Isaiah 7:10-16
10Again the LORD spoke to Ahaz, saying, 11Ask a sign of the LORD your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. 12But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the LORD to the test. 13Then Isaiah said: "Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? 14Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign.
Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son, and shall name him Immanuel. 15He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.
Matthew 1:18-25
18Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
20But just when he had resolved to do 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 as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins."
22All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23"Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us."
24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.
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Raise your hand if you can basically tell this story from memory.
This is a very familiar part of a very familiar story for many of us. It’s so familiar that we can slide right over how incredible it is. This whole Christmas story can easily slide into sentimentality and hallmark card sweetness if we’re not careful. There’s a baby and animals and a young couple facing the world together; it’s so tempting to make this a cute image. The classic Christmas carols tell the story, but sometimes we’ve heard them so many times in Target and the supermarket by this time of year that even those words loose their power and become a fuzzy cloud of good feelings.
God, the Lord of heaven and earth, became a human being for our sake. God didn’t even become a strong, powerful man like Hercules or Samson. God became a vulnerable, weak, speechless baby. God became a baby in a small town during tax season. God chose to be born in a stable because there wasn’t a place for him at the inn. God took on a body so weak, in a situation so powerless that he couldn’t even get a motel room.
It’s a scandal really. It doesn’t make any sense in the world we know, and it didn’t make any sense in the world Christ entered as a baby. It doesn’t make sense, but that’s sometimes how God does things.
I’m getting a bit ahead of the story by talking about the birth of Jesus. Our chunk of the story for this morning starts back a little further but it still doesn’t make any sense. Our chunk of the story starts when Joseph discovers Mary is pregnant.
We don’t know much about Joseph. We know that he was a carpenter engaged to a woman named Mary. We know he was a righteous man, which means he took his faith seriously and tried to follow the commandments of God. For the rest of the story we have to use our imagination.
