Matthew 24:36-44
What seems to be most important about an event, sometimes isn’t really the most important thing. I remember the Christmas I read a story in the newspaper in Detroit about a stranger putting in sixteen hundred dollars in gold coins in a Salvation Army kettle. He or she just put it in anonymously and walked away. That’s the kind of story that the newspapers like to pick up and run as a feature on the spirit of Christmas—the spirit of love and generosity. But when I read the story in was in a column, not the feature section. The columnist said there was a follow-up story. Because of the publicity given to the sixteen hundred dollars in gold coins put into the Salvation Army kettle, the Salvation Army began getting phone calls from people saying that the coins were theirs, that they were stolen from their house. Somebody must have dropped them in the kettle to get rid of them. There were three different people demanding that the coins be returned to them. Sometimes the newspaper tells you the part of the story you’d rather not have heard about.
The columnist also followed up with another story in that same vein. It was about a man driving home from work on Christmas Eve, he saw a boy fall through the ice in a lagoon. He stopped his car and jumped out, tore off his jacket and crawled out on the ice. The ice broke and he fell in, too, but he still rescued the boy. Shivering and shaking, he crawled out of the water, put on his coat, and discovered that while he was risking his life saving the boy, one of the bystanders had stolen an envelope from his pocket containing his Christmas bonus. Stories like that can ruin your Christmas.
I don’t want to ruin your Christmas by giving you another side of the Christmas story, but I want to tell you that as a student of the Bible the story of the virgin conception is not really the central Biblical event here. It is entirely possible to tell the story of Jesus’ life without even mentioning his birth. This is witnessed to by the fact that two of the four Gospels, the two that were written the earliest, do not even have a birth story. The central event in the life of Jesus, was his death and resurrection, there is no question about this. In the earliest Christian communities, this was the big celebration Easter, not Christmas. It was the resurrection they got the lights out for, the resurrection was what all the world looked at and envied. The stories of Joseph, Mary and the baby came later in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke.
The Christmas story is probably there for many reasons, but I want to give you two. First, it is there to assure the readers that this child is indeed the Messiah, the Savior, longed for in the Hebrew Scriptures. In Scripture there are many stories of miraculous conceptions, you have heard me tell of Sarah and Abraham who were given a child when she was in her old age, well after she should have been able to bear a child. Miraculous conceptions are a way of saying this child will play an important role in God’s scheme of things. There are many miraculous conceptions in the Scriptures. But the story of Jesus’ conception goes one step more – THIS child, the writer tells us, was conceived in a virgin. It is in a way a sort of Biblical competition. The birth story tells us if you think its something that God could give a child to Sarah in her old age, then top this – God can even conceive a child in a virgin.
Many of us believe it is not meant to be historical narrative as much as it is there to say, "look we all know how babies are made," but God will do what God will do, and there will be surprises." In this child will come a miracle, all the world will be redeemed, and that is the truth.
The second reason for the birth story is to emphasize in Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us. God has kept the Promise. When the texts were written that became the Bible, there were no punctuation marks in them. They didn’t have punctuation then, so if you wanted to make a point, you bracketed the story with what was important, that is you repeated it. If we look at Matthew 1 verse 23, Matthew says his name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us, and then at the very end of the Gospel of Matthew in chapter 28 verse 20 we find he ends on the same theme: lo I am with you, always, to the close of the age. It is easy to see what is most important to Matthew, is not that a virgin bore a child, what is most important to Matthew is that God is indeed with us. This, is often harder to believe.
Its not hard to understand how Joseph feels when he finds out Mary is pregnant. Joseph did what you or I would do. He called off the whole marriage thing. Which means he didn’t believe Mary or the whole preposterous story.
Joseph’s problem is our problem. We cannot believe that God would act in such a way that would confound our expectation, that would upset our rational ordering of the world, and stretch our credulity. Joseph believed the promise. That’s was no trouble. The promise for the Jews was, God is going to come and save us.
They all believed that. That’s no problem. The problem was that Joseph was asked to believe that God was keeping this promise right now, through an unexpected, unbelievable, incredible means. That is what he couldn’t believe. It’s just crazy. It is impossible he thought, that God would act now, right now, come right now, and in this astounding way.
Can we believe it? God with us. We, most of us, live our lives pretty much as if Herod were king, and not Jesus. As if darkness, rather than light, is the more accurate way to describe human existence. And every year we live these things seem to be more true.
As the years move on, our expectations are lowered, our lives never turn turn out the way we thought they would. For a time we find our self-worth in our cars, or our salaries, or our homes or our accomplishments. And then one day we wake up and the world is turned upside down. The twin towers fall, our enemies are upon us. Even more, our inner enemies do not let us rest. We disappoint ourselves and those around us. The great philosopher Martin Heidegger said: in the sea of meaninglessness that plagues our modern lives, "only a God can save us.." I sometimes wonder in this life are we really supposed to believe that God IS WITH US?
I spent my first Christmas as a Pastor in Orange County. It was an older parish, at Christmatime we worshipped about 600 people. There were two Christmas Eve services and a Christmas day service, and when it was done I was exhausted. Then the senior pastor told me that we would take poinsettias out to the shut ins after the Christmas day worship. I was given 12 people to go and see. Having been a very spoiled young adult traveling the world on my holidays from school – now I was driving the streets of Santa Ana on Christmas Day. I admit that I indulged in a time of feeling sorry for myself. So this is what it means to be a Pastor I thought as I drove from place to place delivering poinsettias to older people, most of whom lived alone and were limited by the circumstances of aging. I remember thinking, I am not sure I will be able to do this year after year.
Then I stopped at Vivian Campbell’s house. Vivian was recovering from major cancer surgery. Her two sons and daughter didn’t live in California anymore. Since Vivian couldn’t travel this year she was alone. All the things that you think you need to have for Christmas weren’t in Vivian’s house. No smell of food, no tree, no presents were evident. As I entered she told me how much she had missed not being able to go to church. But she said, its been a really wonderful Christmas. Wonderful? I said, thinking this was something she said for my benefit – she was that kind of person. Yes, she said, this morning my neighbor who was sick, and then I was sick, well she came over and and we visited face to face or the first time in months. And the most wonderful thing happened to her. Over the phone, this morning she got to hear her first great-grandchild cry.
Meister Eckhart said in the 13th century – a child can be born a thousand times in Bethlehem, but the most important birth is the one where the self meets the Holy Spirit when God is born in your heart. It doesn’t have to be dramatic. But it always comes as a surprise when we are opened up to love and laughter, hope and healing of our spirit through another person, another child of God. That is the miracle, that God is indeed with us. Right now. Amen.