2 nd December 2012 Preacher: Lorraine Sievers (Congregational & Community Care) Theme: CHANGED BY HIS GLORY Mary and Joseph Readings: Isaiah 7:14; Isaiah 9:6-7 Luke 1:26-56 Matt. 1:18-24 Verse: You are blessed because you believed that the Lord would do what He said. Luke 1:45 (NLT) SERMON Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and this week, like many of you, I set up the nativity scene on our hallway table in the same way I do every year. And of course, I arranged the ceramic figurines to look at Baby Jesus. I got thinking; no matter how a Nativity set is designed, whether it s made up of regal or rugged looking characters, there s a constant to these displays. All the characters are looking at Baby Jesus with awe and reverence. These Nativity sets are our interpretation of how the stable area might have looked. But they don t tell the entire story. They don t show the fullness of how Joseph and Mary might have felt, especially during the nine months leading up to Jesus birth. If they did, I m sure these nativity sets would paint a different picture...they would tell of two people who had gone from being filled with the hopes and dreams that anyone has at such a point of life, to being overwhelmed by God s calling in their life. Being pregnant and not married was certainly not part of their dream. But because of their submissive openness to God s will, they give us a beautiful picture of obedience and God s peace. Today, we will zoom back in time and take a close look at what life was like for Mary and Joseph, the first recipients of the most beautiful and life-changing gift we have ever
received in Jesus Christ. We ll see how their lives were transformed as they were swept along in the events that changed them. Mary and Joseph were changed by God s glory! Firstly, we ll consider the context in which the story of Christmas unfolds, as told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. The lovely little town of Nazareth was snuggled in the hills overlooking the broad and fertile Plain of Esdraelon. It probably consisted primarily of some small white-stone houses, a synagogue built on its highest hill, and a marketplace at the entrance to the village. When the New Testament era dawned, its population seems to have numbered little more than one hundred, mostly farmers, but also some skilled craftsmen whose shops were found in the marketplace a potter, a weaver, a dyer, a blacksmith, and a carpenter. The most momentous events of all human history were to involve the people associated with that humble carpenter shop in Nazareth. It just so happened that the carpenter himself, a robust man in the prime of life named Joseph, was engaged to a young girl named Mary, probably still in her teen years. She was a girl upon whom God had bestowed much grace as we heard in our reading from the first chapter of Luke. Mary was also from this poor village. We don t know what she was doing, but we re told she s visited by Angel Gabriel and is told she s pregnant with the Son of God. Imagine her puzzlement and confusion when she hears this announcement. She s a young woman. She s a virgin. She s engaged to be married. And, she s pregnant? How could this be? What would happen to her? Put yourself in her shoes. You could probably feel the fear Mary was feeling.and yet, because of Mary s submissive openness to God s will, He found favour with her, and showed her grace and peace. God will soon show that same grace and favour to the entire world through the birth of Jesus, who would save all of creation from their sin. Mary can feel peace because God isn t going to abandon her. She will be protected.
God will walk with her - she won t be alone in this pregnancy. Mary will receive the greatest gift. She ll be the first to hold the Baby Jesus in her arms and will always be known as the Mother of God. What does Gabriel say to her? He tells her to not be afraid. God is with her. Her response is one of the most beautiful responses to God s grace and kindness in all of Scripture. She says, I am the Lord s servant. She submits to God s desires and accepts it as her own path of grace. She didn t walk as God s servant alone. Mary felt peace knowing God would be beside her in this new journey. However, Mary knew or would soon realise that saying Yes to God meant misunderstanding and public shame. Gone was her pure reputation and with it her dreams of a quiet, happy life in Nazareth. In the future, her life would at times be happy but it would never again be quiet. Since we know the end of the story we may tend to overlook the possibility of divorce. But Mary had no way of knowing how Joseph would respond to her pregnancy. Would he blow his top and walk out on her? Would he humiliate her publicly? Would he divorce her? As the story turned out, Mary had every reason to worry about Joseph. He didn t blow his top or try to humiliate her, but we are told he did intend to divorce her. Only an angel s intervention kept that from happening. That, too, was on Mary s mind. By saying Yes she risked losing her life. Her whole future was on the line. She must have been scared witless! And all these things were just the beginning. Mary couldn t know what the future would hold. In her lifetime she would experience heartache, opposition, slander, confusion, anguish, despair and loneliness. In the end she would face the greatest pain a mother can endure, when she would watch her dear son die on a cross. Mary couldn t know all those things. Perhaps if she had known she might not have said Yes. But it s just as well that she didn t. Sometimes we say, I wish I knew what the future holds for me. But it s probably best we don t know. Mary didn t know the full cost of saying Yes. But having made her decision she never looked back. Those two aspects of her life may be the greatest things we can say about her: 1. She believed God when it seemed to be impossible. 2. She never looked back. When God said, Are you willing to believe the impossible? Mary said, Yes I am! And she was changed by God s glory.
Now we re going to consider Joseph s story. Matthew and Luke offer the most descriptions of the events leading up to Jesus birth, but neither offer much information about Joseph. What little we know from Scripture paints a good portrait of Joseph s character. He was righteous and his righteousness came not from his obedience to the letter of the law, but because he was a witness of God s love. In Matthew s gospel we learn that Mary and Joseph were engaged. The culture of the time required couples to be in this legal relationship for one year before they married. They would live apart from one another, but if one person didn t want to go forward with the marriage, they would need to get a legal divorce. During this period, Joseph learned Mary was pregnant. Can you imagine what Joseph felt when Mary told him the news? Finding his fiancée pregnant by somebody else was certainly not part of his dreams for the future! He hears she s pregnant, that the father is the Holy Spirit. She would be the mother to the Son of God, and his name would be Jesus. Understandably, Joseph had a difficult time believing Mary, and had a decision to make...would he seek a divorce? Legally, Joseph was in his rights to divorce her. Deuteronomy 24:1 states, if you find something displeasing about your future wife, you can seek a divorce. Mary s pregnancy would have been hurtful and distressing to Joseph, but he struggled with this decision. The reason is, that if Joseph made this a public divorce, Mary might have been killed. According to Deuteronomy 22:23-24, the penalty for sleeping with a betrothed virgin, was the stoning of both the man and the woman. Joseph s submissive openness to God s will is every bit astounding as Mary s. However painful the discovery of her pregnancy must have been, his love and deep compassion for Mary and the unborn child, made it possible for him to pursue the obvious solution - to publically denounce her... which would rescue her from her dilemma and also save his reputation. This wasn t an easy decision. Joseph was likely distraught and struggled with his response. In this restless situation, Joseph tried to sleep. During his rest, Joseph had a dream. An angel, a messenger of the Lord, appears. He tells Joseph that he shouldn t be afraid, but to take Mary home as his wife, because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit (Matthew 1:20). His response illustrates the simplicity and freedom of a life of obedience: When Joseph woke up he did what the angel of the Lord had told him to do. (Matthew 1:24)
We don t know how Joseph learned to have such confidence in the goodness of God s will. Scriptures are silent on his past experience of God, as they are on what must have been his inner struggle at this revelation. But they make the important point: Joseph was attentive to God. He didn t fail to hear God s word even in a dream. He was also open to God...he immediately did what God asked. Joseph willingly accepted God s right to invade his life and turn it upside down. Through his deep sense of restlessness and uneasiness about Mary s pregnancy, God was there and offered peace. God s peace came in the form of an assurance and words of comfort that God s grace would surround him, and Mary. And of course, Joseph learned Mary was telling the truth. This son would be the long-awaited promised Messiah, the Son of God. Joseph would be the legal father to the King of Kings and the Prince of Peace. God comforted Joseph by giving him the promise of God s presence, which was brought to life with the messenger telling Joseph the boy would be known as Emmanuel. This name means God with us. God s peace surrounded Joseph and God promised to be with him. Joseph responded to God s peace and presence and took Mary as his wife. He protected and cared for her. Chosen by God for the outstanding responsibility of parenting Jesus, Joseph and Mary had a servant heart that was shaped by their readiness to find their place in the Kingdom of God and surrender what seemed like their natural rights in the kingdom of self. Joseph and Mary s life-long yes to God reveals a will shaped by love. I have no doubt that Mary asked, Why me? Why should God choose an obscure peasant girl in some out-of-the-way village as the chosen vehicle to bring his son into the world? There are many answers that have nothing to do with Mary, but there is one answer that has everything to do with her. God chose Mary because he trusted her. He knew she was willing to believe the impossible. He also knew she was willing to pay the price for that belief. He knew she was willing to bear a child out of wedlock in order to bring God s Son into the world. In the midst of the hardship that went with Mary and Joseph s journey, amid the deferred dreams and dashed hopes, God was working to redeem the world. The first part of the journey Mary would choose to take wasn t the way she imagined it would be. And of course this wasn t to be the last of Mary s unwanted journeys. A short time after Jesus birth, Herod would try to kill the child, and she and Joseph would take the infant Jesus and flee to Egypt as refugees. Thirty-three years later, there would be another journey she would take with her son, this time down the Via Dolorosa as she followed him to Calvary.
We each take unwanted journeys in life. Some of you are carrying heavy burdens today, perhaps from an unwanted journey you ve ended up on. For some of you Christmas will be lonely this year. Some of you are facing a financial crisis that looks hopeless to you right now. Some of you are out of work and don t have a single lead on a good job. Some of you are looking at a marriage that seems worse than hopeless. Some of you are estranged from members of your own family. Some of you have children who are far away from God. Some of you feel lonely and far away from God yourselves. The list goes on and on. But all these things have this in common: They seem impossible to solve by any human means. And for the most part they are. After all, if human means could have solved your problems, they may have been solved long ago. Mary and Joseph both wrestled with how to respond to God s call to be Jesus earthly parents. In their wrestling, God promised to be with them. They wouldn t do this alone. God s grace and peace would walk with them. And so Mary was able to say Yes to shame and glory, Yes to God s power, Yes to the impossible. Saying Yes brought her this Burden; 33 years of turmoil and heartache, this Joy; she was the mother of the Son of God, this reward; among women there has never been anyone greater. If somehow Mary and Joseph could be here today and we could ask them, Was it worth it? they would once again say Yes. Mary and Joseph, then, stand as a model for all believers - for men and women. They are a model of submissive openness to God s will. They are a model of openness to great possibilities. They are a model of faith in the face of many natural doubts. They are a model of attentiveness to God. Only love is strong enough to transform wilfulness. And only God s love is up to the job of leading us into the freedom of willing surrender to God s will. Living this life of consent is not the result of determination and discipline. It comes from learning to choose God, moment-by-moment, day-by-day. And in doing so, we are changed by His glory. As we move into a time of worship, let s take a few moments of prayerful reflection on how much our own will is motivated by love and how much by obligation. As you close your eyes, I invite you to imagine Jesus laying in the manger, unguarded from your touch and unshielded from your gaze.
Bow the knee before the Son of God; accept him as your Saviour, for he puts himself into that manger that you may approach him. Allow yourself to be softened by His loving presence and ask yourself what would I change if I were to live with the sort of submissive openness to God s will that Mary and Joseph had? How would I choose and act differently if I were motivated by love and compassion love of God, love of others, and love of God s world? What might God be inviting me to do differently this Christmas, if I allow my will to be softened by love? Am I willing to be changed by His glory? Lord God, Christmas is all about miracles. Thank you for specialising in things thought impossible. We open our hearts to you today as recipients of the most beautiful and lifechanging gift in Jesus Christ. Grant to each of us the faith to believe, and an open heart to say, Yes, Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for you. Come, transform my life through your glory. Amen Love Came for Me, by Shannon Wexelberg http://youtu.be/qywytvbozpm