“Someone Else” comes first

English

Someone "Else" comes first

Matthew 1:18-25

This is the fourth Advent Sunday, Mary and Joseph Sunday. Today, we will think about these two people who had plans for their lives. And, from the perspective of everyone in their culture, Mary and Joseph's own plans were good and admirable. But, then, things happened outside themselves that turned their worlds upside down. What happened in their lives -- in the eyes of almost everyone in their society -- would have seemed wrong, painful and chaotic. But, the perspectives of the world were wrong. When Mary and Joseph lost control of their lives, they found the lives for which they were created. And so can you.
A marvelous poem by UA Fanthorpe helps us imagine what Joseph had planned for his life.
I am Joseph, carpenter,
Of David's kingly line,
I wanted an heir; discovered
My wife's son wasn't mine.

I am an obstinate lover,
Love Mary for better or worse.
Wouldn't stop loving when I found
Someone Else came first.

Mine was the likeness I hoped for
When the first-born man-child came.
But nothing of him was me. I couldn't
Even choose his name.

I am Joseph, who wanted
To teach my own boy how to live...

Can you empathize with Joseph's hopes? He wanted to get married. It was likely that since childhood his life and Mary's had been joined together by the arrangement of the two families. According to custom, he could have gotten out of this arrangement but he and Mary had taken the step from a family-determined engagement to being betrothed to one another. A betrothal was as binding as a marriage except the couple continued to live with their families and they were to refrain from sexual consummation until the actual marriage became official. I think Joseph, like most of us human beings, had envisioned being married, having a family, naming his children and raising them to be faith-filled and contributing parts of society.
Do you have any dreams about your future? We talk about the American dream of going to college, getting married, advancing in our careers, having families, owning a beautiful home, retiring well... I don't know what your own plans for your life are but I'm quite sure you have some. And, I picture Joseph and Mary as being people who had dreams for their own lives. And, they were headed down that path of dreams in ways completely in keeping with their culture's values. But, then God broke in.
When God broke in and when they learned to place their faith in him, their lives became messy and uncomfortable in terms of the world's ways. But, I am fully convinced that, when they did, they found the life their Creator had created them for. Let's think about what they learned and what they teach us.

#1: There is a bigger story in the universe going on than my own personal plans.
When a person intentionally and consciously accepts that this is true, i.e., that Someone bigger than we are has a plan for our lives, it is life-changing. Do you believe that God has a plan for this world and that he is accomplishing that plan through all that transpires? Most people will have times in their lives when they say things like, "There's something bigger going on here" -- or, "There are things happening that ought not to be". Phrases like those express the conviction that there is something or Someone orchestrating what happens and determining what ought and what ought not to be.
But, although most of us have an intuition that there must be some kind of deity who brings order and direction to the world, we usually ignore the implications of that and live as if the world revolves around us personally. I think this tendency is illustrated well by some of the work that has been done by Southern California artist, John Baldessari. Baldessari recognizes that much of what happens in our world seems random and chaotic. But he thinks a good artist can conceive of ways it all fits together and can, in fact, bring order out of apparent disorder. He calls it a "new sense of order." (I will show one of his works.) In a series of photographs, Baldessari show random acts of throwing balls into the air. But, he tries to demonstrate that what, on its own, seems like random act, can be turned into order and design by the skilled artist. Through careful selection of photographs, of placement of photographs within frames, and of sequencing photographs, he thinks he shows how we can personally bring order out of chaos.
In a much, much bigger way, the Bible makes the point that God is taking everything that is happening in our world, directing it, and moving it toward what someday will reflect his own character. Using the Bible's language, someday everything will declare the glory of God, i.e., it will reflect the love, justice, power, order and beauty of the God who made it. Let's apply this to Joseph's story.

Things that must have seemed "out of order" to Joseph
Joseph discovered that one's own plans can go awry in a painfully unexpected way. Learning that his fiancée, Mary, was pregnant out of wedlock, he fought to keep his hurt and sense of betrayal from boiling over. This was not what Joseph had planned for! What was supposed to be a secure relationship had suddenly become a scandalous disaster.
I had a church member who, many years ago, discovered that his new wife had been unfaithful to him. He said to me, "Pastor, I feel like Joseph must have felt. I don't even feel like a man anymore. Everything I have hoped for has been shattered. Do I run away and start all over? Do I go and try to hurt the guy? And what do I do with my wife? Nothing will ever be the same again. I just don't know what to do."
But, you may say, "But Mary had not been unfaithful to Joseph." I ask you, "How could Joseph have believed that?" 21st C people think that ancient people were dumb and gullible. Don't believe it! Joseph knew how women got pregnant. And he knew he had not been the man involved in her life. Notice that powerful phrase in v.18, "It was before they came together..."
Which made Mary's situation even more difficult than anyone could imagine. It's hard enough when we personally fail. People who want to do what is right still fail and fall short of our own convictions – and surely we fall sort of God's. Few of us can be self-righteous and pretend we have not had times in which we have said, "I've made a mess of it. What going to happen to me now?" But, of course, in this case, Mary had not even made a mess of it. This had happened to her by no choice of her own. As a result, her future must have seemed hopeless. Her dream of a beautiful marriage and family seemed now to be a pipedream.
Let me tell you that God is one who steps into our messy world and turns things around. He does this when we have failed. And, even when simply bad things happen to us – and are not of our own making – he knows what he is doing. Here, I simply want you to notice the striking way the Angel of the Lord spoke to Joseph in v.21: "Joseph, son of David, do not fear..."
What the angel was saying was that God knew that this was not at all what Joseph would have wanted and certainly would not have prayed for. (Would you?) But, a much bigger and better plan was in the works. In the genealogy of Mt 1:1-17, God revealed that a plan of long-standing was being unfolded. When you look at the names of those in the genealogy, you will be struck by the fact that it is an unexpected list – filled with tragedies and failures. And, oh yes, the great King David is listed there. But, why does the list record in v.6 the greatest failure of David's life – his terrible sin of adultery with Uriah's wife?
God is saying, "I know what has happened in my world and I am entering into it fully – yes, into the messiness of this sin-filled world. Joseph and Mary, there is no way for me to do what has to be done in this fallen world without situations being messy themselves. But, I know what I am doing. You have to learn to trust me. Your lives matter and they matter to me. Your life may be painful for a while but where there is sin, I will save. Where you have done what is right and still face pain, I will prove myself to be just. Trust me. There is a bigger plan at work, son and daughter of David."
With that little phrase, "son of David", God is saying that he knows what yesterday, today and tomorrow hold and that even unlikely people like Joseph and Mary are a big part of it. And so are you.

#2: The story is God's story so he alone is the one in control.
Most people are religious in some way. But, the tendency for religious people has always been to think there must be some higher power we can tap into, that we can get to do what we want. This is what magic potions have been about in false religions, i.e., trying to get the forces in the universe to do what we want them to do. Most religion in the history of the world is all about doing certain religious rituals to earn the favor of the higher power. And many people have tried to reduce the Christian faith to some kind of religious activities that we engage in to try to get God to do what we want him to do.
Joseph probably tended to think of religion in that way. He had been a good man. Even when he learned of his fiancé's pregnancy, he wanted to do what was right. In fact, he was ready to go beyond what was allowed in his culture's laws. He could have made Mary a public disgrace. His nation's laws allowed the possibility for Mary to be stoned for her sexual unfaithfulness. But instead of publicly humiliating Mary, Joseph decided to divorce her quietly. Do you see it? Joseph was still trying to control the situation. Personally, I deeply respect him for the way he wanted to care for Mary.
But what broken-hearted Joseph didn't know—and what we don't often know in the midst of difficult interruptions—is that God was at the center of this life-altering event. Not long after Joseph devised his plan of divorce, an angel of the Lord came to him in a dream telling him to take Mary as his wife because the child who had been conceived in her by the Holy Spirit would be the Savior of sinners.
I can imagine myself thinking, "Was this dream real?" I might have said, like Ebenezer Scrooge said to the ghost of Jacob Marley in Charles Dickens' Christmas Carol, "We mortals cannot trust our senses. You might be an undigested bit of beef!" It must have been hard for Joseph to trust that his dream was genuine?
Or, I might have said, "Well, Lord, that's an interesting idea. But, I have a better plan. After all, do you know how hard it will be for me to go out and tell my friends that the Holy Spirit did this to Mary? Your plan, God, will lead to us both being the greatest embarrassment conceivable to our families and the biggest laughing stocks in the world to our friends. No, Lord. Here's what I'm going to pray for: That you'll just take the pregnancy away!"
I can imagine the new plan Joseph had in his mind. He had probably already gotten his speech ready:
This will be difficult for me to tell you, Mary, and even harder to do. But I must. There is no other way. Our laws provide for denouncing your unfaithfulness before the rulers of the synagogue. But, Mary, I'm going to make the best of this. You betrayed me, but I won't betray you. On the other hand, you must understand that we cannot go on with our plans to be married. This thing would always stand between us. So I have made my decision. We will let everybody believe that this is my child, and I'll give you a letter of release. You'll live your life, and I'll go my way. You'll carry your burden, and I my sorrow.
But, only one person could be in control in this situation – either the God of heaven or Joseph.
And notice this too: Joseph was not allowed to name his son. One of the greatest privileges a parent had in ancient Israel was the privilege to name one's own children. It went all the way back to Genesis 2 when God entrusted Adam with the privilege of naming things in creation. God is the owner of all that is. But, he has made us in such a way that we get to manage what he has made. This is part of the image of God in us. Of course, now most things have names. But it was a great blessing and privilege to be able to name ones' own son. The point is this: the person who named, in Jewish culture, was the one entrusted by God to manage or steward the life of the child.
Because of that, v.21 may be something we think little of but it was enormous for Joseph. "You shall not name your son. You shall call him Jesus for he shall save people from their sins." The point is very, very clear: Joseph would never be able to "manage" Jesus. In fact, Joseph himself was one who would need salvation — need Jesus to redirect and re-manage Joseph's life. Jesus is never an "add-on." As CS Lewis would write about his Christ-figure named Aslan, "Aslan is not a tame lion. He is good but he is not tame." That's exactly how Jesus is. He comes into our lives for a take-over. God is ready to enter into your life too. But he must be who he is. He is the God of the universe.

#3: I find my life when I surrender my life to His will.
The Bible says that happens when we place our faith in him. We entrust our pasts, our present and our future to him. And that means we make decisions in the present that are decisions of faith in him.
An angel of the Lord told Joseph that Mary was indeed a virgin, that her child was conceived of the Holy Spirit, and that he should take her home as his wife. And v.24 records his response to this dream: "When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord commanded him." That's remarkable in that Joseph was asked to believe something that had never happened before in history and, in fact, has never happened since. Not only was he asked to believe it but also to act upon it. And he did.
Even with this angelic "inside information," Joseph needed extraordinary faith and courage to take Mary as his wife. The unexpected interruption resulting from her divine pregnancy would most certainly cause him to lose his reputation and, according to Mt 2:13, the comforts of community and home. Things would never be easy for this couple. Sometimes they would have doubts. Read Mark 3:31-35 and you'll see that they had doubts about Jesus. And, of course, even at the end of Jesus' life, there was the pain of seeing him crucified that they had to bear. But in the midst of his pain, and some understandably difficult questions, Joseph and Mary chose to trust God. Joseph legally wed Mary and then named the child Jesus.
When Joseph did this, he laid it all on the line for the God he served. In very practical ways, this couple shows us what courageous faith looks like in the face of life's mysterious interruptions. When Jesus says that we must believe in him and follow him, then what he means is that, like Mary and Joseph, we are to faithfully obey God. When we do, we will also be used to make Jesus known to a lost and broken world.
Joseph shows us the heart of what it means to respond to the grace of God through faith in Jesus and have our lives turned upside down. It's never what we would have expected. Seldom what we would have chosen. And, in the longer view of things, it's always better.
The prophet Isaiah had written about this in Is 55:1,6-9:
Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters...
Seek the LORD while he may be found; call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD... for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
This is the way true faith has always been. It's learning to trust and obey God. That's where true life is found. What is it like?
... Like Abraham of old who was told, "Leave this place." "Where to, Lord?" "Wherever I take you?" "What will I do?" "Whatever I tell you." "And what are the benefits to this job?" "They're the joy of knowing you are in my will." "And, Lord, you say I'll have a son?" "Yes, but later than you think."
... Like an old man named Moses – facing the unknown depths of rising raging waters, mumbling, "I beg your pardon, Sir", when God says, "Trust me and use what's in your hand".
... Like a young man named David sent to face a fully armed and by-armor-protected giant named Goliath. "Just a slingshot and a few rocks, Lord?" "Yes, David, but I will be with you."
... Like the loosely knit group of disciples having heard Jesus' clarion call, "follow me", without a clue to the length, depth, height, or width of such open ended instructions, and who, I'm sure often whispered to each other, "What on earth are we doing??"
... And it's like Mary being told by God as a teenager, "You will be pregnant without ever having sex. But, it's from me, Mary, and you will find what real life is all about through trusting me." And she said, "May it be done according to your Word, Oh Lord." And Joseph being told, "Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."
And, we are told simply, "When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. Ironically, through this Son, Joseph found his own salvation and life. And you can too.

To His glory,

Dr. Greg Waybright
Senior Pastor