Christmas Wisdom

Sermon for Sabbath, December 10, 2011, at North Hill Adventist Fellowship
Final draft.

This is how the birth of Jesus came about: His mother, Mary, was engaged to a man named Joseph. Before they came together, Mary became pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Joseph, learning of her pregnancy, was astonished and hurt. Still being a good-hearted man, instead of publicly shaming his finance, he planned to break off the relationship quietly. While he was still thinking through what to do, an angel appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph,” the angel said, “don't be afraid to take Mary home as your wife. The child she is carrying is from the Holy Spirit. When she gives birth, give the child the name, Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

So, if Joseph was your son or your brother and his finance was pregnant and he knew there was no way he was the father what would you advise him to do? Obviously the smart thing, no matter how much he loves this girl, is to move on. If she messes around on you while you are engaged, the likelihood of a long and happy marriage is pretty out there. Wisdom would tell Joseph to get out while the gettin's good.

Except in this case, getting out wasn't the wisest course of action. Sparing himself heartache wasn't the smart choice. Yes, Mary was pregnant. And no, the baby was not Joseph's, biologically speaking. But Mary hasn't been messing around. She hasn't been unfaithful. Instead, the child she is carrying is the baby of prophecy, the anointed of God. Mary's baby is going to save people from their sins. In fact, Matthew tells us, “All this has happened to fulfill what God predicted through the prophet, 'The virgin will be with child and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel – which means 'God with us.'”

Which means Joseph is going to be the stepfather of God, the stepfather of the Messiah. The head of the household of God!

Joseph did the truly wise thing. He keeps Mary as his beloved. He embraces Mary's mystery baby as his very own son.

The wisdom of Joseph's choice was highlighted months after Jesus' birth. Joseph was in his carpenter shop working on a table for the mayor of Bethlehem when Mary breathlessly summoned him to meet exotic visitors.

Their story goes like this. They had showed up in Jerusalem a few days or weeks earlier looking for a child king. Back in Persia, they had seen an extraordinary star which from their study they understood to be the announcement of the birth of the great king of Jewish prophecy.

But in Jerusalem, no one knew anything about the baby. The king, King Herod, had invited them to an interview. He had quizzed them about the star and their study and their travels then sent them off to Bethlehem to search for the king, because according to what Jewish scholars had told him, Bethlehem was the town pinpointed in prophecy as the birth place of the Messiah.

When the Wise Men arrived at Joseph's and Mary's house, the star appeared over the house. This was the place! They had traveled for months and hundreds of miles to pay homage to their baby.

I imagine Mary and Joseph recounted the stories of the visit of the angel to Joseph and the visit of the angel to Mary. They probably repeated the story the shepherds had told them about the vision of angel song they had experienced outside Bethlehem the night Jesus was born. And the story of Simeon in the temple. The Wise Men were satisfied. They worshiped the baby. That is they admired him. They adored him. They paid homage, made obeisance. They presented rich gifts. Then headed home even wiser than when they first headed out.

Wise because they had seen the King.

These two stories set up one of the major themes of the book of Matthew – the secret wisdom of God. There is a deep wisdom that is hidden from the titled and credentialed and revealed to and through babes.

To all obvious appearances, Jesus was just an ordinary child. Or, you might be tempted to say, a disadvantaged child. He makes his first impression on Joseph as the apparent evidence of Mary's indiscretion. Jesus appears to be proof of Mary's foolishness, irresponsibility, unfaithfulness. Turns out that was wrong, but that's what it looked like until an angel helped Joseph see the truth.

The point of the Christmas story is not to emphasize the difference between Jesus and every other human. Rather, the point is the closeness of Jesus to ordinary humanity. Jesus is like every child. Every child is like Jesus. And every man is like Joseph. And Joseph is like every man. And every mother is Mary. Every child is in a sense divine.

We can see fully the glory of children when our eyes have been enlightened by the wisdom from heaven. The little one making messes in her diaper and keeping you awake with his crying and spitting up on your good clothes and vomiting on the carpet is also Immanuel. God is with us in the person of the little people.

That's the meaning of what the angel told Joseph. That's the meaning in our world of what the Wise Men learned from the star and from their study.

You might wonder if I'm just making this up. Is this really what Matthew wanted his readers to understand from these stories at the beginning of his book. If you do wonder if I'm pushing this too far, consider what Matthew writes elsewhere in his book.

In chapter 4, Matthew describes the beginning of Jesus' ministry and offers a very brief summary of an astonishing healing ministry before launching into a three-chapter recitation of Jesus' wisdom, the famous Sermon on the Mount. At the heart of Jesus sermon is this definition of wisdom: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. . . . So be perfect as your father in heaven is perfect.”

According to Matthew the essence of the wisdom of God, the bedrock foundation of God's identity is his capacity to see every human as his son or daughter. And we become most like God as we acquire similar habits. We are wisest when we see with the eyes of God.

After outlining Jesus' great, defining sermon, Matthew offers details of how Jesus interacts with people. Earlier he had given a quick broad-brush description of Jesus' sweeping healing ministry. Now Matthew describes specific cases. The very first case involves a leper who was legally untouchable. Jesus touches him any way. Jesus sees in this man, a beloved son. And by his action of touching the man, Jesus offering the crowd wisdom. Misshapen, ugly people are mere disguises for the beloved of God. The man is not untouchable. He is beloved.

The next story Matthew tells is about a Roman officer. The crowd knows this man is a foreigner. He is not part of the people of God. He is not, to use Adventist-speak, part of the Remnant. Jesus tells the crowd this foreigner has a richer, purer, greater faith than anything he has seen in any person who is an insider.

Church people in Jesus' day could have cited chapter and verse for their opinion that this Roman army officer was further from God than they were. They could have told exactly where in the Bible it was written that Jewish people were more highly favored by heaven than outsiders. But Jesus offered a superior wisdom. A wisdom that was even deeper than the actual words of the Bible.

Then in one of my favorite stories in the book of Matthew, Jesus tells about two daughters. One is the beloved, beautiful dream child of a wealthy, religious leader. The other is a woman with an incurable, unmentionable, and (in her society) disgusting physical problem.

The way Matthew tells the story, he leads us to open our hearts to the beautiful 12-year old first. We get caught up in the emotions of the father as he desperately tries to get Jesus to his house in time to save his dear one. Then Matthew throws us a curve. While our hearts are open, while we are fully engaged with the father, urging Jesus to hurry, hurry, hurry, Matthew suddenly confronts us with another daughter. Jesus stops, driving the father of the 12 year old into greater desperation. Jesus turns searching the crowd for someone. We look through Jesus' eyes, checking the faces. It's all a blur, then a woman comes into focus. She moves toward Jesus in response to his demand that she show herself. This is not a beautiful 12 year old. This woman is claimed as daughter only God. She is wanted and treasured and prized only by God. If we don't close our hearts too quickly, we get sucked into the vision of Jesus, the wisdom of God. We see this woman is a daughter, too, the beloved of God, our dear sister, our treasure.

The wisdom of heaven teaches us to see value, dignity, honor where ordinary eyes might see nothing special.

In chapter 11, Matthew reports Jesus' words about John the Baptist. This man who is in jail with no hope of reprieve, this man who had alienated the king, this man, says Jesus, is great. In fact, no one greater has ever been born.

Don't let prison fool you. Don't let a conviction or some jail time fool you.

Then Matthew comes to the grand climax of Jesus' teaching. It's the story of the final judgment. All humanity is arraigned before God and separated into the good and bad.

Good and bad are exactly the same in one sense: they are being tested using an invisible God. Neither neither good people nor bad people pass the seeing test. The good people didn't see God when he showed up. And the bad people didn't see God when he showed up. In this respect they are exactly the same. They had no angel to inform them this is no ordinary baby, no ordinary person. None of them discern God when he shows up to give them the test.

So what made the difference? The good people treated God in disguise the way he deserved to be treated based on his identity as God. The bad people treated God in disguise the way he deserved to be treated based on the identity of his disguise.

The bad people insist they would have done better if only God had let them know it was him. And, of course, that's true. No one in their right mind would mistreat God to his face. The challenge is that God often comes in impenetrable disguise.

Which brings us back to the opening stories of the Book of Matthew.

God comes as crying babies, as children who are rude and insensitive, as rebellious kids, as impossible kids. Yep, that's God all right. Sure doesn't look like him, but don't be fooled by the disguise.

The heart of the pro-life movement is the recognition that every infant carries divinity. Every infant is prized by God. It is this identity that makes abortion evil.

It's vital that we carry our pro-life commitments beyond prohibiting abortion. Prohibiting abortion is easy. It is doing the necessary things for children after they are born that is the challenge. Recognizing the person of God in the face of children means providing them quality schools. It means limiting mercury emissions by power plants. It means working to address the impending environmental devastation caused by global warming. It means preserving National Parks. It means doing any number of things as a society that cannot be done by individuals alone.

When we receive heaven's wisdom from the story of Jesus birth – that God comes among us in the disguise of needy children – we will do all we can in every area of life to make the world a safer, better place for children.

Seeing children as divine naturally has profound implications in the family setting.

If you are a parent or grandparent, I encourage you to cultivate this vision of the grand, noble identity of the little people in your world. Because of their potential, I urge you read to them every night. Turn off the TV. Take them to the park and push them in the swings. Play with them. Hug them and kiss them. Tell them, “I love you.” Make them do their home work and practice the piano or violin or whatever musical instrument they are learning. Make them clean the bathroom and sweep the kitchen floor. Require them to vacuum and to make their beds. Help them learn a Bible verse every week and repeat it every day. They are kings and queens in the making. They deserve all the instruction and structure you can give them. It would be such a tragedy to waste all their talent and potential.

Don't beat them. Don't spank them. If you find you are spanking your children repeatedly then quit. Obviously, it's not working. Try something else. Train your children for greatness. Remember that the child born in your house, the child carrying your DNA is not ultimately yours. Even Mary who was part of Jesus' biology, did not “own” him. She was entrusted with him. She was given the privilege of mothering him. But she did not own him. So with our children. They carry our DNA (unless they are adopted). They carry our hearts (in any case). They own us, but we do not own them. We are trustees of God, serving the children of the king.

Two thousand years ago, a child with questionable parentage was, in fact, the Savior of the world, God with us. His own dad couldn't see it without a special message from heaven. But it was true and Wise Men came a thousand miles to confirm the words of the angels.

Christ is born. The Savior of the world, looking like a mere child. Who knows what grand, fantastic dreams God has for the little ones in your home.