December 23, 2007 Fourth Sunday of Advent

Sermon Title: “The Messiah Complex”

Series: Love Came Down At Christmas

Text: Matthew 1:18-24

Dr. Steve Jackson

NewSong Community Church

Delivered on December 23, 2007

 

“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way….”
Matthew 1:18

The Messiah Complex

 

Christmas can be a “crazy” time

I probably shouldn’t say this, because I’ll probably lose your attention for the rest of the morning…but I will. Christmas is only two days away. Actually it’s only 37 hours away. There’s only one shopping day left until Christmas! Now don’t bolt for the exits. I know there are still long car rides ahead for some of you, and last-minute gifts to be bought, and meals to be prepared, and a whole lot more. Christmas is supposed to be “the most wonderful time of the year,” with sleigh bells ringing, fireplaces burning brightly, and a turkey roasting in the stove as the Christmas lights twinkle gaily. But let’s face it; the holidays can be a time of stress, conflict, and frustration. Whether it's the shopping lines, skeletons in the family closet, or that “hard-to-buy-for” uncle, there are plenty of ways Christmas can quickly turn into the most complicated and stressful time of the year.

 

Whenever I think of stressful, complicated Christmases, I think of one of my favorite Christmas movies, “Christmas Vacation.”  No matter how many times I watch that movie, I find my emotions ranging from tears to peals of laughter at Clark W. Griswold’s (Chevy Chase) futile attempt to create a happy family Christmas for his extended clan. When you factor in three sets of elderly grandparents who detest each other, uninvited cousin Eddy, his family and his dog in an ancient RV, a whining teenage daughter, a boss who doesn't even know Clark’s name, a Christmas bonus check that still hasn't arrived, and 25,000 Christmas lights that simply refuse to shine, what you get is a man who is standing on the brink of losing his mind. (By the way, the only version I’ll watch is the edited for TV version because of some pretty bad language).

 

Today’s text from Matthew is so familiar you might not have noticed that things were pretty complicated for the father figure in Jesus’ birth as Matthew tells it. Let’s look a little closer at the story again.

 

Matthew’s Birth Account

Matthew doesn’t tell about Jesus’ conception, or his actual birth. Instead focuses on the reactions and responses of Joseph to what’s happening all around him. Luke, you will recall, tells the story from Mary’s perspective. But Matthew tells us about the days leading up to Jesus’ birth from Joseph’s perspective. He and Mary are engaged. But before they get married somehow it is discovered that Mary is pregnant. We don't know how this was known – we just know that Joseph knew she was pregnant and that he was not the father of the child. That kind of news would complicate anyone’s Holiday season. Of course back then Mary’s pregnancy out of wedlock would have been more scandalous than it would be today. Having a child outside of a marriage in those days wasn't just frowned upon. It was a criminal act punishable by death to one or both persons involved. What would Joseph do? Since he was engaged to Mary he could have brought charges of adultery against her, for which she would definitely have been stoned. But Joseph, described by Matthew as “a righteous man,” chooses instead to quietly break off the marriage before it’s too late. But then, “just as he had resolved to do this,” an angel appears to him and tells him that the child Mary is carrying is from the Holy Spirit. The angel tells him not to be afraid, but to marry Mary as planned. You know how the rest of the story goes, Joseph marries Mary, and she bears a child, and they name him Jesus.

 

There is a sense in which Joseph’s role in the birth of Jesus is unique. He was the father figure who really wasn’t the father. But in another sense Joseph stands for each one of us because of what I call the Messiah Complex. By Messiah Complex I don’t mean the usual definition of that term, which is when someone foolishly takes on the role of the Messiah and tries to save the world. Instead what I’m referring to the fact that the birth of the Messiah creates a complex set of circumstances in everyone’s life.

 

The birth of Jesus creates a complex set of circumstances in everyone’s life

And so this morning let’s look at a few ways the birth of Jesus complicates the lives of those involved. I want to highlight three of them.

 

His Coming Creates a CRISIS

The first way Jesus’ arrival complicates our lives is that His coming creates a CRISIS. We read in verse 18, “Mary was engaged to Joseph and was found to be with child.” That kind of news will ruin an engagement, or a Christmas celebration, in a heartbeat won’t it? Jesus’ coming always creates a crisis. His appearing complicates our lives. It’s so interesting to me how we send cards at Christmas with images of peace, and the angels sang of “peace on earth.” But as I’ve already mentioned, most of us are down here scrambling around rushing from one crisis to another as the big day approaches.

 

I remember following the Apollo 13 space flight with great interest back in the seventies. The words, “Houston, we have a problem” were immortalized during the tense days of that lunar mission crisis. Their mission was going swimmingly until an exploding oxygen tank threatened the crew's oxygen and power supplies. At that point the crew and the folks back in Houston had to figure out, first of all, if they even had a problem or not, it could have simply been an instrument problem. But once those instruments started blinking they had knowledge that something might be going on that was pretty serious. They were aware of a crisis, or a potential crisis.

 

It’s that way with us and with Jesus’ appearing. Once we’ve heard the gospel; once we’ve heard the good news, we have to decide if it’s for real or not. Simply put, if we’re wrong we could go up in flames faster than a spaceship hitting the outer atmosphere without any heat shields. If we’re right about it – if we take appropriate action – then we’re safe.

 

Knowledge of the birth of Jesus is God’s way flashing warning lights in the cockpit of our lives. Jesus did not come to be nice. He did not come into this world to affirm the status quo. He did not come to pat religious people on the back. He said in Luke 12:51, “Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to bring strife and division!” What are we to make of that at Christmas time?

 

Over in John’s gospel there’s an interesting verse, John 3:19 that says, “And this is the judgment, that the light has come into the world, and people loved darkness rather than light.” The word translated “judgment” there is the Greek word krisis. The Greek word “krisis” has the same meaning as our English word crisis. Crisis is when a situation can take a turn for the better or worse. Jesus’ coming created a crisis; light came into the world, and when the warning light came on, everyone finds themselves facing a crisis. If it’s true that he’s come, something has to be done.

 

His Coming Calls for a DECISION

And that’s leads to the second way Jesus’ birth complicates things. And that is that His coming calls for a DECISION. You and I get to choose. You and I must choose. In Joseph’s case, he had to choose whether to hang in there with Mary after he discovered she was pregnant, or else break off the engagement. Verse 19 says Joseph decided to do the latter. “...Joseph, being a righteous man...planned to dismiss her quietly.”

 

In your case and mine, our decision is based on the question, “What are we doing to do with Jesus?” And that is a monumental decision we have to make, all because Jesus has come into the world.

 

Think with me for just a moment about how many choices have you already made this morning? You’ve already made dozens of choices and it’s not even lunchtime yet. You decided when to get up, what to eat for breakfast, whether to come to church or not, what to wear, when to leave, which route to take getting here and so on. Life is made up of one decision after another, and with each choice, one door opens and another closes. This is true even for those who want to keep their options open as long as possible.

 

The great church Father Augustine famously prayed one time to God saying, “O Lord, help me to be pure, but not yet…”  Perhaps you’ve uttered this same prayer yourself. But God doesn’t work that way. His coming creates a crisis that reaches its boiling point when a decision must be made. Fact is, the birth of Jesus Christ is the turning point of all history. Our calendar is even hinged on His birth: before Christ, or after. Who was this man from the small town of Nazareth in the Middle East? Is he really who he claimed to be and who the Bible claims he is? What will you decide?

 

Christmas points us to the young girl who said “Yes” it’s true, He’s the one. Christmas points us to His Isaiah-inspired name we read today, “Immanuel – God with us.” It reminds us of God’s becoming one with us and suffering with us and for us – so that we may become one with Him. Christmas, through today’s Bible Readings brings us to a crisis point and calls for a decision from each of us. A decision to be repeated day in day out, on the fundamental question, “Is he the truth, the way, and the life?” Is it the world’s ways of selfishness, cruelty and exploitation? Or has God given to his creation and to humankind a new beginning in the Child who was born, a child in which justice, goodness, and kindness finally found their truest and fullest expression?   

 

I love the scene repeated so often in the movies where the “good guy” has somehow broken through incredible defenses and past hundreds, even thousands, of armed guards, and now stands before the nuclear bomb with a bright red LED countdown rapidly making its way to zero. Invariably our hero opens a panel on the bomb to reveal an array of multi-colored wires and he doesn’t have a clue which one to cut to stop the bomb from going off. He must decide, “Do I cut the red wire, the blue one, or the white one?” In the movies, of course, the hero always cuts the right wire with just a few ticks left on the clock. Reality, however, tells us that the hero doesn’t always save the day and get the girl. Sometimes even good people make poor choices and they, and others, pay the price.

 

What I’m trying to say this morning is; there is no greater decision than the one you and I have to make about Jesus Christ. Is he really the Savior of the World? Is he really Immanuel, “God with us?” Now that we have heard His claim, we must make a choice. And don’t forget, even not choosing is a choice. Choose wisely.

 

His coming creates a FAMILY

There’s one more complication Jesus’ coming brings. In this case, thankfully, it’s a positive complication, and that is that His coming creates a FAMILY. Look at what our story says happened when Joseph awoke from his dream where the angel spoke to him: “When Joseph awoke...he took her as his wife.” Matt. 1:24

 

In Joseph’s case, he was grafted into the Holy Family by choosing to remain by Mary’s side even if it meant facing disgrace. In your case and mine, we are grafted into the family of God when we make our choice for Him, claiming him as our Lord and Savior.

 

Jesus said the family ties we generate when we choose to follow Jesus are even stronger than our biological family ties. According to Matthew, Jesus was once speaking to a crowd when someone told him, “Your mother and brothers are waiting outside.” “Jesus replied to him, ‘Who is my mother and who are my brothers?’ Pointing to his disciples he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers. For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother” Matt. 12:46-50. Jesus wasn’t dissing his family here, he was merely pointing out that our spiritual family is eternal, while our biological family is fleeting – here today and gone tomorrow. Of course, the best of both worlds is when your biological family is also part of your spiritual family. That’s the way God intended it to be I’m certain.

 

And with the notion that the coming of Christ creates family we’ve come full circle to the movie I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon, “Christmas Vacation.” With family like that, who’d want any part of it?  For the answer to that we have to look a little closer at the Scripture we read this morning and ask a very important question. The question concerns the series we’re in right now about God’s love. “Where is the love in Matthew’s telling of the events surrounding Jesus’ birth? How is love exhibited in this passage?”

 

And the answer to that question is that you can find love woven all through this text, even if we have to look at it more carefully, more thoroughly, to find it. For instance, I see love when Joseph was unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, intending to “dismiss her quietly.” I don’t know about you, but if my fiancé came to me with whatever wild tale Mary must’ve told Joseph about why she was pregnant, I’m not so sure I would have been so understanding…so loving. But he was. His unwillingness to expose her was done out of his love for her.

 

I also see the love of God expressed when He sends an angelic messenger to comfort Joseph and to affirm what Mary had told him was true. I see the love of God in the two names given to the Lord in this passage: Immanuel, “God with us,” and Jesus, Yeshua, “for He shall save the people from their sins.”  Yes, the scriptures surrounding Jesus’ birth are nothing if not about God’s love. We can see God’s love in His giving of the Christ-child to the world. We see love in Mary when we read in Luke about how she pondered over everything quietly in her heart. We see love when the Magi travel great distances to give gifts to this baby for whom they've been searching.

 

And so this morning I’ll close with the question I’ve asked before. How will you respond to His coming in your life? Will it be another ho-hum Christmas for you on Tuesday? Or will this be the year you finally are able to grasp the enormity of His love for you?

 

Do me a favor, Monday night when you finally lay your weary head down on the pillow, before “visions of sugarplums dance in your head.” Ponder these three complications of the Christmas season: His coming creates a crisis…His coming calls for a decision, and his coming creates a family. How will you respond to this Good News? Let’s pray.