betrayed, the only reasonable conclusion that he could come to was that Mary had cheated on him. The right thing for him to do was to break off the engagement; in fact, Matthew tells us here that the motivation of the divorce was that he was a “just man.” He didn’t want to be connected with her sin. But he still loved her enough to spare her a public divorce, a public acknowledgement of her apparent sin that would have resulted in her being punished with death. Barring the impossible, barring the unreasonable - Joseph had resolved to divorce himself. And he came *this close* to doing it, to divorcing himself from Mary, to divorcing himself from the miracle that was Jesus.

Trouble in the World

I don’t think we’re as different from Joseph here as we’d like to think. We may not literally be divorcing the mother of Jesus, but we separate and talk ourselves out of the miracles of God just the same.

When we are blessed with a medical miracle and we extend credit only to the doctors and to the medicine. We separate ourselves from the reality that medical breakthroughs could well be answered prayers, we divorce ourselves from recognizing the work of God through doctors and researchers and medicine.

When we are blessed with success in our jobs and we extend credit only to our skills and to our hard work. We separate ourselves from the reality that our promotions and success could well be answered prayers, we divorce ourselves from recognizing the work of God in blessing our lives.

When we see prosperity and growth in the world around us and we extend credit only to leaders and policies. We separate ourselves from the reality that good government could well be an answered prayer, we divorce ourselves from recognizing the work of God through leaders and policies.

When we see our favorite sports team or athlete win and we extend credit only to the coaching or the training or the athlete’s skill. We separate ourselves from the reality that the Lion’s finally winning a game must have been an answered prayer, we divorce ourselves from recognizing the work of God - even in as trivial a place as professional sports.

Even when we see the miracle of a newborn child and we extend credit only as far as “life finds a way.” We separate ourselves from the reality that every person’s life and wellbeing could well be an answered prayer, we divorce ourselves from recognizing the work of God in the miracle of life.

We live in an age of skepticism. Every statement has to be verified, every question answered, every phenomena explained - and in our pursuit of that, we satisfy ourselves with explanations that ignore the divine and explain away every miracle we come across. Very much like Joseph, in the absence of the impossible and the unreasonable, we very nearly divorce ourselves from the miracles God works around us all the time.

Grace in the Text

But Joseph didn’t go through with it. God didn’t let him inadvertently divorce himself from the miracle of Jesus’ birth. He sent an angel, a messenger to talk him down, to point him to the miracle that was right in front of him.

He went to sleep that night after making his decision to leave Mary. And in his sleep, an angel appeared to him. And I don’t know what his dream looked like, I don’t know how the angel appeared to him. I guess I’ve always pictured something kinda like what you might see in a movie or a video game cut scene. He’s standing in a nondescript environment, it’s kinda foggy and dark, you can’t identify much in the scene except for Joseph - standing there looking lost.

Then out of nowhere an angel appears in front of him, his clothes are brilliant white and he’s radiating light. All attention goes to him and he says to Joseph, “do not fear to take Mary as your wife.”

“But she’s pregnant from someone else, how can I marry someone who committed adultery?”

“That which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

“That’s unbelievable!”

“It’s okay Joseph, she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Remember what the prophet promised all those years ago: the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.”

And with that reminder of the promise God made to His people, long before Joseph was born, the angel left. Joseph woke up, and he stuck with Mary. God had united Joseph to a miracle, to the miraculous birth of Jesus that we still celebrate today.

Grace in the World

And just like God pointed Joseph back to the miracle, kept Joseph from separating himself from the miracle, He still works that in our lives today. We have the celebration of Christmas that comes around every year to remind us of the child, born in Bethlehem, who ultimately forgives all of our sins. He gives us each other, and while none of us are angels, we all can point one another back to Jesus and the grace He promises for all who believe. Each of us can point to Jesus, point to His life, death, and resurrection and remind our brothers and sisters in Christ that He did it all for them.

What’s more, God puts even more miracles in our lives that can point us to Him. He gives us the gift of baptism, a miracle where He adopts us into His family. He gives us the gift of Communion, a miracle where He promises to be with us and forgive our sins.

And He gives us the church, a place where every week we should be able to go. To hear the Good News proclaimed for us again, to receive the forgiveness of sins, to be strengthened and blessed by the body of Christ.

Just like Joseph, sometimes our lives, our reason, our world tempts us to divorce ourselves from the miracles of God. But just like Joseph, God steps in and sends us reminders of the miracle that He came on Christmas to dwell among us and save His people from their sins, God steps in and unites us to the miracle of the Gospel.

Application

And that is incredible Good News for us. And my encouragement for you this Christmas is to not divorce yourself from the miracles of God, don’t separate yourself from God’s gifts for you. Life gets busy, work gets chaotic, relationships can be difficult - but the miracles of God touch our lives in the midst of all of it. Connect to the Christian community, make church a priority on a weekly basis, be in daily devotion. Live a life touched and changed by the miracle of God’s forgiveness. Amen.