Text: Matthew 1: 18-25
But an angel's voice spoke to Joseph in a dream, suggesting that this situation was part of something much greater. There were signs that pointed to God's careful planning and a promise that the birth of this child was the culmination of an age-old dream of the Hebrew people. And the impending birth contained a commitment of God's continued presence to sustain the miracle. God was using Joseph and Mary to achieve a wonderful purpose. Joseph was invited to join in the miracle. When the dream ended, he had to choose his course of action.
Joseph's story reminds us that the Christmas message is always a surprise. According to the gospels, the real father of Mary's baby was God. While we've moved on to different debates in the past 50 years, the question of the virgin birth of Jesus was controversial 100 years ago.
Tom Harpur points out the theological meaning of the virgin birth of Jesus in his book Water into Wine. By openly declaring that Joseph was not the actual begetter of Jesus, the Evangelists are saying that what mattered was not so much the natural side of Jesus' humanity, but the divine side. What it says at the most profound level is that each human being's birth is a miraculous happening. We have a physical-psychical nature from our mother's womb, because we are also begotten of God. We have a divine origin or a latent divinity within ourselves as a result of direct divine descent. As it says in the Book of Acts, 'We are all God's offspring." This higher or more spiritual meaning is directly expressed in the prologue of John's Gospel, where he says: "That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world" (King James Version).
Thus, for example, Joseph Campbell sees the mythic meaning of the virgin birth as the coming to full awareness by each individual person that he or she is more than a human animal concerned merely with reproduction and material things. It is the "birth of the spiritual as opposed to the merely natural life," he says; the recognition that there are higher aims and values in living than self-preservation, reproduction, pleasure, the acquisition of money and things, and the struggle for power or status. It's a birth in the heart, or the idea of being spiritually "born again" that Jesus spoke of and which has been so misunderstood by fundamentalists today.
So the question posed to us by the virgin birth is not, "Do you believe this literally?" but, "Have you truly experienced your own divinity within? Are you claiming your inheritance as more than a human animal--as a fully human being?" To put this another way: "Has the Christ principle been born in the manger of your consciousness?" As Campbell points out, this kind of virgin birth within is well expressed in St. Paul's statement Galatians, "I live, now not I, but Christ liveth in me."
In order for the story to have any power it must be real in and for us.
The whole allegory of the humble but royal birth in a cave or stable was based upon the archetypal idea of the kingly nature of the crowning of our evolutionary development by the advent of self-reflective consciousness. As the Apostle Paul puts it: "Christ in you; the hope of glory."
Thus, all the rites and practices of the churches at Christmastime are truly efficacious and meaningful only if the birth of the "Savior Jesus" is understood as a symbol of the glorious "virgin" birth within ourselves. The joyful message is that Transcendence has broken into history and become part of every one of us. What we need is to have the eyes to see this glory within and all around. It is when we truly recognize who and what we really are that we are born again.
This Christmas holiday engenders great expectations. We have a vision of how it should be—the perfect Christmas. We know exactly how we want the tree to look, which presents we should like to receive, which of our family members should do what, what each person should say to us, how the food should taste, how it all should be. But it never is. Christmas never lives up to our great expectations. The rolls get burned. The new skirt is the wrong size. The brother-in-law says the wrong thing.
How can we bridge the gap between our great expectations and the commonplace reality of Christmas? Make a commitment with me today. Say with me, "Today I will allow myself and those around me the freedom to be as they are. I will not rigidly impose my idea of how things should be." Will you agree to do that today, on Christmas Eve? Will you allow yourself and those around you the freedom to be as they are? Will you refuse to rigidly impose your idea of how things should be during Christmas? Let go of your notions of how things should be this Christmas. Let go and see what God will do. The Holy Spirit is very creative. Who knows what new things God has for you this Christmas?
Joseph determined to dismiss Mary quietly, without a fuss. But God fussed. An angel was dispatched to Joseph with a dream of a special child, ". . . and you shall call him Jesus, for he shall save his people from their sins."
No matter who you are what your station, life does not always run smoothly. When you want to run a quick errand before work, there are no checkout clerks available. The new school years starts with promise but that comes to a halt over your failure to understand the technical words in one of your textbooks. Business trends turn against even the best management, and companies are forced to lay off good workers. Marriages may go along well for years, then suddenly fail under unexpected stress. Mature people learn to deal with these situations in responsible ways. That is what Joseph did and that is what God calls us to do.
Jesus is not the product of human effort but of divine intervention. God intends to become part of our lives and will take the most amazing route to do so, even that of saving us through our problems, redeeming us in the midst of adversity. Prophecy does get fulfilled, signs do point to a miraculous intervention and God is unexpectedly here. God is here in the birth of a baby in a manger.
Author Dennis Covington recalls that on long summer evenings when he and his buddies had been out fishing or playing ball, each boy's mother would call him home in a different way. Most mothers would lean out the back door and yell for her child. "Frankie! Danny! Stanley! Come home!" Some mothers had big cowbells outside the back door, and they would ring the cowbell to call a child home. But Dennis' dad was always the one to call him home. And Mr. Covington didn't just stand on the porch and yell for Dennis. He wandered down to the lake and softly called "Dennis." And father and son would walk home together. As Covington writes, "He always came to the place I was before he called my name."(Dennis Covington. Salvation on Sand Mountain (Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Company), 239-240. Cited in John Kramp. Getting Ahead by Staying Behind (Nashville: Broadman & Holman Publishers, 1997), p. 168.)
And that's exactly what God did for us. In Jesus, He came to the place we were before He called us. He came for you. He is "Emmanuel — God with us." And God is with us. That is the mystery, the majesty and the meaning of Christmas. God is with us. God is here. God is here.
Loosen up and let God move in your heart today. Open your heart to God's love. Open your mind to God's truth. Open your eyes to what God is doing in your life, in your family, in this church. God is here. Here inside. Inside of me and inside of you.
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The Rev. Dr. Jon Burnham preached this sermon at St. John's Presbyterian Church in Houston on December 19, 2010, Advent 4A
