The four Sundays of Advent are here to prepare us for Christmas, to help us see why it matters so much that Jesus became man. This Sunday as we are at the brink of celebrating Christmas, we have heard the scripture speak about the birth of Jesus in our reading from Isaiah. Today we are not trying to keep the Christmas story a secret until the 24th as part of our celebration of Advent.
Instead we are taking this time to ponder the concrete promise made to Joseph that Mary is to give birth to a son who is to be named Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Today we are reminded that Jesus has come to lift the sins that weigh us down, so that we are not called cursed, but called loved perfectly by God.
Before the Angel appeared to Joseph, can you imagine how confused he must have been? How difficult it must have been for Joseph to admit that something was not right, to acknowledge what his eyes saw, that Mary somehow without any apparent explanation was pregnant. Joseph faced the reality that his engagement to Mary had not gone according to plan, and all he could do was try and figure out how to divorce her quietly.
For all he knew, his legacy in life would never be the same, he was in the line of David, but instead of the inheritance of a king, his lot in life looked a lot more like failure. When the best he could imagine doing was quietly dismissing the woman he was to be married to, then really, nothing is right. It almost seems like Joseph was forsaken by the Lord. Joseph’s name means ‘he will increase’, as in the Lord will increase, but maybe all Joseph could see was how the Lord had increased his sorrow.
In the same way today, we can look at our own lives at some of the most glaring failures and unexpected losses in life and see much sorrow. Nothing seems right when the darkness of sin clouds how we view ourselves. The world out there has a way of defining people, based on how you dress, who you fit in with, what name you make of yourself in the world defines how you see yourself.
You can look at yourself and ask, how successful am I really? What significance does my name even have in society? When you question yourself it is natural to question those around you as well. People in your life can easily represent those who let you down in different ways. If you are not sure who you are and in what way you belong in the world- the world wants you to blame others. Just look at the news and you will see a lot of blame, it’s everyone else’s fault.
Joseph, could have blamed others, but he seems to have simply prayed about and wrestled with the problem at hand in his life. Then as he was considering these things an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and called him by his name: Joseph Son of David. “Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
After hearing this amazing message, Joseph could now see that the Lord’s plans for him involved unique and unexpected challenges, but the challenges no longer resembled a curse from God. Far from being cursed, Joseph now saw in this news of Mary’s pregnancy from the Holy Spirit- a sign that he was loved by God, he and his soon to be wife Mary.
A child from the Holy Spirit changes sorrow to joy, grief, to complete wonder. Without God in your life circumstances are so difficult, but with God all things are possible. The news of a child by the power of the Holy Spirit is news that God is present in our world, present in our sorrows. Because the Lord is present, we are people who are not abandoned or forsaken, but loved by God, people who belong, people whose names are written in the book of life.
When we become discouraged by what we feel the world says about us, God’s Word provides a reality check that we are God’s creation, we are not defined by the latest obsessions of our culture. The worth you have as an individual, your body, your spirit, your worth all comes from God’s work of salvation in your life.
You may hear your name and think about failures or embarrassments or your personal limits, but God’s Word calls you not a failure, but loved by God, a new name from Your new creation in Christ.
God is present in our lives in tangible ways, through the beginning in the form of the waters of Holy Baptism, through the gifts of God’s Word teaching and leading you into truth. Each Lord’s day we are given a sign about God’s presence in our lives as Jesus is present in the bread and the wine with his body and his blood given for you.
If Joseph’s burden was unique to bear, with the dream from the angel- Joseph was now joined with many others from the past who had heard prophecies and promises of hope from the Lord. Like Abraham and Isaac, Jacob, and David, Joseph was hearing about the salvation the Lord prepares for us.
Already in his life as a descendant of David Joseph knew the place he had as part of God’s people, a place to hope and wait on the Lord’s promises. And now with the message from the angel Joseph was given a very specific focus of hope, the child to be named Jesus.
With this calling to be the parents of the Lord Jesus, Joseph and Mary learn that their story of deliverance is connected now to the deliverance of every name under the sun. Beginning with the naming of Jesus their focus was not just on the well being of a baby, but on what this baby will do for the world.
When you hear your name and you think of yourself as someone who is only a failure, then you can remember that there is another name that says so much more about your life than your own name. That name is Jesus. This name of Jesus tells you a great deal about your life, it tells you that you live in a world where God has given the ultimate sign- a virgin conceived and bore a son. This is the sign that has come to our world, to show us there is a new covenant in place where God resides with man and the former things are no longer remembered.
One of the reasons why group therapy is often helpful is that it lets people see, “I am not alone in the problems I face.” This truth of not being alone may be experienced to a certain extent by people in group settings as details about life are shared with one another.
But nowhere do we experience more that we are not alone than in our recognizing the fact that Jesus took on our human nature, he joined with us in the sorrow of our sin so that we would know we are not alone and that we would know that Jesus not only shares our sorrow, but transforms it.
This is who Jesus is, the one in whom God’s saving work in centered. God’s saving work is wrapped up in the name of Jesus- which means YHWH saves. His name describes the purpose for which God’s Son took on human flesh. His name matches with the name Immanuel because his name describes the action of God joining to us to save us.
After Jesus was born Joseph continued to trust in the Lord’s promises. He cared for Mary and as his beloved wife. And he gave Jesus his name just as we was instructed. In giving Jesus his name Joseph was going along with the Angel’s instruction,
Joseph was prepared that Jesus belonged to the world’s needs and not to the honor of his own name. Joseph knew that Jesus would grow not to make a proud name for his particular family, but instead a proud name for his Heavenly Father.
Our name and Joseph’s name are one in the same now, we are all called Christian, those who look to Christ for our salvation, those whose names are written in the book of life because of Jesus. Those who believe the promise by faith, and in believing live with an expectant hope that the Lord Jesus comes to us, even on this day. Amen.