Reverend Martin Johnson
Isaiah 7.10-16; Psalm 80.1-7, 17-19; Romans 1.1-7; Matthew 1.18-25.
“Then why should we on earth be so sad, since our redeemer made us glad?” We’ll sing this tonight, and it is a question worth asking today, just as much as it was when the carol was written—perhaps even more so. Family gatherings are the way that many will celebrate over the coming season. If we are to believe the TV ads, that is where the real action is. This is no bad thing. Susan and I will spend time with family as, no doubt, will many of you. But this is problematic when that is all there is; after all some families are not happy. There is sadness. Many are broken, there is estrangement, grief and, at worst, violence and addiction. Indeed some folk have no family.
When Jesus’ family is mentioned the gospels—‘Your mother and your brothers are outside’—I wonder if there is a barb in the statement. I wonder if Jesus’ life was one marked by his status: born out of wedlock, illegitimate, literally born outside the prescripts of the law. Clearly in John’s gospel, when Jesus confronts the Jews they say ‘we are not illegitimate.’ Again, is this a sneering comment? With Jesus’ birth and life in mind, it is strange the way that Christianity has developed over the last two millennia or so, isn’t it?
The law was very clear about what Joseph’s obligations and responsibilities were; he must divorce Mary, and in doing so expose her to the shame she rightly deserves. Matthew tells us that he refused. I’m sure every family has hidden in its family tree such an event—pregnancy out of wedlock. There were many differing ways that families dealt with this shame, some of them with tragic consequences. ‘You have made us the victim of our neighbours,’ says the Psalmist—if I can take the poet out of context. ‘What will the neighbours say?’ Clearly this would have been on Joseph’s mind.
And what of Mary? We are told in the Protoevangelion of James that Mary’s parents were known as Anne and Joachim—Holy Annie, God’s Granny! Imagine Mary going to see them and telling them that she is expecting a child, but they mustn’t be too concerned because the father is God! Presuming that Ann and Joachim are faithful Jewish folk we can only imagine what they must have thought. And then their future son-in-law tells them he will break the law as prescribed in the law of Moses, the Torah, to protect the dignity of the woman he loves—all this because of a dream. Then we clearly have a couple that is homeless, and soon to be refugees or immigrants in their flight to Egypt, escaping the authorities shortly after Jesus’ birth.
From these beginnings has developed in some places a somewhat legalistic, sometimes moralistic church, a church keen to make things very tidy and neat when, quite clearly, the foundational narratives, those accounts at the heart of our faith, are anything but legalistic, or moralistic, let alone tidy! Is this the source of our sadness?
But what does this mean for us? It doesn’t mean that ‘anything goes,’ that we can do as we please, most certainly not. But it does mean that God comes among us in ways that defy convention, social niceties, religious edicts, or neat categories. It is extraordinary that God comes among us and yet it seems that we have spent the last two thousand years trying to put him back! ‘Have you found Jesus?’ is a question that perhaps typifies that kind of spirituality. Like me, perhaps you are a fan of the Garry Larson cartoons. One of them shows a woman answering the door to two smart looking young men, who ask her that very question. Poking out from under the curtains in the lounge are a pair of sandaled feet! ‘The search for God’; I bet there are endless books with that title out there. The fact is that the scriptures are all about God’s search for us; despite our best efforts to ensure that God stays out there!
Every morning I recite the Benedictus, the Song of Zechariah. It is a lovely morning canticle from Luke’s gospel. In Luke’s gospel, Zechariah is serving in the Temple as a priest when an angel tells him that his prayers have been answered. His wife—they are both past their prime—is to give birth to a son who will prepare the way for the coming of the Lord. Zechariah does not rejoice at this news. ‘So you want a quiet life?’ says the angel, and he is made mute until John is born!
What of us? Are we on a search for God but, in reality, trying to avoid God? Do we sometimes find ourselves in a mindset like Zechariah? Do we really want God to come among us? Do we really want our prayers answered? Or do we really want a quiet life? Our Advent repentance has nothing to do with being naughty or nice and everything to do with opening ourselves up to the God who is seeking us out—and this is writ large for us in our passage from Isaiah this morning.
Ahaz is a young king, he is hemmed in by his enemies, and defeat is at hand. But even in the face of disaster, he will not allow God to find him. His mind is closed and God is wearied! ‘Turn to God’, says Isaiah, the great visionary! ‘Dream big, very big, dream as high as heaven as deep as Sheol.’ (As an aside: if you search the passage from Isaiah 7 on the net all you get is discussion on whether the text really says that the young woman is a virgin. It rather says it all doesn’t it?)
Paul picks up the theme eighth centuries later: that child, of the line of David, has come, has been born, has died and is risen. Now we’re getting somewhere: this illegitimate, homeless, refugee child is God. This is the sign for us, this is our faith, this means that we can live boldly, dangerously, untidily even . . . that we can dream.
What this Advent has taught us is that the God for whom we wait is waiting on us, quietly hidden inside every one of us and reflected in the created order. The holy is hidden in the sometimes untidy physical and material world. Therefore, we have every reason to live not in sadness, wondering if family is all there is, but in hope and trust and confidence in something far greater.
Enjoy your family time over Christmas. Enjoy your faith even more. Amen.