Fourth Sunday of Advent

‘Joseph Son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit’.

This is the time of year for Nativity Plays. There was once a nativity Play put on by the students at a High School. This was a play with a difference. The young people told the Christmas story but they made up the dialogue as they went along. There was no script. The young man who had landed the star role of Joseph was a bit of a joker. All went well however until we got to the scene with the various unwelcoming innkeepers. One by one Mary and Joseph were met with the traditional no room at the inn. Until at last Joseph in sheer desperation cried out: ‘Come on surely you can find us a room somewhere. Look my wife is pregnant’.  

‘Well, that's got nothing to do with me’ said the innkeeper.

‘Funny you should say that’ said Joseph, ‘It’s got nothing to do with me either’. 

Whenever Joseph appears in the stories of the birth of Jesus he is always in trouble. Later we l hear how he has to flee to Egypt with the young child Jesus and his mother as they escape the deadly paranoia of King Herod. And here in the Gospel for today he’s in real trouble – or rather Mary is. But Mary’s trouble is very much Josephs problem. Mary is pregnant and they are not yet husband and wife. They are betrothed – which is more than engaged but not yet married and certainly no sexual relations will have taken place. So Joseph knew the child could not be his. In those days this was a real scandal.  

Some years ago there was a televised nativity play. There was a very powerful scene where Mary’s mother Anna tells her father Joachim that their daughter Mary is pregnant outside of marriage. Mary a very young and very frightened girl hides behind her mother’s skirts clinging to her with fear and dread in her eyes. What will Joseph say? what will Joseph do? Asks Joachim with shame, anger and fear in his voice. Matthews story telling doesn’t fill in those details for us. He wants us to use our imagination. This young couple are on the face of it in real trouble and Mary potentially in real danger.

In his story telling Matthew is not afraid to lead us into the darkness and the difficulty and the anger underlying the story of the birth of Jesus. Don’t forget at this point in the story only you and I the reader know that the child has been conceived by the Holy Spirit. Joseph doesn’t know that yet. Joseph is in real dilemma. He is described as a righteous man. Now that doesn’t just mean that Joseph was a good man – although it would include that. No, to be described as righteous means one who keeps the Law of Moses to the letter; Joseph was a pious God-fearing Law-abiding man. He knew therefore what the law required of him. He must divorce Mary – put her away and leave her to her fate. This could have meant her being stoned to death – the penalty for adultery for a woman. But Joseph is also a merciful man. He is unwilling to put her to public disgrace. Still he knows what the Law of God requires – and that he is determined to do.

And then heaven intervenes. God speaks to Joseph by an angel in a dream: ‘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’. Joseph recognises his duty under the law. But he also recognises the voice of God. And he knows he has to obey that voice. Matthew tells us he did what the Lord commanded him. He took Mary as his wife. Joseph is presented to us as a righteous man obedient to the law. But a man also able to recognise that here God was doing a new thing a wonderful thing. This child growing in the womb of his Mary would be the world’s salvation. A new way of being human. A new creation. A new world being begun by the Holy Spirit in the womb of Mary.

Joseph is called to accept in faith this wonderful new thing that God is doing. In the story of the birth of Jesus as Matthew tells it Joseph is the hero not Mary. He presents an anguished figure who doesn’t move easily into what God is asking of him. And yet he is faithful and obedient to the call of God. And through Joseph even in the midst of his doubt and fear and bewilderment and despair God’s purposes are brought forth and the new creation is begun even amidst the old.

What does the story of Joseph say to us? Well I think a number of things. First. We often find ourselves in doubt and difficulty and uncertainty. ‘What on God’s good earth is God doing in this situation ‘– is a question I often find myself asking. God’s ways with us and with his world and with his Church are not easily discerned. We can find ourselves with Joseph saying:  Good Lord! You don’t really want me or us to do that do you?’ ‘We’ve never done that before'.

Joseph‘s story assures us that God can be trusted even amidst doubt and uncertainty and bewilderment. And we like Joseph are called to be faithful trusting and obedient. Many New Testament scholars maintain that Joseph is symbolic of the church for which Matthew wrote. Jewish in origin. Trying to marry the newness of the Gospel with the old ways of the law. And at the same time welcoming an influx of Gentile Christians who know nothing of their old ways whilst conducting a heated debate with the orthodox synagogue over the road. Sounds a bit like the standard fare of a Stafford Parish PCC meeting!

Matthew’s Church like Joseph were struggling to find their ways through the tangled and not always clear ways of God. That is how God works with us. It isn’t always crystal clear what he is asking of us and calling us to. We have very complex and complicated issues facing us that aren’t going to go away. The place of women in the hierarchy of the Church. The issue of homosexuality. The relevance of worship and our way of life to the world as it is. Even aspects of the Gospel message are foreign to many in a generation who know nothing of all that we hold dear and who yet have the same spiritual needs and aspirations as we do. The traditions of the past pull us in one direction. Society pulls us in another direction. Where is God leading us?

We begin to see that the dilemma which Joseph faced is our dilemma. And yet it was through Joseph's anguished obedience that the purposes of God were fulfilled. And now it is us in our turn, in our place and in our generation. Called with Joseph to discern the will of God sometime through struggle, and doubt and perplexity. But to stay with God in faith and trust and obedience confident in the assurance that he will lead us and guide us through it all. So that we may work with him in the continuing work of re-creation begun in the womb of Mary.