Christmas and What God Wants Most of All

Matthew 1:18-25
It’s not a new observation to say that the beginnings of things often explain a lot about their later development. How a thing is begun is that important.

Our Gospel lesson for today gives us Matthew the Evangelist’s account of the beginnings of Jesus' time on earth and of the new beginnings God can give everyone through Jesus Christ. Take a look at our lesson for today, Matthew 1:18-25.

Verse 18 says: “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about...” A more literal translation from the Greek in which Matthew wrote would be, “This is how the genesis [or the beginnings] of Jesus Christ happened...”

The verse goes on: “His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.”

The English phrase pledged to be married doesn’t do justice to the state of Mary’s relationship with Joseph. They were betrothed. Betrothal in those days was more than an engagement. During betrothal, the couple were considered married, although they were strictly forbidden from consummating their relationship until they publicly affirmed their commitment to one another before God and witnesses.

If one of them had intimacy with someone else during betrothal, that act was considered adultery. The Old Testament book of Deuteronomy said that if a woman was guilty of adultery during this period, she should be stoned to death. By the first century AD, this law was rarely enforced. But even then, the woman divorced by her betrothed, however quietly it was done, didn’t have an easy lot in life, forever branded by her adultery.

Our lesson though conveys an unambiguous message: Despite, Joseph’s suspicions, Mary was a virgin. She and Joseph had not, we're told, come together. And, the child conceived within her was from the Holy Spirit.

Later in the passage, we’re told that Mary and Joseph didn’t have marital relations until after Jesus was born.

Today, as was the case when Jesus walked the earth, there are people who deny that Jesus could possibly have been born of a virgin. Even some church-goers deny the virgin birth. But it’s presumptuous to deny that the God Who created every particle of this universe is incapable of doing something that doesn’t comport to our usual experience. Jesus teaches that, “with God all things are possible.” [Matthew 19:26]

Still, some virgin birth deniers point out that other ancient religions told stories of their idols roaming the earth and having intimate relations with women, often resulting in the birth of notable persons, like the fictional Hercules. They say that the claim that Jesus was born of a virgin is similar.

But the witness of the New Testament about God the Father and about Jesus’ birth is very different from those mythical gods. During His ministry, Jesus said that “God is spirit” The God of the universe isn’t like the bawdy deities of mythology. He is Spirit, Who by His Word created matter, created human beings.

Just as the book of Genesis says that God’s Spirit moved over chaos and brought life into being, so now, as God prepares to gives us the chance for new life through Jesus Christ, His Spirit passes over a virgin’s womb and the Person the apostle Paul calls, “the second Adam,” is conceived.

If this is hard for us to accept, imagine the effect it had on Joseph! Verse 19: “Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.”

Hurt by a woman he believes has violated God’s will that sexual intimacy be confined to marriages between men and women, Joseph decides he won’t lash out. But he also won’t have a life with a woman he believes has been unfaithful to him. The verb translated as divorce here in the original Greek is apoluo, meaning literally, loosed from. Joseph was going to cut Mary loose. 



Verse 20: “But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She [Mary] will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus , because he will save his people from their sins.’ All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet [in Isaiah 7:14]: ‘The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’--which means, ‘God with us.’"

Joseph knew God well enough and knew God’s Word well enough to know that the angel was telling the truth.

In a fallen world, it’s imperative that those who believe in Jesus know God’s Word! First Peter 5:8 warns believers: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.”

If we aren’t like Joseph, on intimate terms with God and His Word, we won’t recognize when God is acting in our lives. We won’t be able to resist temptations that when acted on, can drag us down to hell.

Like Joseph, we need to know the God we meet in Jesus Christ so well that even when things don’t make sense, we will keep following Him!

I hope that every member of Living Water will make it their business to know God through regular Bible reading and study, including such time with fellow disciples of Jesus!

Now, in these verses, Matthew mentions two names associated with the Child in Mary’s womb. Matthew does so because in Biblical times, names were very important. For example, the name of Jacob, that notable schemer in the Old Testament, means literally, he grabs the heel, a way of saying supplanter or usurper. If a name ever suited a person, that of Jacob, this man who connived to steal his brother's inheritance, did.

But even today, I'm convinced, the names we call people or circumstances have a way of sticking and meaning something. Ann and I have two versions of how we came to name our son, Philip Martin. As I recollect, the name began with me sitting in the library of the seminary where I was a student and thinking, Philip Melancthhon and Martin Luther, the names of the two eminent theologians of the Reformation and colleagues on the faculty of Wittenberg University in Germany. And because Martin was also Ann's maiden name, it seemed perfect.

Oddly enough, our son Philip always seemed like a natural born theologian. Even as a young boy, he would ask me the most probing faith questions that I found hard to field. And when he was in college, he was given two different nicknames: Phil the Lutheran and Phil the Philosopher. He has always seemed to be to have lived up to his given names.

This past June, when we went to Walburg for his installation as pastor of Saint Peter Lutheran Church, we were given a tour of the church building. The sanctuary had traditional stained glass windows, most of them showing Biblical scenes and events. All but two, that is, because in the front, to the left of the altar, were two windows: one showing Philip Melanchthon and the other showing Martin Luther.

Maybe the names we call each other do matter.

At the very least, God seems to think so. In our lesson, we're told of two names applied to the Messiah conceived in Mary's womb.

First: Jesus, the Savior’s given name. It means Yahweh, [God], is our salvation. Jesus’ given name says that God sent Jesus to save His people from sin.

“The wages of sin is death,” as we know. But Jesus came to take the wages we deserve--death, condemnation, separation from the God Who gives life. Then He rose from the dead so that all who believe in Him have the gift we don’t deserve: Never-ending life with God.

And Jesus came to save more than just God’s first people, the Jews. In the great commission, Jesus sends us to share the Good News of new life for all who repent and believe in Him with people of every nation. Jesus came to give all people the chance to believe in Him and be saved for eternity. That’s why Jesus commissions you and me, as His disciples, to be His ambassadors and to help others know and believe in Him!

That’s also why Living Water has adopted Matthew 28:19, which gives Jesus great commission as the only mission statement we need: “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

Jesus came to save all who turn from sin and trust in Him.

Second: Matthew also tells us about the name Immanuel.

It’s a nickname, really. Like many nicknames, it’s descriptive. As the text says, Immanuel (in all its varied English spellings) means God with us. Jesus is God with us today, now, in this world.

In those two names--Jesus and Immanuel--we find everything that makes Christmas worth celebrating! 

• Immanuel, God with us, assures us that no matter what happens to us in this life, God stands by us, strengthening us, encouraging us.
• Jesus, meaning Yahweh saves, is our salvation, assuring us that no matter how lost we may feel, no matter how guilty, when we trust in Him, we are saved from sin and death and separation from God. We have life with Him now and will have it in perfection in eternity. 

The hope of heaven that Jesus gives to His disciples imbues this life with joy even when we’re unhappy or guilty, assures us of peace even when things are crazy.

In Romans 8:1-2, the apostle Paul conveys this amazing promise: “Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

That, friends is the good news that came when God was virgin born of Mary and Joseph accepted the responsibility of acting as His father on earth. If we want Him, we are saved and accompanied always by Christ!

Welcome Jesus as Mary and Joseph did, ignoring the wagging tongues and the warped reason of a world that wants to sell God short and feed human ego.

Welcome Him into the center of your lives.

Let Him save you.

Let Him live with you every day.

Because of all the things the God of this universe wants, He wants you most of all! 

Let that truth soak into your heart and mind this Christmas and every day!

[Blogger Mark Daniels is pastor of Living Water Lutheran Church in Centerville, Ohio.]

Pentecost: Out of the Ditches, Into God's Kingdom

[This was shared during worship this past Sunday, Pentecost Day, with the people and friends of Living Water Lutheran Church in Springboro, Ohio.]

Acts 2:1-21

Pentecost already was an important day on the Jewish calendar when the day we Christians often call the first Pentecost happened. For Jews, Pentecost was the fiftieth day after Passover. While Passover celebrated ancient Israel’s deliverance from slavery in Egypt, Pentecost celebrated the giving of the law, the ten commandments, by God through Moses to Israel (and, through him, to all the world) at Mount Sinai. 

That may seem weird to us. We don’t like laws. They hem us in, keep us from doing what we want to do, control us. 

And some human laws can be unjust and oppressive, obviously.

But ancient Israel saw God’s Law, the ten commandments and the moral laws that stem from them, as good things, as blessings that marked out the boundaries of what they called shalom, a place of peace with God and neighbor and self. 

The Israelites even sang about God’s Law in their hymnal, which we know as the Psalms. “Oh, how I love Your law!” Psalm 119:97 says, for example, “I meditate on it all day long..”

God's people had a problem though: They loved God’s law. They couldn’t keep it. 

If following God’s law was like staying on a paved road marked out for driving, disobeying it was like falling into a ditch of mud. 

And like kids who have just taken a bath, Israel loved heading for the ditches of sin: the ditch of idolatry, the ditch of materialism, the ditch of wanting to fit in with others and ignore the will of God, the ditch of adultery and fornication, the ditch of false witness and character assassination, the ditch of self will, the ditch of thievery and false business and political dealings. 

Through the centuries though, even after God sent prophets to remind His people to obey His laws, as human beings they were incapable of keeping themselves out of the ditches of sin and death.

Life in the ditches leads inevitably to separation from God. And to be separated from God, the Maker of life, is to be separated from life. 

Yet, like the ancient Israelites, we can’t help ourselves. We’re born ditch-seekers. 

Some of us like some ditches better than others. But from the moment we’re born, we’re like lemmings programmed by the sin we inherit from our parents to head for the mud, to do the very sin we hate! 

We can hear and know God’s law and even delight in it. We may even spend some shameful time in condemning others who don't keep God's law in the way we think they should.

But we cannot, through the force of our own characters or wills, keep God's law.

Our only hope is the Gospel, the good news. 

The Gospel isn't some abstract story about love. 

The Gospel springs from a particular true story. 

It’s the true story of how God took on flesh in a particular human life. 

It’s the true story of Jesus, conceived by the Holy Spirit so that He would not inherit the sin that the rest of the human family inherits from our parents. 

Jesus was the perfect once-and-for-all sacrifice for the sins of the world. 

Jesus rose from the dead and offers the benefits of His sacrifice--new life--to all who believe in Him as their God and Savior. 

And Jesus came to replace the evil kingdom of sin and the dying kingdoms of this world with the kingdom of God for all who repent and believe in Him.

The new kingdom that Jesus died and rose to bring into being isn’t opposed to the law God gave through Moses. Some people have the erroneous idea that Jesus abolished God's law and has given us all a free pass to eternity.

In fact, in some ways, Jesus makes God’s Law even more demanding than it is in the Old Testament. 

In Matthew 5:21-22, for example, Jesus says, “You have heard that it was said...‘‘You shall not murder’...But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister [by which Jesus, Who got angry, clearly means here sustained, vengeful, unforgiving anger] will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ [raca was a term of derision that said a person was empty-headed] is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

So, Jesus says to anyone who thinks that His death and resurrection are a free pass, a letter of indulgence, allowing believers to heedlessly and unrepentantly do whatever we want or believe whatever we want, no matter how disobedient or contemptuous of the will of God it may be, they’re wrong. 

“Do not think,” Jesus says in Matthew 5:17, “that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets…” 

Then He says in Matthew 5:20: “...unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.”

Our situation would be hopeless were it not for the fact that Jesus Christ, the One Who delivers this stern message, has done for us what we can’t do for ourselves. 

He has obeyed the law. 

Perfectly. 

Jesus has kept the law and so, by His innocent death for us, has conquered the law and its stern verdict against every one of us! 

So Romans 8:1-2 tells us this: “...there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.” 

Think of that: No condemnation for those who live in the sheltering, saving, forgiving love of Christ!

Those who are saved by God’s grace through their faith in the crucified and risen Jesus Christ are pulled out of the ditch of sin and death and set on the narrow path that Jesus speaks of in Matthew 7:13-14. “Enter through the narrow gate” Jesus says. “For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” 

Jesus is the narrow path and there is life to be found nowhere else. In no legalistic religious system. In no psychobabbling fad. In nothing that this world has to offer. All of those wide and inviting paths lead to condemnation because, as they're all built around the idea that I can be good enough to warrant a pass from God, they leave us naked in our sin, worthy only of condemnation. When we follow Jesus, He clothes us in His righteousness.

All of which brings us back to Pentecost. The first chapter of Acts shows us that the first Christians experienced how Jesus’ grace can change people’s relationships with God and with each other. Jesus forgave them for abandoning Him and denying Him on the night of His betrayal. Through the crucified and risen Jesus and their faith in Him, God pulled them from the ditches of shame and guilt. They were set right with God and learning what it meant to live in the kingdom of heaven. 

But their minds, like ours, were still fogged by sin. So they ask, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” [Acts 1:6] 

Jesus tells them they need to pray, to quit striving and start surrendering. 

Then, the power of God’s Holy Spirit, the power that created the universe, would come to them. 

That’s exactly what happened on the Pentecost of our second lesson.

Like the first disciples, all who today believe in Jesus and are baptized receive the Holy Spirit. 

But, you may have noticed something: The world is a ditch and it’s so easy to wallow in its sins, to wallow in our own sins. 

This side of our own resurrections, we will never be completely free of sin. 

And, acting in our own strength, even when we think we're doing good things, we can only make things worse. 

That’s why Jesus has sent the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit gives birth to faith. 

The Holy Spirit convicts us of our sin and drives us to the cross. 

The Holy Spirit assures the repentant of forgiveness through faith in Christ. 

The Holy Spirit enables to be used by God to pull others out of their ditches.

As we submit our lives to the control and grace of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit can empower us to live differently. We begin to exhibit what Galatians 5:22-23 calls “the fruit of the Spirit,” things like “love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” 

This is the life of the kingdom of heaven, the life of shalom, of peace with God, peace with others, peace with others.

The Pentecost crowd must have wondered how this kind of peace could come to them. So do we. 

How can we know peace in the midst of chaos? 

How can we have serenity in the midst of this world’s uncertainties? 

Peter knew the answer to those questions, not because he was perfect or arrogant or intelligent. Peter knew the way to peace because like the other first followers of Jesus, he had...

...seen it revealed, 

...heard its voice, 

...received bread and wine from its hand, 

...touched the hem of its garment, 

...saw it crucified and resurrected. 

Peter knew the one way to the peace for which we long. 

Peter knew the way to life with God personally because that way of life had been revealed to him, sometimes painfully, by God. 

In Acts 2:21, the last verse in our lesson, Peter shares God’s peace with the crowd. Quoting from an Old Testament passage that used the word Yawheh, I AM, God’s Name revealed to Moses the lawgiver and which we translate in our Bibles simply as LORD, Peter commended to the crowd the One he and his fellow disciples had come to call, “Lord." He commended the Lord Jesus to them. 

Peter told the crowd, “...whoever calls on the Name of the Lord shall be saved.”

Today, this week, the Holy Spirit can empower you to live each day in the assurance that, no matter how crazy, conflicted, marked by futility, sad, or even horrible and tragic the world may be, as you submit your sins, your hopes, your decisions, your family, your whole life to Jesus Christ, you are saved, again and again...from the law condemns us for our sin even as it shows us the will of God, from death, and from the devil. 

You are saved from the gossip that tears you down, from the fears that haunt you, from the temptations that allure you, from the sadness that dogs you, from sin, from death. 

To have Jesus is truly to have God’s peace.

Jesus Christ is in heaven at the Father’s right hand. But if you believe in Him and call His Name, you are not and you never will be alone. 

The Holy Spirit has come to let you know that whoever calls on the Name of the Lord Jesus--when you call  on the Name of the Lord Jesus--you are saved, safe forever in the arms of God, empowered forever to leave the ditch behind and walk as freed, redeemed, and forever loved children of God. Amen!