God With Us
Pastor
Mathew Magera – 12/24/16 – Sermon 201
St. Thomas
Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be
the Glory!
Grace
and peace to you from God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and
the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Have
you ever realized how the Christmas story would work so perfectly on those
daytime trash TV talk shows? It's probably the most recognized of Christian
stories and it is just littered with scandal. We see a woman, young woman at
that, getting impregnated without consent. We see this woman already engaged
with a man and he finds his fiancée pregnant. He just happens to notice
something about her. You know Mary, your outfit just doesn't fit you the way it
used to. She's pregnant and he knows he is not the one who did it. Knowing what
this could mean, he looks to break off the marriage, but quietly, of course, by
divorcing her.
We're
so accustomed to the story that we become immune of all the dirtiness within
it. Right away in Matthew, we are plunged straight into the scandal. We can't
tell the story without acknowledging Jesus' birth was illegitimate. In order to
tell the Christmas story we all know so well, we need to go deep into the
scandalous world of community life. While many parts of a traditional
engagement have become obsolete, it began as a very strange custom. Two people
expressing love for one another but agreeing to remain celibate during that
time up until marriage. There once was a time when people kept track of the
time between a marriage and the birth of their first child. If the time was
less than 9 months, people would talk. Oh, they would talk, and gossip and
talk. If the child was born too early, the engaged couple obviously couldn't
wait. The couple could explain all they wanted but it would not hold up against
the evidence of a child with a birthday earlier than it is supposed to be. There
would be no explanation of the source of pregnancy except for the obvious, and
in this case the explanation is Joseph. For Joseph, though, all he likely saw
was an affair. Joseph saw that she was growing. Any man would complain and
would consider walking away in disgust and he desires to divorce quietly. But,
even if it was done quietly, Mary would still suffer and would live with a
question mark over her life. Jesus was born under a stigmata that he was an
illegitimate child. Of course, we know what is going on behind the scenes, in,
above, and underneath it all, the Holy Spirit being the one who assumes control
of the entire story.
Many
of the aspects of the Christmas story have become more of a norm for us.
Illegitimate children come around all too regularly, even outside engagement.
Affairs, divorces, step families. All of these terms mean something to us
today. Either you or someone you know identifies with one of those. You know
someone who has had an affair or who has been cheated on. You know someone who
has been divorced, maybe more than once. You know someone who is a step parent
or step child. These aspects of peoples' lives are real but they are no less
scandalous than the Christmas story.
But,
if we are seeing these situations more and more, why do we cover up the
scandals of the Christmas story and make it appear clean, holy, and peaceful?
Why do we do this if, at the same time, there is little about our scandalous
lives that we can cover up even if we tried? Why does the Christmas story appear
so nice and neat but our affairs, divorces and split families are full of
frustration, disappointment, and anger? We mask the scandal for the silent
night manger scene, but in our world, we just can't keep the effects held down.
Separate holidays and birthdays, arguments over child support, custody laws,
affairs and broken relationships. The scandal is obvious and can't be hidden
and it makes this time of the year pretty darn bleak. BREAK
I
think we like Christmas clean because we feel it is one of the last peaceful
and perfect things that we can look to for hope. I think we envision it the way
we do because we think God should not have to subject himself to the challenges
of this world. We don't want God to be surrounded by scandal. We know we can't
have Jesus born in a palace somewhere but at least if he has to be born in
Bethlehem, let's forget about the intensity of the family dynamics that are
involved here. But, I wonder if we might find even more joy about the Christmas
story if we let the messiness of it come out. Imagine the rumors that are going
around. The stories. The scars. The broken hearts. All surrounding Mary,
Joseph, and now Jesus. The nativity story was likely not the way we envision
it. It was messy. What might happen if we embrace that mess?
Do
you remember what the story says about Jesus' name? The fulfillment of the
prophecy said, "'The Virgin will conceive a child and give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel' (which means 'God with us')." There is
something about the meaning of Immanuel but before I get there I want to tell
you a story.
Some
of you have heard this before but after Lane and I got married, it came time to
celebrate our first Christmas together. We both come from families that have a
tradition of a special Christmas Eve dinner and had to decide what we were
going to do. We decided on doing my family tradition of fondue. Meats,
potatoes, vegetables, hot oil and cheese. We had everything ready, it was going
to be great. Plus, we got a fondue set for our wedding, so we had everything we
needed. The only problem was that the flame for this fondue pot was not strong
enough to heat up the oil. After a while, I decided to take the oil out of the
pot and heat it on the stove. Once the oil was hotter, I brought it back to the
table to pour it into the pot. The problem was that the pot had cooled down and
the oil was much hotter. Upon pouring it in, it sent drops of oil spitting all
over the place, smoke rising, and the pot shattered in two pieces. I quickly
took what was left in my saucepan back to the stove but there was hot oil on
the table cloth, burnt, and on the carpet, burnt. It was a complete mess and
our Christmas Eve dinner was ruined. But, we still had a bunch of raw food.
Rather than let it go to waste, we put it all together an made a stir-fry. This
is how our tradition of stir-fry on Christmas Eve began.
Every
time we have Christmas Eve dinner, I am reminded about the mess that was our
first Christmas, but I'm also reminded of what came out of that mess and how it
has become Christmas for my family. Maybe you know of a messy Christmas. I'm
not talking about a botched dinner like mine but one in which there is a real
mess. One that gives you memories you wish you'd never had. When we think about
Christmas, if we think about that mess, we can also think about who is there in
that mess with us. Immanuel. God with us. There's something about that name
Immanuel that speaks to the mess that Jesus was born into. God with us. Jesus,
our Immanuel, was born into a life that we can identify with. He was born of a
single parent, adopted by his father. His parents likely lived with shame from
the many who would choose not to believe in angels or stars, shepherds and
kings but rather in affairs and dirty engagements. He can identify with us who
don't live clean lives and we can identify with him. He is truly God with us.
As
he grows up, we can see how he is present with those less liked and
marginalized people. Immanuel is God with the prostitutes. Immanuel is God with
the lepers and the sick. Immanuel is God with the outcast. Immanuel is God with
the little children whose heads Jesus touched and blessed. But, it goes beyond
that. It goes beyond the Bible stories and into our stories. Immanuel is God
with us when we just can’t find that perfect person for us. Immanuel is God
with us at the discovery of an affair. Immanuel is God with us during a teenage
pregnancy. Immanuel is God with us during a custody hearing. Immanuel is God
with us on Wednesdays or every other weekend. Immanuel is God with us during
divorce. Immanuel is God with us as the object of gossip or ridicule.
As
I have said, this might not be you but you know someone who this applies to and
you know the hope this message can bring them. And if this is you, this is your
hope. Jesus was born into a mess, some of the very messes that define who we
are, some of the frustrations that we battle each and every week. And if we
remember that very part of the Christmas story, that Jesus came right in the
middle of what everybody else saw as unnatural, sinful, distasteful,
despicable, and condemning, we remember that it was our imperfections that
Jesus came for in the first place. He didn't come for the perfect family with
the perfect parents, perfect kids, that drove a perfect car, had a perfect job,
lived in a perfect house. Jesus came for the broken and was born right in the
thick of it.
No,
we don't get life right a lot of the times but that is where Jesus meets us, in
the mess. That is where we find Immanuel, God with us. If Jesus was born in the
middle of it in Bethlehem, what is to say that he is not with us in the middle
of our messes today? Our human sinfulness will still remain. Our self-control
will still be lacking. But, just like the Christmas story, we remember that it
is the Holy Spirit who assumes control over it all. Just as the Holy Spirit was
overseeing events of the Christmas story, we can be assured that the Holy
Spirit is overseeing our story too.
Through
all the disappointment and ambiguities of life, Jesus comes from beneath us to
announce himself as the one that will take that disappointment away. We may
still have to suffer through multiple holiday parties, shuffling children
around, worrying about this or that, but we can be assured that Jesus is there
with us and that whether we are the victim or the cause of our situation, Jesus
still loves us and wants what is best for us. Jesus is still there for us. He
is still born despite what is going on in your world and my world. We can take
that with us and it can give us even the tiniest bit more hope in handling what
is on our plates this Christmas season even if it isn't the perfect fondue we
had intended to make in the beginning. Jesus came for you. He was born for you.
He died for you. He is Immanuel, God with us. Merry Christmas. To God be the
glory, now and always. Amen.