Old First: Sermon for Advent 4, December 23, Going With God

Isaiah 7:10-16, Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19, Romans 1:1-7, Matthew 1:18-25

For Sharon

This is the final sermon in my series on the inner experience of God.

Last week I said, don’t expect the feeling of God inside you as a special supernatural feeling, but as the feeling of your new self coming to birth inside you by the power of the Holy Spirit. I said that God comes to you as you don’t expect, and even in judgement on your expectations, but at the same time God comes to you in ways that are natural to you, as your nature conforms to God’s intention.

Two weeks ago I said, you can’t have God inside you and still stay the same as you are. The presence of God inside you requires repentance. I called repentance making room for God inside yourself, opening yourself to God. I said that repentance is not so much your work as God’s work. Repentance is the work of the Holy Spirit already in you, who is building a nest in you, a nest for the birth of yourself.

Three weeks ago I said that is good and right to desire an experience of God, even to long for God. You are designed for it, it’s what it means to be a human being. And the more you experience God, the more you long for God.

Today I want to talk about what an experience of God requires of you. An experience of God is not so that you can be satisfied and sit back. Listen, don’t think an experience of God’s presence is an alternative to your need for faith. Don’t say to yourself, "Oh, I had the feeling, I know it now, it’s all easy to believe."

The truth is that whatever experience you get of God’s presence in your life will require of you even yet more faith. An experience of God is not to make your Christian life easier, it often makes it harder. Your experience will give you one kind of certainty and also bring you new uncertainties. If God gives you a sign, that is to comfort you and challenge you, to confirm you and to call you onward.

Which is why King Ahaz did not want to ask for a sign. He could have used one. Jerusalem was under siege. He could ask for any sign he could think of. But he wanted to look strong. To ask for a sign would be to look weak, as if he were uncertain.

Ahaz reminds me of someone else. "I’m the decider here." It proves how weak he really was, and that underneath his apparent firm resolve was doubt and fear.

And so the sign will be very natural, as ordinary as a young girl giving birth. Such a sign is easily dismissed by the skeptical. To look at something as ordinary as childbirth and read in it the presence of God, Emmanuel, God with us. This very natural sign requires faith even to regard it as a sign. This sign is both a comfort and a challenge.

The sign that Joseph got is just as hard to believe. Who of you takes your dreams literally? Who of you would not have recognized your dream as a projection of your wishful thinking? This dream added two more uncertainties to his earlier uncertainty. His first uncertainty was the character of his fiancé. How could she have done this to them? And now the added uncertainties of whether to credit his dream, and, hardest of all, to believe what his dream implied, that is, a virgin birth, which was just as preposterous back then, and should tell him right off that his dream was all imagination. So you see that this sign from God to Joseph, intended as it was to comfort and confirm him, also greatly challenged him.

Consider what he was up against. Let me remind you of that recent story from Saudi Arabia, where the girl who was raped was sentenced to 200 lashes for sitting in a car with another man. In most of human history, sexual relations are all about honor and family obligations. It would not have been illegal for Mary to have been stoned to death. And marriage was not romance, but a contract between the heads of families. Joseph’s family had the right to compensation from Mary’s family.

The dream is a challenge for Joseph to get through all these social obstacles. So he has to decide this dream is more than a dream, and that this pregnancy really is virginal, and that he should accept the undeserved but inevitable shame of her pregnancy and the unfair dishonor to himself and his family.

People will have their choice of stories. That Joseph is admitting sex ahead of time, which was shame for Mary’s family. Or that Joseph is accepting a child not his own, which was shame for Joseph’s family. Of course, the latter suspicion would be true, but in a way they could not imagine, and how could Joseph convince them otherwise. The irony is that his choice for generosity to Mary and hospitality to God would dishonor him. His people would regard as weakness in him what is actually the obedience of his faith. The obedience of faith.

If you’re thinking of asking for the presence of God in your life, you just might want to think again. When you have God in your life, you lose some control of your life, and of your reputation. You are invited to do risky things, you are asked to take steps that others misinterpret. When God comes to you, you are called to follow God where other people will not go.

The angel says to Joseph, Do not be afraid. Of what’s in front of you and of the unknown path ahead. Do not be afraid of your second thoughts. Do not be afraid of people’s talk, about yourself, about your wife, and eventually about your son. Do not be afraid that you might not love the baby as your own. Do not be afraid that you might harbor just a little resentment towards Mary, and not fully love her as your own. For she will never be your property like some other woman, and even though you’re married you cannot really have her yet. What kind of a man are you, Joseph? The angel says, Do not be afraid.

God is always calling you. God is calling you to new steps in your life. God is calling you to take some things up and put some things down. The call of God will always cost you some. But God restores you too. The angel says, Do not be afraid.

The Psalm says, "Restore us, O God, and we shall be saved." Salvation is not just going to heaven when you die, salvation is the knowledge of God in your life right now. Salvation will restore you, but also recreate you; salvation will comfort you, but also challenge you. Salvation is a precious and costly gift, you receive it, but it will cost you. Yet, do not be afraid.

Salvation requires your obedience. Not as the world expects, that is, obedience to the law, obedience to rules and regulations, but as St. Paul says, the obedience of faith. That is a deeper obedience of relationship, an obedience of risk and creativity, an obedience not of holding back but stepping out. And you do not know the way, you have only the testimony of scripture to guide you. Do not be afraid.

Salvation calls you to community. The promise is Immanuel, God with us, not God with me. Joseph went from being alone in his predicament into community with his wife. So Jesus was a savior even before his birth, he had to save their marriage. Joseph went from lonely alienation into a trusting fellowship with his beloved. God calls you to community; do not be afraid.

Salvation calls you to service. As Joseph subjected his own rights to the service of his wife and her child. God calls you to service, do not be afraid. And service requires love. Joseph had to love that woman, and he could. He had to love that little child, whom he adopted as his own. Oh, I wonder how much Mary loved him back, this man, this special man, into whose arms she could just rest herself. God calls you to love; so do not be afraid.

On Christmas Eve, Joseph, in the stable, in helping Mary with her childbirth, had to take that baby into his hands, and receive him as a gift. He had to adopt that child as his own, and there he had to love him. On Christmas Eve, Joseph shows us what God is like. For we ourselves are adopted. Jesus is the natural Son of God, the rest of us are adopted. As Joseph made that baby his beloved, so God calls you beloved; and so do not be afraid.