ADVENT

Advent Sermon: Matthew 1:18 - 2:1 

Sermon Title: 180 degrees turn around

        Mary is engaged to Joseph. 

Imagine Mary’s excitement as her father discusses a potential wedding engagement for her! Joseph’s father meets with Mary’s father, and asks for her hand in marriage. Imagine both fathers come to a wedding agreement perhaps with a toast of wine as they arrange the wedding. Joseph then tells Mary that he loves her and asks her to be his bride. Mary gleefully accepts Joseph’s proposal. Then Joseph binds his commitment to Mary by a gift, perhaps a ring, which he gives her in the presence of at least two witnesses. Imagine Joseph as he gives the ring to Mary and says to her “Behold you are consecrated unto me with this ring according to the laws of Moses.” Then a written contract is made, stating the terms of Joseph and Mary’s marriage. Imagine how excited Mary must have been at her betrothal or engagement ceremony! After the engagement party, Joseph leaves Mary for a year to prepare a home for his new bride. How excited Joseph and Mary must have been as they prepare for their formal wedding ceremony. Imagine their anticipation of that festive seven-day celebration, which follows the wedding ceremony. But instead of a wedding let alone a celebration their lives were changed forever.

         Have you ever made plans for your life, when all of a sudden wham! something happens to challenge your very existence, your very survival? In some case something so pungent, so overpowering, that it not only challenge you, but turn your life around 180 degrees in the opposite direction.

Similar thing happen to Mary and Joseph. Mary’s engagement party is long over. She is at her home in Nazareth waiting impatiently, but excitingly for her wedding ceremony, so that she can finally be with Joseph!  But their wedding plan was challenged!  By what God had asked them to do. You see the God of heaven whom we worship on Sundays and every day of our lives, this same God called on Joseph and Mary to be father and mother of our Lord Jesus Christ. This was a privilege, but it was also a challenge for both Mary and Joseph.

What has God asked you to do?

How has it challenge you?  

What is your answer?

God asked Joseph and Mary to do something that would change their lives and the world forever.

You see, God needed to come to us in person; because God had promised to save the world by sending us a savior. And in order for that to happen, God chose Mary and Joseph to be the mother and father of the Son of God, and savior of the world. So while Joseph gets busy building a home for his bride and while Mary waits eagerly for their wedding day they were blindsided, taken off guard by what God had asked them to do. The angel Gabriel appears to Mary and announces. Mary! “Do not be afraid, for you have found favor with God, and now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.” Say what! This would probably be our response. I haven’t even had my wedding yet! Let alone a honeymoon! This must be a big joke right Gabriel! But this would have been a natural response. Mary was perplexed and she questioned the angel.  “How can this be since I have not been with my husband?  But the angel assured Mary saying, Mary, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.” And in case Mary had any doubt at all, the angel tells her, Mary your cousin Elizabeth who could not have a child is also pregnant in her old age and will have a son.  Mary later visits her cousin Elizabeth and found her pregnant with child.

Mary received a call form God to be the mother of Jesus – the Son of God.

What is God calling you to do today?

What is God asking us to do? 

        According to the Luke 1 passage, it seems as though it did not take Mary long to be persuaded to answer God’s ‘call.’ She did not even wait to discuss this with Joseph. Mary was obedient. She believed the angel, and her response was Yes Lord, I will be the mother of the savior of the world. “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

When Mary’s pregnancy came to light, Joseph was bewildered, perplexed. He thought Mary had betrayed him. He thought that she was unfaithful. Joseph’s only answer to all this is to quietly dismiss Mary from his life. But this we know, in the midst of bewilderment and perplexity God is always present to assure us that we are not alone – that God who calls us is with us and will never leave us stranded when we answer His ‘call.’  When we are most vulnerable, when we are at the point of despair and hopelessness, God comes in and saves us from hopelessness and despair. God saved Joseph at his point of hopelessness and despair by sending an angel to him in a dream while he tossed and turned in his despair. "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." Joseph woke up in God’s obedience, and like Mary he said yes to the call of God.

     Whenever God is working God’s purpose in the midst of God’s people, whenever God is working God’s purpose in your life it seems in the beginning as though everything is going wrong. Then the blaming game begins the pointing of fingers, gossiping, dissension, quarreling, jealousy, slandering, grumbling, division, and disunity. But in the midst of all this there are also prayers of intercession, a stirring-up of the Holy Spirit, a shifting of priorities, and a reviving of what was dying in our lives, and a strengthening through the Word of what remains. Then God’s people become pregnant with the things of God, with ministries and give birth to something new, fresh and wonderful as they become obedient to God’s call.

God sometimes asks us to do something so difficult that it seems to us to be impossible. God asked Joseph and Mary to do what seemed to be the impossible. But God reminds them and us that nothing will be impossible with God.   Because of their obedience Joseph and Mary became parents of the savior, the one who went on the cross to fulfill the command of His father’s promise to save his people from sin. And through our savior’s Salvific work on the cross, through His death and resurrection, we have eternal life.

 And this is the savior for whom we wait expectantly in this Advent season. This is a time of happiness and joy since we know for whom we are waiting. We are especially reminded that Emmanuel “God with us” has come to us! And He is with us.  Joseph and Mary waited for the first coming of the Messiah, but in this Advent season we not only celebrate Christ first coming but the Word of God encourages us to wait for His second coming. Yes, he is coming back.

        Joseph and Mary’s life’s plan was challenged by what God asked them to do but they said yes to God.

What is God asking you to do?

Whatever it may be, will you say yes to God? 

Let us pray:

Lamb of God, you once came to rid the world of sin; cleanse us now from every stain of sin.

 Lord, you came to save what was lost; come once again with your salvific power for your redeemed. We have come to know you in faith; may we have unending joy when you come again in glory.