Christmas Eve Year B [Matthew 1:18-25] (24-Dec-2014)

This sermon was preached at Cornerstone College, 7pm.

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

Our sermon text today was inspired by the Holy Spirit by the apostle St Matthew. And we read from his gospel the history of the event of Christmas, where the angel says:

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. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

Prayer: O holy child of Bethlehem, descend to us we pray. Cast out our sin and enter in, be born in us today. We hear the Christmas angels the great glad tidings tell. O come to us, abide with us, Our Lord, Immanuel. Amen.

I’d like to begin tonight by talking about Easter. On Easter Sunday morning, we read about a small group of women, who were sad about the fact that Jesus had died. Jesus had been buried by two rich men, Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, who had given him a rich man’s burial. And here early on Sunday morning comes Mary Magdalene and another woman, also called Mary, and they want to come and see the tomb.

They are coming early on Sunday morning because they want to put spices on Jesus’ body. But there’s one problem – only one day before, Pontius Pilate, the man who had had Jesus put to death, ordered that the tomb be made extra especially secure. We read: So they went and made the tomb secure by sealing the stone and setting a guard.

So when the women went to the tomb, how were they even going to get into the tomb? The door to the tomb was rock solid—how were the women going to roll this stone away themselves? I don’t know if the women who were going to the tomb even knew that they would have had such a hard time getting into the tomb. They got up so early, and maybe they were so consumed with their grief, that they rushed to the tomb with their spices without really thinking about what needed to be done.

But when they got there, what happened? Matthew tells us: And behold, there was a great earthquake, for an angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow. And for fear of him the guards trembled and became like dead men. But the angel said to the women, “Do not be afraid, for I know that you seek Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples that he has risen from the dead.”

Can you imagine what must have been going through the women’s minds? Could you imagine if you were there on this occasion what you must have thought? Jesus was actually risen from the dead. Here were these women, who had no idea how to roll back the stone, but when they got there, God himself sent an angel not just to let them enter the tomb, but to show them that Christ himself was not even there.

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St Paul says: Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Listen to those words: be transformed by the renewal of your mind. Here the bible offers us a worldview, a mindset, a completely different perspective that explains the world and how it works that could never even occur to us. We often think treat human life, as if we have a body and a mind and that’s it. I think, therefore I am. No – there is so much more. People carry on as if the only thing that exists is what they can see—no, there is so much more. What is written here in the bible, about the life of Jesus, is like a colour movie—and yet do we want to live our lives in black-and-white?

Be transformed by the renewal of your mind. This passage about Easter and the angel rolling the stone away is a wonderful encouragement to us, when we find ourselves in some stalemate situation in our life. We find ourselves standing in front of an enormous boulder, and we have no idea how to remove it. And yet, the more we think about how to remove it, we live as if the only thing we are hoping to do is to anoint a dead Jesus on the other side.

And yet, Jesus is not dead—he is alive. Do we expect God to intervene and interfere with our life? Do we expect him to send his own angel to roll the stone away? Do we even believe that God exists, that he has created not just human beings and animals, but all kinds of living creatures, angels and archangels, or as the bible calls them, cherubim and seraphim? Have we noticed the colour, the variety, the wonderful picture of creation that God paints? What a wonderful thing it is that God should send an angel to roll the stone away for these women! What a wonderful thing it is that God should even come and roll away all kinds of stones, all kinds of boulders, all kinds of stumbling-blocks, brick-walls? You know, when we die, he will even roll away that stone—and behind it will be not a dead Jesus, but the living gate to heaven! Can we, who think we are so intelligent, so rational, so wise, even begin to imagine the way in which the world works, not from our perpective, but from God’s perspective?

But let’s come to Christmas—here’s a man, Joseph. And he is engaged to a woman called Mary. And in those days, there was a custom that people who were going to be married had to be engaged (or betrothed) for 9 months before they were married. During that time, they were not allowed to live together or to go to bed together. The reason for this is that a 9 month engagement gave everybody the opportunity to make sure that the woman who was going to be married was not carrying someone else’s child. And yet, right in the middle of this engagement period, we read: Before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.

What do you think you might have done if you were Joseph in this situation? What a blow this must have been for him! I’m sure that he hadn’t picked Mary to be a loose woman. How he must have felt quite some hurt, quite some betrayal. Now, it so happened that if a woman was caught during this 9 month period, carrying someone else’s child, she could be very seriously punished, and even stoned to death. And we read: And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

Can you imagine Joseph staying up late at night, wondering what he was going to do? How was he going to fix this problem? He obviously loved Mary, and he didn’t want her to be faced by a lynch mob. And so it says, that he wanted to do things quietly, not to expose her to shame. But he also didn’t want to ahead with the wedding, because he knew that Mary was pregnant with someone else’s child—and yet, I’m sure he was looking forward to the wedding. Here is Joseph standing in front a brick wall in his life—not knowing how to get over it, and so he tries to work out what is the most rational, friendly way to get himself out of this tricky situation.

And yet—now is the time for God to act. When our strength fails, when our ideas have come to an end, it is now time for God to come and sort the situation out. St Paul writes: My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Joseph is weak, he is all out of ideas, and now it is time for God to come and make his power perfect in Joseph’s weakness.

And what happens? Just like at Easter, an angel comes—an angel comes and rolls Joseph’s stone away. And what’s behind the stone—a dead body? Does Mary have to be stoned to death after all? Will she made a spectacle of? No—behind the stone is an empty tomb. There is no death at all, there is no shame—there is only encouragement, joy, life, and more than that—a living child, a living baby, a living Jesus.

We read: As [Joseph] considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. I don’t know if you noticed in our play tonight, how many times Joseph had to go to sleep. I think it is about four times in the Christmas story. And what’s so significant about this? While the world is asleep, God is awake. When our powers and our strength and our ideas fail, God is in charge, and active, and powerful! And so, when Joseph is worn out from thinking, from planning, and falls asleep—then, the angel comes to him. Then God descends from heaven in all his glory and reveals to Joseph the answer to his problem: 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. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.

The child is not his child—he knew that. And yet, this child is God’s child. The mother is Mary—the father is God. And yet, what would an angry crowd do to this young woman without his protection?

So there’s no shame, there’s no calling off the wedding, there’s no disappointment—there’s only joy, joy, and more joy! There’s only delight, wonder, amazement, at the fact that this baby boy, will not bring shame to his family, but will bring delight to the whole world, especially on that day when the same angels of God that spoke to Joseph in his dream come again and roll back the stone to the empty tomb to show to our troubled world that he is not dead, but risen!

We read: All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us.

And when Jesus bursts from the empty tomb, he will also say to his disciples: I will be with you (I who am true God) always to the end of the age.

What do we think this Christmas? How has Jesus our God been with us, and we didn’t even know it? What stone has he rolled away, when all our strength has failed us? What trouble, what heartache, what sadness has he taken on himself? What happiness, what delight, what complete supernatural joy does Jesus himself give us for the taking?

Here at Christmas is the first time when we see the living face of God, surrounded by animals in a manger! And the living face of the baby Jesus is the face that brings joy and life to the world! And Easter time, he will also bring joy to the world that his dead face is not still in the tomb!

We read: When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Amen.

Dear Lord Jesus, bless us this Christmas with every joy and blessing of your Holy Spirit. Come and save your people from their sins, since your name, Jesus, means that. Come and be with us as our God, since you are our Immanuel, which mean God with us. Send us your living joy, that we may join in with all the angels of heaven in singing your praises this night. Amen.