God With Us
(Matthew 1: 18-25)
There’s nothing quite like a hotly contested political campaign to bring out the worst in people. Many aspiring politicians, me included, really want to serve and use our talents to make things better not for ourselves but for others, others we probably don’t know and will in all likelihood never meet, but slaps on the back and appreciation plaques is not why we do it. We truly want to help. But then there is the other side whose sole purpose in politics is to maintain the status quo, an institution built to protect and promote their self-interests over the interests of others. And in the United States we have a primary election in less than a year which will be a run up to a presidential election. You can see the jockeying for position already beginning with one side doing what it can to keep power and maintain their status quo and the other side trying to regain the power it lost, and here we are, stuck in the middle hoping and praying for someone to come and save us, save us from ourselves. It’s an old story, a story as old as mankind where people and groups of people struggle, fight, and scheme to stay at the top of the heap. And that’s what Matthew was writing about in our gospel reading for today, a coming power struggle that would forever change the world, at least that’s what we hope and pray for.
There’s a good reason why the Gospel of Matthew is the first book of the New Testament. Mathew’s Gospel serves as a bridge between the Old and New Testaments, and it is fitting that Matthew, a Jew, would be that conduit. Matthew, the former tax collector, was right there almost from the beginning so he had firsthand information on Jesus’ growing ministry. He was educated and because he was entrusted by Rome to collect taxes from the Jews, he was prone to detail as he would be held accountable for any discrepancies. He had to be able to support and justify why he collected what and from whom.
It would be natural to assume that Matthew wrote his gospel not long after Christ arose and then ascended into heaven after promising his return on a date and time no one knew but the Father, but according to my two study Bibles his gospel was written a couple of decades later. My Wesley Study Bible says most scholars commonly think it was written between 80 and 90 CE (Common Era or A.D as we know it.) as a response to efforts by the Pharisees to define followers of Jesus out of Judaism. Yeah, that’s right, the power structure in control still felt threatened by Jesus whose teachings didn’t die with him, so they had to do something about it. They had to cancel it just like those in power today try to cancel anyone who dares to challenge the status quo. What we’re seeing today is nothing new, in fact, ironically, it’s of Biblical proportions canceling people who don’t look like us, speak like us, love like us, vote like us, or love like us. So, by publishing his gospel he’s trying to prevent the painful parting of the ways between Judaism and Christianity by recognizing and celebrating the inherently Jewish roots of Jesus.
So, in the first seventeen verses of chapter one Matthew lays out Jesus’ lineage by showing that Jesus was a descendant of Abraham, the father of the Jews, and a direct descendant of David, fulfilling the Old Testament Prophesies about the Messiah’s line. Matthew knew that the first thing the Pharisees would do is to fact check him, so he went back generations upon generations showing that there was no break in the lineage. Matthew understood Jesus not only to be a new “beginning”, the literal meaning of genesis, but also initiating a new creation. Once that is established, he begins his recounting of the birth story and how it took place. He begins by stating: When Mary, his mother, was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Right then and there that should have been a deal killer in the Jewish tradition of matrimony. Upon learning that his bride was pregnant by another Joseph had two options: divorce her or have her stoned for her prenuptial indiscretion and nobody would have blamed him. But God provided a third option which he chose to obey. Matthew tells us that Joseph was a righteous man and didn’t want to humiliate her, so he decided to call off their engagement quietly, but God had other plans. Joseph was visited by an angel of the Lord in a dream who said: Joseph son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. Now that truly is a leap of faith, but we’ve already been told that Joseph was a righteous man and what he was told by the angel of the Lord was good enough for him. Matthew makes the point that all of this happened so that what the Lord who had spoken through the prophets would be fulfilled: Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son. And they will call him Emmanuel. (Isaiah 7:14) And then as an afterthought for the benefit of those of us who do not know what Emmanuel means, he tells us it means “God with us.” Matthew tells his readers that when Joseph awoke from his dream that he did just as the angel from God commanded and took Mary as his wife, no questions asked, had no relations with her, and when the baby was born, he named him Jesus just as he was instructed.
The importance of Matthew’s birth story can’t be overstated as it sets the basis and foundation of our belief that Jesus Christ is the Messiah, sent to save the world. Matthew set the stage right at the beginning of his gospel by tracing the Jewish lineage of Jesus back to Abraham and then, through what the angel of the Lord told Joseph connected Jesus’ birth to what was foretold by the prophet Isaiah. “They will call him Emmanuel” which means “God with us.” God was born into the world as a living and breathing human to experience what we experience, the highs and the lows, the joys and the sorrows, the good, the bad, and the ugly of human existence. For the everyday Jew struggling to get by this human experience gave Jesus, for lack of a better term, “street cred” as he arose from humble beginnings and lived as they lived. He wasn’t what the Jewish religious leadership expected. He wasn’t some sort of warrior king suddenly anointed by God to raise an army powerful enough to take on and vanquish the Romans and anybody else who would follow in an attempt to seize power.
What Matthew is telling the world through his gospel is that Jesus would fulfill the prophecy of Isaiah, for he would be Emmanuel, God with us. Because he was God in the flesh, he was literally among us, with us in all that we are and do. And, through the Holy Spirit, Christ is present today in the life of every believer proving that our God is a living God who rules the world with truth and grace and makes the nations prove the glories of his righteousness, and the wonders of his love.
Let us pray.
Joy to the world, the Lord has come, let earth receive her King. Yes, gracious and loving God what joy we have in our hearts because our Lord has come. He came as a little baby to grow with us, to walk with us, to laugh and cry with us, and to be there during those times we need to feel the wonders of his love. May the whole world come to experience the joy he brings as he reigns supreme with love, justice and righteousness for all. In Jesus’ name, we pray, Amen.
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God With Us
Because he was God in the flesh, he was literally among us, with us in all that we are and do.