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1 Joseph, Did You Know? A Sermon on Matthew 1:18-25 by Rich Holmes Delivered on December 18, 2016 at Northminster Presbyterian Church in North Canton, Ohio Mary, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water? Mary did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters? Did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new? This child that you delivered will soon deliver you. So go the words to a popular song about the mother of our Lord written by Mark Lowry and Buddy Green twenty years ago, a song recently made popular by the a capella group Pentatonix. If you have heard this song, I would say there is a good chance that you like it and you have good reasons for liking it. First, the music is beautiful. I am not a music person, so I can t tell you why this song is beautiful, but I think I know beautiful music when I hear it and let me assure you that Mary, Did You Know? is a beautiful song. That s the first thing. Second, Mary, Did You Know? has a refreshing message that reminds us of the true meaning of Christmas amid all the other songs we hear this time of year about Santa Claus and Frosty the Snowman that frankly distract from the true meaning of Christmas. And that is important. In fact, it may be impossible to overstate just how important that is. And finally the song Mary, Did You Know?, or at least the arrangement by Pentatonix, moves slowly and deliberately through every word of the song written by Lowry and Green, so you can t help but meditate on the importance of the message as you listen to it, the importance of the message that this little child who came in Mary s womb was born to be the savior of the world. There are so many reasons to love Mary, Did You Know? And because there are so many reasons to love it, it is with the greatest reluctance that I say anything critical about it, but while it might be a minor point, if you read your gospels, you will be assured that yes, yes indeed, 1

2 Mary knew. By the time she delivered Jesus it was not news to her that her baby boy would be the savior of the world, in fact while she was still pregnant, Mary had a whole song about how blessed she was to be having this child, as she sang my soul magnifies the Lord and so we call her song we The Magnificat. So while it is a beautiful song and a much needed song for this time of year, the answer to the question Mary, did you know? is yes, yes of course she knew. Read the first chapter of Luke. So today, rather than asking the question Mary, did you know? I think a better question is Joseph, did you know? Joseph, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water? Joseph did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters? Joseph, did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new? This child your wife delivered will soon deliver you. Now, you may say to me Pastor Rich, I know my bible and so, I agree that Mary, did you know? is a silly question. But what I want to know is this. How does the question get any less silly if we replace the word Mary with the word Joseph? After all, today we read that just as Joseph found out that his fiancé Mary was with child, as he knew that he was not the father he was prepared to dismiss her quietly. But then, we are told, an angel appeared to him in a dream and said Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. So maybe Mary, did you know? is a silly question, but why isn t Joseph, did you know? just as silly? Haven t you read today s gospel lesson, Pastor Rich? 2

3 Well, what does it mean to know something? If I say I know that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, or I know that all whales are mammals or I know that the earth revolves around the sun and I don t just say I believe these things, I think these things, or I hope these things, what do I mean, what do I add to this when I say I know? Well, first, there is a difference between saying I know and I believe, but if I were to go around saying I don t believe that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, or I don t believe that all whales are mammals, only someone who is insane would say that I know these things. So, it seems that if I am to say I know something I must first believe it. Second, it also seems clear that while I can know that water boils at 100 degrees Celsius, I cannot know that water boils at 50 degrees Celsius. I can believe that water boils at 50 degrees Celsius, I can hope that it boils at 50 degrees Celsius, and when I am trying to cook something on the stove and the water is taking a long time to boil, I even can wish it would boil at 50 degrees Celsius, but I cannot know that water boils at 50 degrees Celsius, because I cannot know something that isn t true. So to know something I have to believe it and my belief has to be true, and surely you will tell me that this much is obvious, but while you may not have thought about this much, it seems that in order to know something we must add a third thing. To know something you can t just have a true belief, but you have to have a true belief backed up by good reasons. If you don t have a good reason for believing something to be true which is true, then it would be a little strange to say you know it is true. I remember when Sophia was a toddler, Kelly and I were trying to teach her all the numbers one through ten and the alphabet and her colors as parents often do, and one day I 3

4 recall we were working with her on her colors and you know, we had a set of different cards that we used to help teach her. One was blue and one was green and one was red and so on. And so we held up the blue card in front of her and said What color is this? Well, believe it or not, she said Blue. Oh, Kelly and I got so excited we really did. We clapped for her and cheered for her. We hugged in this joyous embrace. We said I can t believe it, she knows her colors, she knows her colors! And then, we of course moved on to the next card. So, we held up the green card, and we said Ok, Sophia, now what color is this? Blue. Oh, well, we said, so she got one wrong, so what? And then, we held up the red card and said Sophia, now what color is this? and guess what she said? Once again, Blue. Now, given that at that time, Sophia would answer Blue whenever we asked her the color of anything, did she know that the blue card was in fact blue. As much as I hate to admit it, I would have to say she did not. She did not know. She had the true belief that the blue card was blue, but she did not know that it was blue because she thought that every card was blue. She didn t have a good reason for believing that the blue card was blue. So given that knowledge is true belief with a good reason, how does Joseph do? Did he know? Well, since he did not dismiss his fiancé Mary as he had planned to do, but married her based on the angel s words, I think we must say that he believed and as Christians, we confess that his beliefs were true. So he had true belief but what we really need to know is did he have good reasons for having his true beliefs. Well, he believed that his wife was bearing the Son of God because of some dream. Have you ever had a dream? I have had dreams where I could fly and float on air. I have had dreams where my dog Bubba could talk. I had another dream where I was giving a sermon from this pulpit and this sanctuary was like a pool and all of you were 4

5 floating on the water in little rafts and floats. Dreams are crazy. But in saying that dreams are crazy, if you are going to come to me and tell me that an angel told you that your pregnant wife was going to give birth to the son of God and that her baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit of God, I don t mean that I would say that sounds like a crazy dream. I think I would say that sounds like a pretty normal dream as far as dreams go. But if you were going to believe these things about your wife on the basis of that dream, I think I might wonder if you were crazy. So does Joseph know? Does he know that his baby boy will one day walk on water? Does he know that his baby boy will save our sons and daughters? I don t think so. Joseph has a true belief about these things but believing on the basis of a dream does not seem to qualify as knowledge, if knowledge is true belief with a good reason. But, so what, you might say. So Joseph doesn t know, why does that matter? Well, because if he doesn t know, then that means that in following a dream, in following an angel in a dream, Jospeh is not someone the world would necessarily admire. He is not someone that respectable and educated people would admire. In fact, the world would call him a fool for following a dream. The world would say he isn t following the evidence of what s true. All the evidence says that his fiancé, Mary has been unfaithful to him. All the evidence says that the child his fiancé bears in her womb is an illegitimate child. Oh, surely Joseph would want to believe that Mary is faithful to him. Surely he would want to believe that the child in her womb is the product of something holy and good and pure, but you would not say, I would not say that wanting something to be true is a good reason for believing it to be true. We call that wishful thinking. And if that wishful thinking were supported by a dream, by an episode from a 5

6 world where animals speak and people float on air and sanctuaries are filled with water, we would still call it wishful thinking. The world would call Joseph a fool. But perhaps we have all felt a little foolish here in this place called the church. Perhaps we have all felt that our faith is just a lot of wishful thinking, perhaps we have all felt that the world laughs at us, perhaps we have all felt that we can t possibly make what we do here in the church make sense to people on the outside. And if you have ever felt that way, even for a moment, the assurance you get today is you are not alone. Our Lord was born into a world of such foolish faith, and without such foolish faith, we wouldn t have the story of our Lord s birth. Joseph, did you know that your baby boy will one day walk on water? Joseph did you know that your baby boy will save our sons and daughters? Joseph, did you know that your baby boy has come to make you new? Joseph did you know? 6

I begin today with a quote from the book of James. What good is it, my brothers and

I begin today with a quote from the book of James. What good is it, my brothers and Christian Virtues Part I: The Virtue of Faith A Sermon by Rich Holmes on Hebrews 11: 1-3; 8-16 Delivered on August 7, 2016 at Northminster Presbyterian Church in North Canton, Ohio I begin today with a