Emmanuel God is with us

Sermon December 22 2013  Emmanuel: God is with us.

Isaiah 7:10-16

The four Sundays of Advent  are like great tympani beats sounding a prophetic word of yearning and hope.  In the Fourth Sunday, Isaiah brings us round to the great sign of god’s promise: A young  woman will give birth to a son whose name will be Immanuel, “God with us”.

The child’s name, Immanuel (God with us), reinforces the divine promise to deliver the nation from its enemies; a brief prophetic oracle in Isaiah 8:9-10, likely connected to the same events, develops the implications of the name.

The sign of the child is to be seen and heard against our deepest fears, but also our desires that the world be transformed.  As in the great Advent hymn “O Come, O come, Immanuel,” the ancient biblical images of what God has promised stir us beyond our cliché’s and our presumptions. 

The sign God gives, despite our own refusals and our self-interests in deliverance, goes beyond our ambivalences to God’s  eternal self-consistency.  God’s covenant with the creation is to redeem it from the inside out. 

The promise of a Messiah is grounded in God’s intention to restore us and to transform the world we have come to make it into our own image.  The divine promise is thus deeply hidden in God’s own being, juast as the child is hidden in the mother’s womb.

Psalm 80: 1-7, 17-19 (UMH 801)

Psalm 80 reflects an experience that Jews, ancient and modern, have described as  hester panim, the “hiding of God’s face” or the “eclipse of God.”  The refrain of the psalm (vv. 3,7,19) pleads for the return of God’s countenance: “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.”  The refrain recalls the much beloved priestly benediction in Numbers 6:24-26, which associates God’s shining countenance with well being; it also recalls prophetic warning in Deuteronomy 31:17-18, which links the hiding of God’s face as the Israelites’ turn to other gods. Christmas is coming and the “hopes and fears of all the years” will be met in the one who is born in that manger.  “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved. In Jesus Christ, we are forgiven!”  It is this hope that sustains us on even the darkest bleak midwinter day.

Romans 1:1-7

Paul’s salutation frames for us a life lived in light of the coming of Christ.  Who among us does not yearn for this kind of clarity of identity and purpose in Life?  Surely the culminating call of the Advent season is a call to renew our commitment and devotion to Christ and his purposes for us in and for the world.  There is a crucial reminder to be heard and heeded as we turn the corner to the familiar tunes and tales of Christmas. As we prepare for the season in which we celebrate the Word became flesh,  Paul’s salutation  provides the perfect segue.

Matthew 1:18-25

American culture and media both load Christmas with false expectations of family harmony and good cheer.  These images and expectations allow Hallmark and the shopping mall catalog to define the “perfect Christmas.”  In the weeks before Christmas, many who worship in our congregations invest a great deal of time and energy trying to achieve that picture-perfect Christmas.  Others feel emptiness or sadness that their lives and families prevent them from having the sort of Christmas they believe they should have.

In today’s story of Mary and Joseph, God’s work often upsets comfortable social expectations and conventions.  The first Christmas was not produced by a flawless lead up and elaborate preparations dictated by convention. 

Certainly most people would not expect the incarnation to happen through the life of the young virgin girl, Mary.  Many in our congregations forget just what a scandal the incarnation and the virgin birth really were, that behind the pretty nativity scene lies both a Wonder and a Scandal.

To Joseph, the pregnancy is  a violation of social convention and ethics for an unmarried woman.  He decides to divorce Mary, the more humane of his customary legal options.

Perhaps out of kindness, or regret, he will do this quietly in order not to shame her, and he realizes that things are not going to go as planned.  Mary has simply violated the important moral rule that she should not be pregnant when they were married.

We are all like Joseph at times, are we not?  We go about our business and do not want to make trouble; we just handle things quietly and without fuss. Perhaps this text reminds us that things we want to do loudly should be done quietly.

God had to get Joseph’s attention.  God sent an angel to appear to Joseph in a dream.

The angel basically said, “ I know this is not what you expected, Joseph, but it is going to be OK. God is about to do something wonderful, despite the fact that according to Jewish custom and law you are in a rather socially unacceptable situation.”

Somehow Joseph has to trust this strange news:  that this child is from the Holy Spirit; that he already has a name, Jesus; and that he will save people from their sins.

This child will somehow show us a different way to be.

So often God opens a door for us, or gives us a vision, beckoning us to trust and follow. The call of Abraham. The call of Moses.  The call of Noah.

Think about the last time God called you to do something strange or out of the ordinary.  There was no guarantee that what He asked you to do would be a great blessing.

As Mary and Joseph journeyed to the first Christmas, they did not know where God would take them; all they knew was that something wonderful had been promised and that they had been beckoned to follow.

So the text calls us to rise and follow God’s call, not knowing where the journey will take us, or the path that God has set before us.

Immanuel : God with us.  Amen.