"A Christmas Touch At Home"
Sermon Transcript for December 16, 2001 By Rev. Mike BeckScripture Reading: Matthew 1:18-25
The best part of Christmas is being together with members of your family. But do you know what the worst part of Christmas is for many persons? You may have guessed it! Being together with members of your family! Sad … but for most of us painfully true. Unfortunately, Christmas is that time of the year when all the imperfections we bring to the family table are sometimes difficult for us to digest. We know too much about each other to be sufficiently tolerant. And yet we often don’t know nearly enough about what accounts for our loved ones’ aggravating tendencies to be as forgiving as they probably deserve!
So we want to think together for a moment this morning about giving a Christmas touch to persons within your own family. And we’re not really talking about the family members for whom love and support come easily for us. Rather we want to reflect on touching the family member who is the hardest for us to connect with, but who probably needs our touch the most. In fact at the beginning of this message, I would invite you to bring that person or persons to mind. They have a name, don’t they? They’re going to be at your family gathering. And the minute they walk through the door there’s going to be some tension. There’s going to be some painful memories. They’re probably going to say the inappropriate thing. So don’t make this a message in the abstract today. It will be much more meaningful to you if you’ve got that person or persons solidly in mind right from the beginning.
We’re going to focus this morning on the person in the Christmas story that is probably most forgotten - the person of Joseph. Over the centuries Mary has gotten all the attention – and rightfully so! But Joseph’s total trust in God in choosing to believe the unbelievable changed Mary’s life; it changed all of our lives. So let’s re-visit the story for a moment. In Matthew 1:18 are these words, "Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph." That means the engagement had been announced. "But before they came together…" In other words, they had not yet had sexual relations; "she’s found to be pregnant". The scripture says, "through the Holy Spirit".
Now, can you put yourself in Joseph’s painful shoes? The last I checked nobody had ever gotten pregnant before without sexual relations and I don’t think they ever have since. But that’s what he is now told. And he’s probably thinking, "Yeah, I love Mary, but now I’m not so sure. For there obviously has to be another man involved." And we know the rest of the story now. There was another man involved, but not of the human kind. And sometimes we often forget this was still a society in which marriages were often arranged. As the worship team was talking about that this Wednesday, it dawned upon me we discussed how well did Joseph even know Mary at this point - if the engagement had been arranged as it often is in that culture by other family members?
Then in verse Matthew 1:19 it says, "Because Joseph was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly". Now, we’re not talking about a marital divorce. We’re talking about breaking the formal engagement that’s been announced in the community of Nazareth. Joseph actually had several options. He could have taken Mary to the religious authorities, told them what had happened, and if they wanted, in that society, they had the option to take Mary outside the city walls and stone her to death for her sin and the disgrace that she had brought upon Joseph. Or Joseph could have the engagement annulled and leave Mary and the child to fend for themselves.
But there’s a key phrase in verse 19 that I want us to note. It says, "Joseph was a righteous man". Now I want us to think about that on two fronts. Joseph was considered in the community a righteous man. How many years had it taken him to build up that reputation? Because the inference is that Joseph could well have been significantly older than Mary. The angel appears to Joseph; and he might choose to believe that she has been impregnated by the Holy Spirit. But it’s not very likely that his neighbors in Nazareth are going to believe that. So, again, put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. In all likelihood his reputation will diminish in the months ahead in direct proportion to the increased size of Mary’s stomach. Friends, loving Mary wasn’t going to be easy for Joseph under those circumstances, especially at first. And it doesn’t always come easy. And yet Joseph, in total trust and dependence upon God, took Mary home as his wife not knowing for sure what the outcome would be or what the cost to his reputation would be.
The example of Joseph challenges all of us to look not only to our own interest but to the interest of all who call us family. Let’s look for a moment at a familiar passage of scripture, Philippians 2. These words that describe the self-emptying lifestyle of our Lord are not exclusively written to members of a biological family. These words are also written to those of us within what we call the church family. Let them speak to you from Eugene Peterson’s paraphrase, "The Message". Paul writes to the church of Philippi. And he begins by almost you hear in these words a pleading kind of emotion. He says, "If you got anything at all out of following Christ, if His love has made any difference in your life, then do me a favor. I want you to think of yourselves the way Christ Jesus thought of Himself. He had an equal status with God." We must remember, the babe born in the manger was present fully with God when the world was created. The doctrine of the trinity tells us he has equal status with God. "But when the time came, He set aside the privileges of deity and became a man, taking on the role of a servant." And then Paul flushes it out in a very practical way. He says, "So don’t push your way to the front. Put yourself aside and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourself long enough to lend a helping hand."
Now, again, I hope most of you…maybe you’ve got the perfect family and you don’t have anybody that came to your mind earlier in the service, but I’m guessing… I had some folks that came to mind. Now, look at those words again and think about the persons coming for Christmas. Here are the words of God to you. "Don’t push your way to the front. Put yourself aside and help others get ahead. Don’t be obsessed with getting your own advantage. Forget yourself long enough to lend a helping hand."
Now, let’s be realist. You’re glad they’re going to leave at 8:00 p.m. You’re thankful they are not going to stay three days. Or maybe we need to pray for you; maybe they are going to stay three days. But Paul says here, "Forget yourselves long enough to lend a helping hand." Can we bring that attitude that Paul talks about in that great self-emptying passage in
Philippians 2 to our family Christmas gathering and to the family members who aren’t so easy to love? I remind you of the words in I John 4:20. These are kind of sobering words when you think about how much God loved us when we didn’t deserve it. John writes, "For anyone who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he hasn’t seen?"
Well, I’ve been trying in recent months in my preaching to in closing the message bring it down to a very practical sense of how can you do this. And I want to share two brief reflections that came out of our worship planning team meeting this past Wednesday afternoon.
- KEEP YOUR EXPECTATIONS REALISTIC. It’s a wonderful season of the year. It is indeed the most wonderful time of the year. And if we’re not careful we get these idealistic expectations that this year’s Christmas is when it’s going to be perfect. You know, Aunt Sally isn’t going to act like Aunt Sally this year. Or Uncle Fred isn’t going to use that language this year. And then you know when we set up those unrealistic expectations we only set ourselves up for failure and frustrations. So lower your expectations. Realize it may be a little tense around there. It’s not going to be perfect. But you know, by golly, I can love them anyway at least for a few hours. I always find great comfort in Romans 12:18 where it says, "If it is possible, as much as it depends on you, live at peace with all men." Let me repeat that. "If it is possible, …". In other words, the scriptures telling us, "By golly there’s some folks that it’s just almost impossible to live in peace with them." And all we’re told to do is we have to be responsible for ourselves. The last I checked, I wasn’t responsible for changing my obnoxious cousin. I’m just responsible for loving him. God is the one in the life changing business not me. So enter this Christmas with realistic expectations.
- PRAY IN ADVANCE. In fact at the close of the worship service today, there may be some of you who this area over here is always open for you to come and pray. You may want to come and pray this morning. You might even want to take communion on behalf of that family member that you struggle with. Sarai was the one who made this comment on Wednesday. She acknowledged as we all do that we don’t know and understand just how prayer works. And prayer may not change the other person or the circumstance. But Sarai said, "When I pray, I know it changes me! When I pray in advance, my heart is prepared and under girded with God’s Spirit to deal with that situation."
Realistic expectations. Pray in advance. That is the way to put today’s challenge into practice. And if we read between the lines of today’s scripture, we perhaps glimpse a deep satisfaction within Joseph after he decided to act on what the angel told him. And so I wonder, is God nudging you to reach out and touch some family member in the day ahead? I watched a movie last night. I hadn’t seen it; I’d heard so much good about it. I recommend it to you. It’s got some language in it that’s a little offensive, but boy the message is powerful. It’s the movie, "Pay it Forward". Where a little boy decides he can change the world by reaching out to love three people and then they love three in return. It’s not easy and it doesn’t always work as he had hoped. But the message of that movie has a powerful impact all the way through and especially at the end. Pay it Forward.
And as you love a family member that’s not so easy to love, you’re kind of to God "paying it forward" as an act of love to him. Follow the example of Joseph and take that step of obedience. Trust God to help you do it. And in doing so that same satisfaction that was Joseph’s can be yours as you let a Christmas touch begin at home. Let’s pray, "Lord, during this time of year it’s hard to keep all of our family-related plates in the air spinning at the same time. Give us patience and understanding like Joseph exemplified with Mary. And as we go about our Christmasing with members of our family, especially those ones that come to mind that aren’t so easy to love, we pray that you would guard our tongues, that you would purify our hearts and that you would give us amnesia when it comes to some painful memories. In the name of the One who has touched our lives, we pray. Amen."
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