“Beyond the Lights”

Isaiah 7:10-16

Matthew 1:18-25

December 19, 2004

For the first three Sundays of Advent, we have looked to the future, and we have focused on Advent as a time when we are called to prepare ourselves for the Lord’s return. Advent puts in front of us the reality that God’s time and our time are on a collision course. They will once again meet in a radical and profound way on the last day. How we prepare ourselves now for this day has eternal significance.

The first Sunday of Advent we talked about preparing ourselves by marking time in a new way. As believers, we are to mark time by the way in which we wait, watch, and keep ourselves oriented in God’s time and not our own time. The second Sunday of Advent we talked about our need for repentance. Repentance is a primary characteristic of those who wait for the Lord. Repentance is the act by which we turn ourselves toward God and keep our faith and life in sync with God’s coming kingdom. The third Sunday of Advent we talked about our advent expectations of the coming Messiah. Advent not only points us to the coming new reality of the kingdom, but it also points us to the fact that this coming new reality is good news for us. In Jesus Christ, God broke through the boundary between space and time, between heaven and earth, and came to a broken and hurting world. In Jesus Christ, God came not as punisher but as healer, not as destroyer but Savior.

So now we come to today, the fourth Sunday of Advent, and we are very close to Christmas. We must be cautious and not move too quickly from this fourth Sunday of Advent to Christmas Eve or Christmas morning. We still have this Sunday to go, one more Sunday of the season of Advent, a time which is primarily focused on Christ’s second coming and the implications he brings for our lives of faith. But there is no doubt that the line between the season of Advent and the season of Christmas is becoming blurred for us. Our excitement about the coming of God in the baby Jesus is beginning to overshadow our eager anticipation of the coming of the Lord Jesus in glory. Our focus on Christ’s return is moving to a focus on Christ’s birth. Preparation for the future is becoming reflection on the past. How natural this is for us, for we have invested much of our faith and life in the birth of this baby, a baby who would grow up and bring good news of God’s kingdom, a baby who would grow up and bring forgiveness, restoration, and redemption.

Our scripture reading from the Gospel of Matthew is an interesting text for us to read during Advent. Considering this is Matthew’s birth narrative, one might think it would be more appropriate to read it for Christmas Eve, since it speaks of angels and the virgin Mary, but because it is a text for Advent, it would do us well to look beyond supernatural and the mysterious to another message of much more profound importance. For Matthew, this baby born that night long ago, is more than just another baby, this baby is the fulfillment of God’s promise made all those years before by the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah told King Ahaz that God would do what the king refused to do. With enemies bearing down upon Israel, the king refused to ask God for a sign of deliverance. He refused to put his faith and trust in God’s word. But God would do what the people of Israel failed to do. God would send a child, who would be in the direct line of the King David, who would come and deliver God’s people and usher in God’s reign. This child would be called Immanuel. His name would mean God with us and he would be the very sign of God’s faithfulness.

For Matthew, this baby born to Mary and Joseph is the one that Isaiah had promised King Ahaz would come. He is neither an accident nor a coincidence, he is the incarnation of God’s very self, the Word of God in flesh, the one who is Emmanuel, the one who is God with us. In this baby is the fusion of God and humanity, the coming together of two worlds, God’s and ours, the collision of God’s time and our time, all through the initiative of the Spirit of the living God. In this baby, God has crossed over the breech between God and humankind, we call sin, and become one with us in the flesh and restore the saving relationship with us. In this baby, God has come to do what only God can do – save people from their sins.

For Matthew, this baby named Jesus is God embracing flesh to save us, embracing flesh to experience our best and our worst and all of life’s uncertainties in between, embracing all of it in the flesh, so that all might be absorbed in God and redeemed. This name of Jesus is more than just a name, it is a proclamation of God’s faithfulness, steadfast love, and abiding presence. The name of Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua which means “God saves.” He is the incarnation of God’s work in the world, he is the incarnation of God’s salvation history, he is the incarnation of God’s saving grace, he is the incarnation of the gospel of God.

I wonder if people in this society fully grasp the significance of what this name of Jesus means for us, and most importantly, the significance of Jesus’ birth. This society, this country, has so commercialized Christmas that we spend more time concerning ourselves with making sure we have our presents bought than taking time to reflect upon the fact that in Jesus is God with us. This society, this country, has nearly so completely secularized Christmas that any mention of Christ, faith, or religion brings with it the heavy breathing of the ACLU, the People for the American Way, all those “separation of church and state” people, and the militant atheists. Christmas cannot be just another holiday for us, it is too important, it is too significant for us to reduce it down to simply Christmas lights, decorations, and holiday sales.

Over two thousand years ago, a baby came into this world and the world changed, a baby came into this world and kings and emperors quaked in their shoes, a baby came in this world nations became nervous. Over two thousand years later, those in power still quake in their shoes, and nations are still nervous. The Christmas event is a resounding message to all those who consider God absent that God is very much present, and is even now at work bringing the hope, peace, joy, love and forgiveness to a world that is full of brokenness and despair and insecurity.

On this fourth Sunday of Advent, as we prepare ourselves to celebrate the birth of the one who is the fulfillment of the covenant, the one who is God with us, let us make sure that we look beyond the lights and decorations of Christmas and take time to reflect upon what this baby means for us. Let us make sure that we do not take for granted the significance of what God did for us that day long ago, nor the celebration of that day on Saturday, for in doing so, we not only keep ourselves in tune with God’s work in the world, but we also keep ourselves prepared for when Christ comes again. Amen.