Christmas 2

May my words and my thoughts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my refuge and my redeemer. (Psalm 19:14)

SEASON: Christmas 2
PROPER: B
PLACE: St. John's Parish, Kingsville
DATE: January 2, 2000

TEXT: Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 - Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child to destroy him.” Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod.

ISSUE: Joseph is a very shadowy figure in the Scriptures. We know very little about him, except in how he is portrayed in Luke, but more especially in Matthew. He is pictured as a dreamer, a protector, and a deliverer of the Christ child. While Mary is portrayed as the channel of grace for the Christ child, Joseph is the masculine counter part who is the great protector of the child. Perhaps the story of Joseph as the great protector can be for us in our world a reminder of our need to dream dreams and have visions that enable us to embrace the faith we have in Christ and to protect and share its magnificence with the world.
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We are continuing today to deal with some of the stories that surround the birth of Jesus. While we’ve heard from Luke on Christmas, John’s theological interpretation last week, today we look at some of the story as told in Matthew. On the fourth Sunday of Advent, we heard of how the Angel Gabriel appeared to Mary and she succumbed to the will of God to be the bearer of the Christ child. We might have thought of that Sunday as Mary’s Sunday. Today, however, we see the work and place of Joseph in the birth narrative as some of the details are told by Matthew. We might think of this as Joseph’s Sunday.
In the Gospels, other than Matthew, Joseph does not play a very significant role. Tradition has led us to believe that Joseph was an old man who died before Jesus’ adulthood. Some biblical scholars even question the existence of a Joseph as Jesus’ father. Mark’s gospel makes no mention of Joseph and says that Jesus was a carpenter, not son of a carpenter. In John’s Gospel, Joseph is mentioned but plays no role. Luke has Jesus take his place at the manger, but Matthew is the only Gospel that deals with Joseph in any significant way.
In today’s Gospel from Matthew, Jesus is seen to be in trouble. The evil Herod is out to get him. Herod is supposedly the King who orders the slaughter of innocent children. Keep in mind that no other secular historical source says anything about the slaughter of the innocent children. What we do know about Herod is that he was a very vicious man, and that Jesus was born into that very vicious world that could well have and did try to destroy him. What we also know is that Matthew makes every effort to tell the story of Jesus in such as way that it is and was portrayed to the people of his time as related to, and rooted in their ancient tradition. He tells it in such a way as it is seen as fulfillment and related to the Hebrew Scriptures.
The very idea that Herod supposedly attempts to slaughter the innocent children brought to the Jewish mind the story of how the Pharaoh of Egypt attempted to slaughter the Hebrew boys when the Hebrew people grew in strength and number. Jesus survived the terrible threat. Jesus, then like Moses, survives the hardship of childhood to become a great leader of his people who will lead them into the Empire of or Kingdom of God.
In the story, Joseph, led by a dream, takes Jesus to Egypt and then returns to Judea and then to Nazareth in Galilee. Matthew says that this action is a fulfillment of a passage from Hosea 11:1, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” It reminds of the deliverance of the Jews from Egyptian oppression to the Promised Land.
Matthew also says about Jesus, “He will be called a Nazarene.” There is no such actual prophetic passage, but there is a passage in Isaiah 11:1, that says: “There shall come forth a root from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of its roots." This is likely a play on words as the Hebrew word nezer for branch sounds like Nazareth. Jesus is therefore the branch that comes from the house of David.
Now back to Joseph. What we see and learn about Joseph in this story may also be associated with the Hebrew Scriptures or Old Testament. It helps tremendously to know the Old Testament story of Joseph. He was one of the sons of Jacob. He became in fact a favorite son to whom he gives the long sleeved coat of many colors. What is especially notable about Joseph in the Old Testament story is that he is a man of many dreams, and an interpreter of dreams. He has a dream that his other brothers bow down and worship him. His brothers, very put off by his special treatment by their father, and his presuming to dream that they would bow down to him, threaten to kill him, but then have him sold into slavery. He ends up in jail and begins interpreting the dreams of some of his fellow jail mates, the butler and baker of the Egyptian Pharaoh. News of Joseph’s gift of the interpretation of dreams enables him to find favor with the Pharaoh himself, because Joseph successfully interprets the dream of Pharaoh, and is rewarded by being made the prime minister of all of Egypt.
When Joseph’s brothers come to Egypt during the great famine, Joseph does not take revenge, but forgives them and offers them safe residence in Egypt. Thus, Joseph is a man of great forgiveness and a savior of his people. He’s one of the great figures of the Hebrew Scriptures in Genesis.
What does Matthew say about Jesus’ father Joseph? According to the New Testament Scripture, Joseph, father of Jesus, also has a father whose name is Jacob.
He says that he is a dreamer and an interpreter of dreams. He dreams that Mary who is with child is with child by the Holy Spirit. Thus, he takes her as his wife and assumes responsibility for the child. He dreams that the child’s name shall be called Jesus, and he abides by the dream. He dreams that they are in danger and takes the child to Egypt. When in Egypt he dreams that it is safe to return home, and he does so returning to Nazareth, where the prophecies can be fulfilled.
Joseph in the New Testament story as father of Jesus is also the savior of the child, the child who will bring spiritual nourishment to a world hungry for God. Joseph, himself, plays like his forefather a significant salvation role with out vengeance. He is a very forgiving and accepting man of the situation in which he finds himself, as husband to a woman whose pregnancy is suspect, and who raises a child whose life shall be given as a profound witness to forgiveness.
The story here is telling the people who read it that God is still present with, and acting in the history of his people. Jesus has divine roots in the tradition and faith of God’s people. Joseph as the father of the Christ child is portrayed as another channel through which God comes through Christ to his people. Joseph is truly a not very significant character in the birth stories and in the whole of the Biblical story. But Matthew sees that seeming insignificance as embraced by God, and enhanced when it is set down next to the story of the Joseph of the Old Testament, Hebrew Scriptures.
In Joseph, Matthew, relates the coming of Jesus to familiar Old Testament stories and imposes the presence of God upon him. In John’s Gospel, Jesus is always and from the beginning of time the incarnate word of God. Luke sees Mary as the giver of Jesus humanity and the channel through which his divinity flows from the Holy Spirit. Matthew gives that God presence in Jesus through his rooted association with God’s holy people where the human and the divine meet. But make now mistake about it, Joseph is also the character given to us by Matthew, especially, that is a man of dreams and visions. He is obedient to and trusting of God speaking to him so that he can be a channel through which God’s will and God’s Son is made manifest to and protected for the world to see and know.
This story reminds me of still another Hebrew Scripture prophecy that comes from the prophetic Book of Joel. Joel (2:28) believed and prophesied that after much degradation of God’s people, God would come to them again to restore them saying:
“Afterward I will pour out my spirit on everyone; your sons and daughters will proclaim my message; your old men will have dreams, and you young men will have visions. At that time I will pour out my spirit even on my servants both men and women.”
Mary and Joseph seem to be something of the fulfillment of the prophecy as they become the channels through which God comes to his people through Jesus Christ. The question also remains for our own consideration is whether or not we ourselves are allowing ourselves to dream dreams and have visions, both men and women, who allow the presence of God to flow through lives that are obedient and open to the Spirit of Christ-likeness within ourselves.
Today marks the beginning of a whole new millennium for the world. It also marks the beginning of a whole new millennium for the church, for the people of God. Though we may seem insignificant and as shadowy as Joseph himself, we are not without the capacity to dream dreams and have visions. As we face this new millennium together, what do you suppose it is that God is calling us to be and to do in the new age?
We have seen some unprecedented violence and human abuse in the past. Cruel wars infest our history. Craziness combines with the violence in our schools. Racial prejudice continues. We can go on listing the social, health related, and personal problems we all face. No one of us alone has answers. Yet we are still the church. We are still the body of Christ. We may think of ourselves as shadowy and insignificant, but the whole body of the Scripture bears witness to the fact that God uses even the least, the unknown carpenter, the pregnant little girl, to be the channels of hope through which God’s spirit flows. I think that as a community of believers together we need to sharpen our resolve to be faithful and obedient. We need to be constant in our prayerfulness asking God is use us for his channels of grace that Christ’s likeness may continue to flow and flood the world. We need to prayerfully discern what it is God is calling us to be and to do.
The people of Jesus’ time knew the story of their faith, and as it continued to unfold, and God continued to act in their history, they grew in faithful understanding and hope. They had their dreams and visions that enabled them to stand up firm in witness and assurance that God was with them. They witnessed to the sacrificial love, often sacrificing their own lives. We know well that the year 2000 is nothing more than an arbitrary date in the calculation of human history. But it is in spite of that a moment for contemplation of our place in the world as the people of God. We need to ask God to be our help and our guide to allow his grace to flow in us and through us, dreaming dreams and having visions, without vengeance and malice. Joseph is simply obedient, committed, loyal, faithful and carries on; through him comes the hope and salvation of God.