Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

What were you expecting for Christmas?

Really expecting?

Did you get what you want?

Christmas can be a hard time for many.

Broken relationships.

Loss of a loved one.

Failed accomplishments become a little more pronounced.

And even if you didn’t experience pain or grief like others, what about those expectations?

Last night we watched Christmas Vacation.

kind of an annual thing we do, along with Elf and Home Alone and other Christmas movies.

At one point, the wife cautions her husband, who plans to have the big family Christmas he has always wanted and she says, “I know how you build things up in your mind...You set standards that no family event can ever live up to.”

We’ve all done this.

But especially at Christmas.

When this happens it is good for us to come back to the manger, because the manger is all about shattering expectations:

Video: It all starts here

It all starts in the manger.

Your salvation.

My salvation.

The resolution for all of our unmet expectations.

It all starts at the manger.

It’s impossible to overemphasize how important the Incarnation is.

God became man to save man.

One of Jesus’ best friends, Matthew, begins his story about the life of Jesus with Jesus’ family tree.

And whatever we’ve said about Jesus’ family tree these past few weeks, we can say this.

Matthew wants his audience to see that Jesus is God among us.

God has become human.

He has a human ancestry.

Into a certain family of Bethlehem whose ancestors include David and Judah.

This baby is God with us.

God come to save sinners as one of us.

Saving sinners is what Jesus does.

That’s his mission.

That’s Jesus’ purpose.

We’ve spent the past five weeks talking about the grace that we find in Jesus’ family tree.

While God is working in history to bring about His descent into our world, he is giving grace to sinners.

And Matthew’s family tree has 5 women.

These 5 women all share one thing in common: scandal.

Sexual scandal.

Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba show up in the stories of the Old Testament and all of them involve some sort of scandal from relations that people just don’t talk about at the dinner table or if they do, it sounds like TMZ or the National Enquirer.

The 5th woman is the one we mentioned just moments ago.

Jacob fathered Joseph the husband of Mary,

who gave birth to Jesus who is called the Messiah.

Mary is the 5th woman in Jesus’ family tree.

She’s the most famous of all of these women.

She is the stuff of headlines.

She is certainly one of the greatest women who ever lived.

Yet she, too, had to deal with scandal.

Sexual scandal.

Not of her own doing, but scandalous regardless.

It’s easy to miss the scandal.

Matthew doesn’t.

We miss it because we are too busy paying attention to other things.

For one thing, even though she shows up in the family tree, she’s not the main character in the rest of this story.

Joseph is. Here’s how the rest of that story is being told:

18 The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant from the Holy Spirit.

19 So her husband, Joseph, being a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.

We’re going to stop the story right here, because this 5th woman in Jesus’ family tree finds her commonality with the other names in this list right here.

Jesus’ birth story begins in stress and anxiety over just how he came into the world.

The Big Dilemma

Four things we need to see here:

Mary was engaged to Joseph.

Engagements in those days were a bit more formal in those days, involving both sets of families.

Not quite marriage, but still involving a contract.

Mary and Joseph are bound in an engagement during which time they still live apart.

2. Mary was pregnant from the Holy Spirit (before they came together).

Hang onto this thought because we will come back to it.

But this is everything that verse looks like.

Mary is pregnant.

Joseph is not the father.

The Holy Spirit has produced this pregnancy.

Does that seem far-fetched?

Of course it does.

It’s why Joseph does what he does next.

3. Joseph does not want to disgrace Mary.

Matthew is writing this story from the position of Joseph.

The one to whom he is engaged is pregnant and he knows he is not the father.

At this point we should note… the virgin birth is not something the church in history made up.

Matthew has talked to the eyewitnesses.

How does Matthew know Joseph’s inner thoughts there?

He obviously talked to someone who knows… either Mary or Jesus himself, who would have heard the story from Joseph and Mary.

But this story is not fiction.

The virgin birth is a fact of history.

In fact, in its earliest stages, it compels Joseph to act to end his marriage.

Matthew doesn’t tell us Joseph’s emotions, but the fact that he doesn’t want to public disgrace Mary suggests that if he feels anger, it’s on the back burner.

I don’t want to get into any speculation, but Joseph’s motivation, as it is chronicled by Matthew has a lot of calmness to it that would not be true of a lot of guys in this position.

We are not told if Mary told him and he didn’t believe it.

We are not told whether Mary did not tell him.

All we are told is that he did not desire to disgrace her.

4. Joseph decided to divorce Mary.

However, Joseph also decides that he will not be father to the child that he knows is not his and that he will divorce Mary.

And that’s the dilemma of the story.

Joseph intends to divorce Mary.

Everything that happens in this story happens because Joseph is getting ready to divorce Mary.

I think we tend to run right over this thought.

We’re too busy focusing on the virgin birth.

We’re too busy focusing on the angel who, in the next few verses will clue Joseph in with what is really happening.

The impending divorce is the reason there is an angel paying a visit to Joseph.

It’s the center of the conflict.

The big dilemma.