Hello, you are listening to Second City Sermons,
a ministry of Second City Church in Midtown Harrisburg.
It's our hope that these sermons will draw you
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sermon. God Bless. Father in heaven, we thank
you for this text, familiar as it is, that speaks
to us of your grace to us in Christ Jesus. Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins and
Emmanuel, God with us. Lord, I pray now that
you would unstop our ears. Quiet our minds that
are often so distracted with so many things that
are going on in our lives and the world about
us. Give us hearts, not of stone, but of flesh.
God, do your work in us, we pray. In Jesus' name,
amen. Okay, I would guess that at least some
of you Maybe it was last year when it came out,
but over this last year have seen Nate Bargatse's
Nashville Christmas special from last Christmas
Eve. If you haven't, I would recommend him. He's
sort of a regular name in the Rowan household.
He's pretty clean, which is nice if you got little
kids for a comedian. Anyway, among other things,
there is a little skit. where Nate plays the
angel of the Lord who comes to the nativity scene.
There are Mary and Joseph on either side of a
little manger and on the other side of the stage
there's the three wise men and in walks Nate
Bargazzi with this curly wig on and this sort
of Romanesque breastplate that is shining gold
and a white robe not too unfamiliar from the
one that I have on. And then enormous white wings.
And they start to talk about Christmas and how
for generations and centuries people will remember
that night with things like pine trees, which
of course Mary and Joseph say pine trees. Yes,
pine trees. And he talks about how they will
remember that night with singing songs. about
the events of that day. Mary responds, songs
about Jesus? To which the angel says, a few boring
ones, yes. I love Christmas songs. He says, there
will be songs about you, Mary, and songs about
you, three wise men. And will there be songs
about me? Joseph? Joseph asks. They're going
to be lots of songs, the angel replies. Since
most of them won't be about what's happening
here, they will be about snow and snow related
activities. But there's no snow here. We are
in the desert, says Mary. Right, replies the
angel. But I want you to think about Joseph's
question. And there will be songs about me to
Joseph. I mean, we have songs about the names
of Santa's reindeer. We have songs about Santa
getting run over by reindeer. We have songs pleading
for it to snow. Let it snow, let it snow, let
it snow. We have questionable songs about how
cold it is outside and how your baby needs to
stay in, you know? But we do not have Joseph
songs. And if I'm actually honest, I was thinking
about this. So the text we just heard are the
lectionary texts for the fourth Sunday in Advent
for this year. Because we finished up 2 Corinthians
last week. week, and we still had a week left
in Advent. I was like, I'll just use the lectionary
texts. I'll take the wisdom of the church's lectionary
and use that. And it kind of struck me that the
lectionary text for the fourth Sunday of Advent
this year is actually one of the texts that we
often read at Christmas itself, right? But what
struck me as I was studying for this a couple
weeks ago is just how present Joseph is. Again,
I have preached Numerous sermons sort of focused
on Mary. I have preached sermons on Elizabeth.
We have looked together, I think actually two
times over the last 10 years, since this will
be my 11th year around Christmas as the pastor
here at Second City, on the mothers of Jesus
in the genealogy in Matthew. So we've looked
at Rahab and Ruth and the others there. But I
have not. preached a text that is focused much
on Joseph. And of course, there's some reasons
for this. You know, Zachariah is present. Simeon
gets a song. Mary gets a song. Joseph never talks.
Okay, kind of interesting. But if you look at
actually the texts of the incarnation of Christ,
primarily which we find in Luke and Matthew,
Mary is very present in Luke and actually Joseph
is the one who's most present in this Matthew
text. Mary's certainly there and she's certainly
a key figure, but she's mentioned four times
by name in chapters one and two, and Joseph is
mentioned seven times by name in chapters one
and two. Interestingly, the Magi get a speaking
part. You might remember, where is he who is
born King of the Jews, right? He asks Herod.
And of course, Mary gets her song in Luke, but
Joseph never speaks. He's quiet. And yet, he's
very present. And I think it's in this quiet,
faithful presence that we actually have something
that we are being taught that's very, very important.
But first, I want you to just look with me how
present Joseph is, okay? Because I think Joseph
needs his due in some ways this morning. So do
you have your Bibles open hopefully to Matthew?
This little section on the end of chapter one
after the genealogy that began our chapter. And
what you see, he's mentioned... By name there
in 18 right when his mother Mary had been betrothed
to Joseph verse 19 and her husband Joseph and
then verse 20 the angel of the Lord appears to
him in a dream saying Joseph son of David We
could go down Verse 21 he's mentioned as his
pronoun. She will bear a son and you Speaking
to Joseph shall call his name Jesus If we go
down, verse 24, when Joseph awoke from sleep,
he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him,
he took his wife, verse 25, but he knew her not
until she had given birth to a son and he called
his name Jesus. So every verse except for verses
22 and 23 in this little section mention Joseph
either by name or by the pronoun and in his action
and his presence is pervasive in this passage.
He may be absent in songs. He may be not sort
of present with his voice, but he's very, very
present in this text. And I think, again, he's
teaching us something incredibly important that
you find throughout the Bible, but he's showing
us the beauty of living a faithful life, okay?
The beauty of living a faithful life with our
faithful God, okay? Now, here's what I want you
to hear first. There are all kinds of calls for
unfaithful action. There are all kinds of calls
for unfaithful action. What do I mean by this?
Well, I don't mean that there's part of this
passage that is specifically saying, Joseph live
in unfaithfulness to God and to those about you.
But what I am saying is that, In our minds and
in our hearts and actually in the world about
us, we have all these different calls to unfaithfulness.
Okay, consider this. What does the angel say
to Joseph? What do angels say to people? Don't
fear. That's what angels say to people. Don't
fear. Do not fear to take Mary as your wife.
You remember that this is what the angels said
to Mary also, and to the shepherds, which means
that they were much scarier than Nate in that
costume, right? On some level, it wasn't just
the circumstances, but there's something about
angels that are probably rather frightening,
okay? But think about this, fear often can be
a call to unfaithful action. And Joseph had real
reasons to fear. He had found out that his fiance,
this woman who he had been betrothed to, was
expecting a baby. And he knew how babies come
into the world, and he knew that he had been
faithfully waiting until he and his fiance were
husband and wife when they were wed. And so,
unquestionably, undoubtedly, He must have thought,
the person who I trust the most in the world,
who I was gonna unite to for the rest of my life,
I can't trust, who can I trust? Is that not fear
inducing? Of course it's fear inducing. He probably
actually said, what kind of judgment do I have
that I would... be engaged, be betrothed to somebody
that would do such thing. I must not even be
clear thinking myself. I thought I was thinking
all right. So he probably lives in some level
of fear of his own ability and his own trustworthiness
of his own mind and his own thinking. No doubt
he feared what this would mean for his own future
life and the future life of this young woman
who he was betrothed to. In his commentary on
the Gospel of Matthew, Stanley Hauerwas, some
of you hopefully are familiar with Hauerwas,
says, the Matthew story of Mary's pregnancy lacks
the charm and detail of Luke's account, but that
may be its value. One of the great enemies of
the Gospel is sentimentality. and the stories
surrounding Jesus' birth have proven to be ready
material for maudlin sentiment, Matthew's account
of Jesus' conception and birth is unapologetically
realistic. Which is to say, Joseph is engaging
with this scenario that for all kinds of reasons
would cause him to fear. It's unapologetically
realistic. Part of the realism of it is that
it shows that Joseph says I've got to act here.
I've got to do something. Because his fiance
is expecting and he knows he isn't the father.
No doubt the question swirling around is what
will tomorrow bring? What kind of unknown am
I living into? What kind of new uncertainty will
happen to me? after the one thing that I thought
would happen for the rest of my life is not going
to be happening. The person I thought I knew
best, I don't really know. Fear, what I'm suggesting
to you in some ways is fear often calls us to
unfaithful action, living into fear, okay? Another
thing that often calls us into unfaithful action
is shame. Now, The angel says, do not fear. The
angel does not say, don't live in shame, but
shame is in this passage. We'll look at it again
in a second. The passage actually doesn't necessarily
mention that Joseph is sort of in this state
of shame. But what it does do is it calls, It
calls Joseph to action in the exact place where
shame would cause him to hide. Let me try to
explain this, okay? Joseph, we're at the very
end, it says, and he called his name Jesus, right?
She will bear a son and you shall call his name
Jesus. So Joseph is the one that's supposed to
name this child, this child who he did not have
a part of conceiving. he's supposed to take on
the fatherly role of. That would have been the
act of the father to do the naming. Related to
this role, you might remember that is the presentation
of Mary and Joseph of the Child of the Temple.
We're going to look at that in a couple weeks,
actually, as we consider Simeon and Anna. But
that would have been a fatherly action and a
public fatherly action, right? So they do that
in Luke. Chapter two. But what this is saying
is that the angel is inviting Joseph to take
on the fatherly role. So everyone around them
would have known that this baby was conceived
before their wedding, right? I mean, everybody
would have known that. We aren't exactly told
how Joseph found out that Mary was with child,
but we are told in Luke that when Mary finds
out from the angel, she immediately goes to Elizabeth.
So it's not like she immediately goes to her
fiance and tells him what's going on. She immediately
goes and spends some time with Elizabeth. So
it's very, very possible that Joseph doesn't
know that Mary is expecting until she's showing.
Maybe a few months in, we don't really know.
We don't know this, but it's very possible. And
what's certainly true is that, They would have
known, okay, this baby was conceived before you
were you were wed. Mary started to show, this
is the time frame. And Joseph is supposed to
act like he is the father. He takes Mary with
him down to Bethlehem to be registered for the
census. And this is kind of interesting. Unlike
in Luke chapter two, when we're told the end
of Luke chapter two is the story of, the only
story we have of Jesus and his youth. And he
goes down to celebrate the Passover. And it specifically
says that they went down with relatives and friends
and stuff. It's interesting that that details
there in Luke and it's not here. in Matthew when
they're going down to Bethlehem, which would
have actually been fairly close to Jerusalem.
And so the norm would have been if you're traveling
a ways, you would travel with other people, right?
Well, how far is it from Nazareth to Bethlehem?
Does anyone know this? It's about 90 miles on
the trail. It's about 70 miles as the crow flies.
It's a 90 mile trek. It's a long walk. It's a
long walk when you're nine months pregnant. Do
you think you want friends and relatives helping
you out along the way? Yeah, yeah you would.
Where are they? They're probably so unsure of
what is happening with this young couple and
how in the world is she pregnant already? And
now Joseph's supposed to own this dynamic, right?
I mean this, you can see that there's a lot of
shame and this social shame in this scenario
that can be taking place and Joseph is actually
called to live into it in a way. Had they been
promiscuous. Have they brought shame on their
family? Is that why their family's not there
with them? Maybe it took the family a couple
years to buy into this whole story of an angel
appearing to Mary. Probably not something that's
easily believable. Where this little boy had
come from, who they finally got around to saying,
yeah, we'll travel down south with you to Judea
and to Jerusalem. But what I'm suggesting is
that shame is often actually a call to unfaithful
action. I don't want people talking about me
like that. I want to be with this lady. I heard
last week that 87 % of adults say that they are
rather constantly stressed. 87%. And I first
heard that and I thought, is that surprising?
And I thought, I actually don't think it's terribly
surprising if it's that high. There's a lot of
things that can stress us out, right? As adults,
maybe it's like, maybe it's how do I afford life?
How do I pay for children? What do I do with
my older children that aren't talking to me and
we're estranged? Maybe we're worried about aging
loved ones. Of course, the unbelievable political
polarization. neighbors not talking to each other,
friends disowning you because you voted for X,
Y, Z, whatever. I mean, there are innumerable
sort of reasons why we say we are stressed out.
How are you? The most common response. Oh, well,
I guess you could say I'm fine. But most of it's
like, I'm busy. We just live busy lives, stressed
out lives. Here's the thing, in a state of stress,
we are often ruled by just a tiny little part
of our brain and this tiny little part of the
brain releases hormones like adrenaline and cortisol
which means we react quickly and emotionally
and we do this to stay alive and this little
part of our brain releases these these hormones
this little part is the amygdala as many of you
are familiar with and the interesting thing is
that it actually blocks our clear thinking part,
right? Our prefrontal cortex. That's what's happening,
right? So here's what's happening is that 87
% of adults are just reacting. We're just reacting
because we want to stay alive, which is called
amygdala hijacking, right? It's taking over.
And there's a time when this is actually really
helpful and good, okay? And this time is when
you're actually needing to stay alive, like truly
stay alive. Because what happens in this whole
fight, flight, freeze response, we're seeking
to protect ourselves. But oftentimes we're doing
that out of this sense that we don't know the
whole story. Like we're trying to control, we're
trying to figure out how do we stay alive. Actually,
our bodies react, this is kind of interesting,
right? In this state, our eyes dilate and we
get a tunnel vision. So we literally can't see
as clearly, like literally our eyes get more
tunnel vision. Our breathing changes, our blood
constricts, our blood veins constrict. So we're
kind of, we're preserving ourselves for what's
gonna come, right? And we just live in this state.
87 % of adults say, this is the state that I'm
living in. Which means they're not really thinking
very clearly. If you're in real danger, it's
very helpful. If you're not, it's actually very
destructive. We're mostly living stressed out
lives full of fear and shame. And for the most
part, these stressed out places of fear and shame
are actually calling us to live unfaithful lives.
So think about this, right? What do we do? We
often live lives very defensively. We're often
trying to seek to control our environment, to
control those around us, to control our image.
What we're often doing is we're demanding that
we are in the right and we get angry when other
people want to challenge our thinking or our
feeling or whatever. Like, you know, we get this
really defensive kind of angry posture towards
others. We lash out. Or often, you know, that's
kind of that fight response. Oftentimes we just
numb out, right? Football game after football
game. You probably know people that want to place
bet after bet after play after play on different
games. I mean, how good are potato chips? How
good is MSG? I mean, right? It's delicious. And
so we just reach for it because it's like, oh,
at least I can have this sense of delight for
a little while and sort of check out from the
stress around me. Of course, we are in a world
that tells us that the highest good is individual
self -expression. You do you, you be you is the
most important thing, which aggravates this idea
of self -preservation and self -delight and the
self, right? The self. All this, what I'm suggesting
is this place of fear and shame, which is so
related to our places of stress, which is so
influences our brain, which so influences our
body, so influences our community. calls us to
a life of unfaithfulness. There are all kinds
of calls that Joseph was experiencing socially
and probably in his mind and in his body and
places of his heart that were calling him to
unfaithfulness. Circumstances he found himself
in, the hormones pulsing through him, the culture
around him. But interestingly, if anything, Joseph
is not said to be someone who goes along with
this. There's no sense in this passage that Joseph
heard these calls and said, okay, I'm going to
live in this unfaithfulness. If anything, it's
the exact opposite, isn't it? If there's a call
to unfaithful action around him, what we see
actually in Joseph is a very faithful man. The
descriptor actually for Joseph in our text, verse
19, and her husband Joseph being a just man.
The descriptor there, just man, is the word decaios.
Most of the time we translate that word righteous.
I mean, if there's one descriptor for Joseph,
it's actually, it's not unfaithfulness, it's
righteous, just. Righteousness, often in the
Bible, particularly if you're around Protestant
churches, the primary way we use righteousness
is like what we do when we confess our sins and
we receive the righteousness of God. We're declared
righteous before a just God because of the righteousness
given to us. But so in the Bible, righteousness
often, and particularly in Matthew of the Gospels
actually, is a reference to right living, to
faith living in light of who God is, in light
of who we are. And Joseph here is called a righteous
man. Right living in the Bible and right faith
in the Bible always go together. Faith in what
God does and living in light of it. So what do
we see in Joseph? First we see he's not willing
to play the shame game. I said we'd come back
to this, but specifically it actually mentions
shame, right? And Joseph's not willing to play
it really. So verse 19, and her husband Joseph
being a just man and unwilling to put her to
shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. Now,
we think of divorce, of course, in our age is
primarily connected to marriage, but we know
that they were not yet married because the angel
says, do not fear to take Mary as your wife.
What you need to understand is that in the ancient
world, engagement was a much weightier thing
than it is today. They were bound together and
to break that bond would have been a very significant
action. It wasn't quite marriage, but it was
sort of more than even sort of engagement in
our world. He didn't want to be a part of a corrupt
marriage and actually he had every right to cancel
this engagement Okay, this would not have been
something that would have been remotely outside
of his right thing to do to cancel this He could
have exposed Mary as an unwed mother to public
disgrace That would have been a norm of his day
and there would have been certain Penalties punishments
rather severe that would have gone along with
that, but he doesn't do any of this No. There
were better and quieter ways to do this that
still sort of preserved some of her dignity and
he sought to do that, okay? And this is interesting
actually. One thing I read in studying for this
is righteousness in Matthew particularly is often
connected to this idea of treating other people
with dignity. So righteousness often is actually
combating shame in Matthew. It's kind of interesting.
Joseph lives into this kind of righteousness,
into this faithful action because he's unwilling
to play the shame game, which he totally could
have played and which would have been the norm
of his day. But the other thing here, and this
is kind of interesting, is that Joseph isn't
controlled by fear. So the angel does speak to
the place of his fear, right? The angel doesn't
just go, oh, it's okay. something else is going
on here and you should still marry her. The angel
does actually say, hey, this child was conceived
by the Holy Spirit. So he actually addresses
the place of his questioning and his fear. Mary
had been pure, which is to say, the angel does
say Mary has been pure. She's been holy. She's
been faithful to you as you had hoped, right?
But he also doesn't allow the social fear, which
he no doubt would have known and felt as we all
do, to run his life. So despite what others may
say or do, despite how others may not join them
in the journey, may not, you know, throw the
baby shower and all the rest, He takes Mary as
his wife and he takes her down to Bethlehem and
he names that child as he would have done if
he were the biological father. He owns this place
of fear and he acts faithfully within it. Okay,
so here's the interesting thing and I hope this
is kind of where you're going. How do we do this?
How do we not live into the shame game and how
do we not live into fear? I mean seriously, if
87 % of adults are just living out of stress,
probably a lot of us are doing that and probably
a lot of that stress is related to the idea of
fear and shame. So what do we do? What's the
answer? How do we actually kind of... live like
Joseph here, right? How do we learn? How do we
not just live stressed out and angry and controlling
and vindictive and numbing lives? Because we
all know that that's the norm. We all know that
that's mostly what people are telling you to
do, right? Live angry. How do we do this? Well,
if you've been around religious folk, not just
Christians, but Christians too. Maybe you've
heard things like, dare to be a Daniel and be
brave like David. And maybe you've heard a sermon,
I really haven't, because I haven't heard sermons
about Joseph. Be just like Joseph, Joseph the
just. That maybe the answer is just to put these
figures before you and live into their kind of
way of being. But that's a moralism, right? It's
a moralism. And moralism leads you to pride,
which leads you to look down on others, which
does not help the world. So what do we learn
from this text? Well, one thing, and I actually
didn't know Dave was going to mention this, because
he was doing this devotional. He says there's
the names in this passage. There's two names
that are highlighted for us. and both names are
given actually their meaning. It's an interesting
little detail here in Matthew. First, Jesus.
Look at verse 21. The angel speaking to Joseph.
She will bear a son, and you shall call his name
Jesus, for he will save his people from their
sins. Jesus is, in Greek, the Hebrew name Joshua.
Yeshua. God saves. But Matthew translates it
for us in a way. He says this is why. Because
he's gonna save his people from their sins. Now
we think we have done bad things. We have, we
all have. That's why we confess our sins. We've
done bad things and so I am bad. You have done
bad things and so you are bad, right? This is
what, this is, you know, you go back to the garden,
Adam and Eve go against what God has called them
to do. And what they say is their sin invites
them into a place of shame. And so they have
to cover themselves. I don't want you to see
me, right? That's what we do with our sin. We
say, not just that I have done bad, but I absolutely
am bad. Not just guilty, but full of shame. And
Jesus' name alone says, I am doing away with
that. I'm doing away with it. The thing that
you want to hide, the thing that causes you to
want to lash out at others or just numb, the
stuff you don't want to deal with, I'm doing
away with that. Places of shame don't have control
over us. as we honestly bring them to the Lord
and we truly receive that he is Jesus, the Joshua,
the God saver. Savior that comes from God to
redeem his people from their sins. But the second
one, right, is this title, Emmanuel, this other
name, verse 23. Behold, a virgin shall conceive
and bear a son and they shall call his name,
right? 21 said, you shall call his name and this
says they shall call his name Emmanuel and then
Matthew says which means God with us our fear
you know which is what causes us often to fight
back or actually just sometimes to freeze or
to run hightail it out of here is often related
to our inability. We want to try to control things,
or we go, actually, I can't, I gotta run. But
what this says is God is with us. And if God
is for you, who can be against you? If the God
who spoke the world into being is with you, it
says you have no reason to fear. That's the constant
message of the Bible. If God is with you, you
can go out into the world, not a confidence of
your own, not a demanding that others follow
you or be controlled by you, but with a quiet
confidence saying, whatever God calls me to do,
He will give me the resources to do, the time
to do it, the energy to do it, the ability. There
is a rest and a quiet presence that Joseph embodies
because he knows that God is both Jesus and Emmanuel,
saves him from his sins, is present to him in
his fear. Let me end by returning to Nate Bargatze's
Nashville Christmas Nativity, which half of you
will watch this afternoon. So he's telling Mary
and Joseph and the Magi all about the stuff that
we do to commemorate the great gift of God for
the people of God in the incarnation. And so
he talks about like eulogs, which of course they're
like, what's that? The question is, what does
that mean? And of course in Nate Bargatze's way,
he says, who knows? And anyway, one of the wise
men, being wise, says, none of what you're describing
feels connected to Jesus. These celebrations
do not just honor Jesus. Nate says, they honor
the almighty being that resides on the top of
the world. God? The Magi responds. Nate says,
no. Santa Claus. Who is Santa Claus? Santa Claus
is a bearded, all -seeing mortal who sorts the
righteous from the wicked. But isn't that what
God does? Yes, but Santa does it to children,
only children. It's funny, but it's also revealing
because it's so confusing, isn't it? It's so
confusing. And let me leave you with this idea.
If Joseph confused who God was, if Joseph confused
himself with God, as we are so often told to
do, you get to decide what is right and wrong.
You decide your life. If he would have put himself
in... As his only savior, right? As the one who
has to deal with his shame. As the one who must
control because life is a scary place. This would
not have gone well. It would have been a wreck.
If he would have just thought of God like a cosmic
Santa Claus or a cosmic elf on the shelf. Then
he would have only continued on into the long
cycles of fear and shame like so many of us do
But instead he was invited into this life of
peace and rest and quiet presence Because he
learned that God is Jesus Not the one who is
just sitting on top the world bearded making
his lists of oh did Joseph do right or wrong
but instead he is the one who comes to save his
people from their sins. And the God who does
not stand far off, but is God with us, Emmanuel.
Brothers and sisters, this is the answer to us
not just living reactive lives. but being able
to enter into the places that we most fear with
a quiet faithful presence. The answer is that
God is Jesus. Your sins don't define you, and
God is Emmanuel. He is with you. Amen. Let me
pray. Lord, pray that we would know these truths.
that we would know you, that we would know your
presence with us, that you would lead us and
guide us in the way of faithfulness to you and
life for others. God, that we would not just
live out of what we are so inclined to do, which
is to shame others, to lift ourselves up towards
self -protection, towards control. animosity
towards others. God, heal us of this and heal
us of this with this message that you proclaim
in this season that you are Jesus, the God who
saves, that our sins do not define us. We are
washed clean, they are removed from us as far
as the East is from the West. And that you are
Emmanuel, that you actually desire us. that you
will long to be with us and to lead us, that
whatever may come, neither height nor depth,
angels nor demons nor anything else, all of creation
can separate us from your love and there is nothing
to fear. God, I pray that like Joseph, you would
give us this quiet, faithful confidence because
this is who you are our savior our lord our friend
our jesus our emmanuel amen thank you for listening
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to this podcast and joining us in person each
sunday at 10 a .m You can find us online at SecondCityChurch
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Thanks again for listening. God bless.