Sermon for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

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Jesu Juva

“Yes, Really! Immanuel: God with us”

Text: Matthew 1:18-25; Isaiah 7:10-17

 

Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father, and from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.

I mean, would you have believed it? Immanuel. God with us. Really? That’s what they will call this child? That must have seemed like a cruel joke to Joseph. Because God certainly wasn’t with him! His betrothed was with child. Everyone knows there’s only one way for that to happen. He betrothed her and she betrayed him. Joseph wasn’t the kind of guy who was going to make a public example of what happens to such loose women, such adultresses. Oh, not that he didn’t think about it! The sweet taste of revenge. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t do it. But at the same time he wasn’t going to take this slap in the face and pretend like nothing happened. He would divorce her quietly. If this is what she wanted, this is what she would get. And Joseph would move on. 

God with us. Yeah, right. With someone, somewhere, maybe. Whose life was going better than Joseph’s! Who was getting good things, and had joy in their life. But not with him. What had he done wrong? What had he done to deserve this? We wonder that, right? So Joseph probably did, too. He probably replayed that video over and over in his mind, trying to figure it out. Maybe it was this, maybe that. Maybe when he overcharged that person who could obviously afford it. Maybe when he hadn’t done his best carpenter work but passed it off like he had. Maybe it was when he lost his temper, or skipped synagogue because he was just too busy, too tired, his life too filled with concerns and worries. Maybe it was his falling short in his alms and tithing. What was it? What was it that had made God turn against him like this?

God with us. I wish, Joseph perhaps thought. So He could straighten this all out. Make it right. Undo this mess. Turn back the clock and change what had happened. Change what Mary did. Change what he had done. Work it out. 

That’s what God is for, after all, isn’t it? 

But his dream . . . it haunted him. Surely it was only a dream, wasn’t it? His own wishful thinking creeping into his brain and conjuring up this episode. An angel. That the child Mary was carrying was not the fruit of unfaithfulness but of God’s faithfulness. And that this child was being born to be the Saviour; the one who would save His people from their sins. It was wishful thinking, it must have been! For if God was going to do such a thing, why choose Mary? Mary! There were a hundred, a thousand other women God could have chosen - higher, more able, more worthy. Mary. His Mary. It was wishful thinking. You couldn’t even make up a story like that and sell it - it wouldn’t sell! It was too preposterous. Mary pregnant with God’s child. If only . . .

And yet . . . there was that passage from Isaiah . . . he’d heard it read in the synagogue just that week. That must have been where that word Immanuel had gotten stuck in his brain and come out in his dream. 700 years ago Isaiah had said that, told King Ahaz about the Lord’s deliverance, what the Lord was going to do. King Ahaz was like him. He didn’t think that God was with him. Because the king of Israel, the northern kingdom, and the king of Syria had made an alliance and were coming after him and his kingdom, Judah. God had made big promises, but where was He now? Now that Ahaz needed Him! 

So Isaiah told him that God was with him. He was. A child would be born and not too long after that, those two kings and their kingdoms and their armies and their might? It would all be gone. God was bringing in the King of Assyria to discipline them and save Judah. And it happened. King Ahaz was wrong . . . what he thought . . . what seemed to him . . . God was with him after all.

So could God be with him, Joseph, too? He was no king and had no kingdom. He wasn’t anyone important. So, nah. Why would God bother with him? Yet . . . that’s how God often worked. He chose people others wouldn’t. Unlikely people. Jacob was no prize, yet he got a nation named after him, after God changed his name to Israel. David was the youngest and most un-king-like son of Jesse, yet God chose him. Amos was a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore fig trees (Amos 7:14), and God used him as a prophet. But him and Mary - ah, that’s different. It was just too much to believe.

But he also couldn’t believe that Mary would do that to him. That wasn’t like her. That wasn’t the Mary he knew and loved. Oh, he was so confused! God with us. God with HIM! That’s what he needed!

But what if it was true? What if it wasn’t just a dream, but more than a dream? What if just like at the time of Ahaz, God was now coming, coming to His people, to deliver them. King Ahaz then was worried about Israel and Syria; now the people were more and more upset with Rome. But this was different that that. Then the child was a sign. His dream had said that this child was going to do it! And that He would save his people from their sins. That’s what Joseph was worried about; why he thought God was NOT with him. His sins. That he had done something wrong to deserve this. That God was punishing him. Could this really be not punishment but deliverance? Deliverance for Joseph? A blessing for Joseph??

He knew that was possible, too. All those stories in the Old Testament, when it seemed hopeless for God’s people, and yet it wasn’t. God remained faithful to His words and promises and had delivered them. Things that seemed bad turned out good. And when everything was going good, that’s when bad things often happened! God with us wasn’t always the way people thought it would be like. In fact, it rarely was. It wasn’t all luxury and ease and comfort, peace, and joy. Sometimes it was God’s people under assault, yet God with them, sustaining them and providing for them.

Well, Joseph felt under assault! So God with us, God with him . . . maybe it was after all. To be honest, he was still a bit doubtful and fearful of what he was going to do and what this meant for him, but isn’t that what faith is all about? Not knowing, but trusting. Not a lack of fear, but confidence in the face of fear? That God is with us. Even when it might not seem like it. Even when it doesn’t look like it. But if God’s Word says it, then it is so.

Joseph felt a little better. Because he wasn’t relying on his own thinking, he wasn’t taking matters into his own hands. This seemed better, right. Merciful. Like God. So he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He did not divorce Mary. He took her in. He wed her. He cared for her. And her child. This child that wasn’t his, but was his. This child that wasn’t from him, but for him. This child that . . . he found himself saying - and believing! - was God with us. 

And with you. All of you. Maybe it doesn’t seem so. Some people get spiritual highs and yes! God is with me! But then come the valleys, the lows, the ditches, and . . . what happened? For others, the ditches are the norm that they just can’t seem to climb out of. But for others - and I think this might be the majority of people - there’s not much of either. Not super highs or super lows, just ordinary. We go to church, we pray, but nothing seems to change very much. We see people suffer we think shouldn’t. We see people succeed we think don’t deserve it. We pray and wonder if God hears. God with us? We’d like to believe it . . .

And then there are our sins, too. Which you’re right - should make God reject you and be against you. When you’re less than honest, less than helpful, less than faithful, less than loving. All those things satan likes to remind us of, and run the video over and over in our minds to convince us that yup! You’re on your own, baby!

To which God says: No! No you’re not. Just as He sent His Word to Joseph through the angel, so He sends His Word to us today through different messengers, but the same Word. The Word of a Saviour. The Word that God is, in fact, with you. Yes, sinful you, unworthy you. Not because of you, but because of Him. Because He promised. And He keeps each and every promise. So yes, the virgin did conceive a bear a son, the Son of God. And yes, He went to the cross as the perfect Lamb of God bearing the sin of the world - which means your sin, too. And yes He died and rose from the dead to rescue you from those two great fortresses - sin and death - which try to keep you away from God and His life. They cannot. Because of Him. Because God came to be with us, fight for us, and win.

And then sent His Word to you in the water of baptism - that another child be miraculously born a child of God. You! You not born sinless like Jesus, but born again with the forgiveness of your sins. And that Word is sent to you in the absolution, in the Gospel, and in the bread and wine, because God doesn’t want to be your Immanuel, your God with us, only once, or here or there, but always. And so He is. Even if it doesn’t always seem like it. Faith says yes. Even faith that is still a little bit doubtful and fearful of what this means for you.

It didn’t mean an easy life for Joseph. This blessing would be work! Taking him to Bethlehem, then to Egypt, then back to Nazareth. And I’m sure a whole lot more than we’re not told. And I’m sure Joseph had more moments after this, when he wondered, when he doubted, when he feared. If it was up to him, I’m sure he would had fallen and failed. But on the foundation of the Word of God, God with him sustained him. 

And you, too. That’s our hope. That Christmas isn’t just one day of joy, but the day that shows us God with us, so that we’ll be with Him, forever. 

God with us. Some will mock that, mock us. Point to all kinds of things to prove that He’s not. That you can’t really believe that, can you? Do you? Well, yes, we do. Because a full manger and an empty tomb proclaims it so. That God is with sinners, to raise sinners, to give those dead in their trespasses and sins life in the forgiveness of their sins. For God is here. God with us. It’s true. For Joseph. And for you.

In the Name of the Father, and of the (+) Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.