Advent One - Courageous Hope (Matthew 1:18-23)

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I have a friend who I'm going to call Jordan. Jordan is in their early 70s, intelligent, likeable, as level-headed and mentally healthy as most of us most days.

Jordan lives in their car. They lived in their car last winter and the winter before, and now winter is here again and nothing has changed. And Jordan woke up this morning in their car.

They have gone through official channels to get assistance. They've been told in some cases that they're on the waiting list (along with approximately 900 other people in our county). And in some cases, Jordan has been told that they don't qualify for assistance because they are “semi-housed.” Jordan has agreed to be one of the inaugural occupants of a sleeping cabin if and when they are approved, and has been part of that proces, consulting on design, requirements, and location.

Jordan has read and heard in the media opposing points of view from people largely motivated by fear, wondering, “What impact will ‘those people’ have on our neighborhood?” “What impact will ‘those people’ have on our children?” Jordan has sat in a chair at council meetings, side by side with citizens who have stood to take the mic, speak fiercely against sleeping cabins, and then sat back down next to Jordan, having no idea that Jordan is one of “those people.” Jordan has been present when councils have voted down proposals saying, “We think there are better solutions.” And Jordan has left those meetings, got in their car, driven to somewhere safe, and tried to get warm enough to sleep.

But Jordan has not given up. Jordan has not removed their name from the list of future occupants. Jordan has not stopped showing up for council meetings, showing up for meetings and conversations with the team. Jordan has not driven away somewhere else, thinking, “Well, maybe it'll be easier there.”

Jordan has not despaired. Jordan keeps showing up and asking (I heard this just last week), “OK, what do we do now?”

Because Jordan is possessed of a courageous hope.

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Our scripture focus this morning was taken from the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament, but not the first section of the first chapter of the first book of the New Testament. If you look it up, you'll see that the first section of that first chapter is a genealogy and nobody wants to be asked to be the scripture reader on a morning when the scripture focus is a genealogy.

But that genealogy is important. It's there for a reason. Matthew was a Jewish writer writing to a Jewish audience, for whom those genealogical records had significance and meaning. Matthew traces Jesus’ family line up through his adopted father, Joseph, back to the very beginnings of the people who would become the nation of Israel.

Matthew 1:1 -

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.

Matthew highlights those names—David and Abraham—to connect his Jewish readers to ideas of Covenant. Covenant is a special promise relationship that exists between God and certain people throughout history. David and Abraham are hooks on which the Covenant of God with His people, Israel hang. They were the foundation of Israel's identity.

The Covenant with Abraham was the beginning of their relationship with the God who calls himself “I am.” The God who chose Israel for His people. The God who picked up Abraham by the scruff of the neck, gave him just a little bit of a shake, and put him down where he ought to be—in Covenant with God. That's the beginning of His Covenant relationship with the people of Israel.

Through his genealogy, Matthew keeps bringing us back to this important idea—God's promise to Abraham, the source of Israel's hope.

Genesis 12:1 - 

The Lord said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people, and your father's household to the land that I will show you. I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you. I will make your name great and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and whoever curses you I will curse and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”

This is God's Covenant with Abraham. God unilaterally says, “this is what I am going to do in you and through you.” Abraham's Covenant holds out to the people of Israel the hope of unconditional blessing to the whole world through and because of and in spite of His chosen people.

Matthew continues:

Abraham was the father of Isaac... the father of Jacob... the father of Judah... the father of Perez, whose mother was Tamar; Perez the father of Hezron... the father of Ram... Amminadab... Nahshon... Salmon... the father of Boaz, whose mother was Rahab; Boaz the father of Obed, whose mother was Ruth; Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. 

We arrive at David's Covenant received from God in 2 Samuel 7. God speaks to David through a prophet this message about David's family, his descendents, his “flesh and blood,”

"...Today I will be his father and he will be my son. When he does wrong, I will punish him with a rod wielded by men, with floggings inflicted by human hands. But my love will never be taken away from him... Your house, David, and your kingdom will endure forever before me. Your throne will be established forever.”

Some of the language in that Covenant was talking about David’s son Solomon, who took the throne of Israel after David's death, but some of the language can't be talking about a human king. It has to be pointing us towards a king who is greater than human.

God's Covenant with David holds out to Israel the hope of a never ending righteous king.

Matthew continues: 

David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been Uriah’s wife, Solomon the father of Rehoboam... the father of Abijah... the father of Asa... Jehoshaphat...  Jehoram...  Uzziah... Jotham... Ahaz... Hezekiah... Manasseh... Amon... Josiah... the father of Jeconiah... at the time of the exile to Babylon.

It’s true that there was no new Covenant from God to His people at the end of the exile to Babylon. At that time, God was restoring His people who had been sent into exile because they had turned their backs on God. Again, God had to pick them up by the scruff of the neck and give them a bit of a shake and put them down where they needed to be. Israel had tried to choose a god who was easier to manage than Yahweh; that did not work. So they had to be refined and brought back to Himself, and eventually they were restored to Jerusalem—their home city—and their temple, to begin to rebuild. 

When they arrived back in Jerusalem the people of Israel rediscovered their Covenants, rediscovered Moses’ writings and the Law they contained. And there's this amazing, amazing event where all of the people who have come back to Jerusalem from exile—now as free people for the first time in their lives—gather together in the city near the temple. Together they confess their wrongs. Together they ask for forgiveness. Together they hear read aloud the Law of Yahweh. And all together they write a document, recovering their place in Covenant. They write down their commitment to God in a document that they sign and seal.

Nehemiah 10:29 -

...All these now join their fellow Israelites, brothers and sisters, and bind themselves with a curse and an oath, to follow the law of God given through Moses, the servant of God, and to carefully obey all the commands, regulations, and decrees of the Lord our Lord.

After Yahweh’s people have been brought back to Israel from exile, rediscover and begin again in their Covenant with Yahweh, they are reminded that God made this promise that He is going to carry through.

This post-exile statement—this reclamation of the Covenant—holds out to Israel and to us today the hope of a people committed and surrendered to their identity in Covenant.

Matthew continues:

After the exile to Babylon: Jeconiah was the father of Shealtiel... the father of Zerubbabel... Abihud... Eliakim...  Azor... Zadok...  Akim... Elihud... Eleazar... Matthan... Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary; and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah. 

Matthew lands his plane with Joseph and Mary and Jesus.

To this point, each of the touch points that we've looked at in Matthew's genealogy—Abraham and David, and the people coming back to Jerusalem after the exile—all had direct Covenant connections, direct Covenant interactions with God and the hope those Covenants provided for the people of Israel. Joseph himself does not have that same kind of direct Covenant connection. God Himself does not appear to Joseph and say, “This is my promise, this is what I am going to do. Trust me.”

Instead, Joseph was: 1. A child of the Old Testament Covenant, and 2. A man of New Testament hope.

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First, Joseph was a child of the Old Testament Covenant.

Joseph was a child of Israel. He was a Jewish child born into a Jewish family in a Jewish world. He grew up in a Jewish neighbourhood, hearing from rabbis and priests and in synagogue over and over and over again Israel's history of being chosen and corrected and refined and restored within God's Covenant. He grew up hearing over and over that we, Israel, as a people will be set free by Messiah, the coming, righteous king who will restore Israel to fulfill God's blessing in the world, and will rule forever over His faithful Covenant people. Joseph grew up hearing over and over and over again of the generations who stood firm in their hope of Messiah, and who courageously held on to that hope in spite of everything. Joseph grew up steeped in Covenant. He was a child of the Old Testament Covenant.

But he was also a man of New Testament hope.

When New Testament writers talk about hope, what are they talking about? How would they define that word? When Matthew and Mark and Luke and John and Peter and James wrote the word ‘hope’ on a page, what were they talking about? The best definition that I’ve found, one that I find really helpful for this New Testament word is: 

to confidently look forward with expectation to what is good. 

Look confidently forward.

With expectation.

To what is good. 

When New Testament writers talk about hope, they're not talking about buying a lottery ticket on the off-chance. They're not talking about crossing your fingers and flipping a coin and and thinking, “Ohh let it be heads, let it be heads, let it be heads.” They're not talking about wishful thinking. They're talking about certainty of what ought to be true, and expecting its arrival. Expecting its advent. 

Joseph was a child of the Old Testament Covenant, who became a man of New Testament hope, fully taking hold of both and blending them together in his life when his world was taken apart and put back together again. His fiancee was pregnant. It wasn't his child. There was a Law that required Joseph to respond a certain way. Joseph belonged to Israel. The people of Israel had a faithfulness to maintain. That required Joseph to respond. He couldn't just shrug, “Oh, well. Maybe things will get better once we're married.” He had to respond. 

He had certain options to choose from. None of them was ideal. Some of them made him look bad. Some of them made Mary look bad. One of them, taken to extremes, could have ended Mary's life. But he had to choose, because he was a child of the Covenant. He had to maintain and be faithful to the laws that were part of that Covenant. He was thrust into a situation where he had to say, “OK. What do I do now?” He stood knee-deep in the wreckage of his life, and he had to respond.

Matthew continues:

...an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son and you (singular you. You, Joseph. Not ‘you guys.’ Not ‘you and Mary.’ You, Joseph. You are responsible for this.) ...you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. ('Jesus,'--a Greek version of Joshua--means 'the Lord saves.') When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel had commanded him and he took Mary home as his wife.

Taking Mary home and raising her son was not the easy answer. Taking Mary home and raising her son would imply his own guilt in the situation to everyone in their family. Everyone in their community. People would assume that Joseph was just as culpable as Mary, and this was his admission of guilt. This would not be an easy thing for him. His reputation took a hit, but he did what was right. He did what was faithful, because he was a child of that Covenant.

But the angel’s description of Mary's son is not simply as being the Messiah. Not as being the king that's going to come from David's family and free Israel and rule forever. When the angel describes Jesus, he throws in an extra detail that is not in the prophecies of the Messiah: "He will save his people from their sin." This is different. This is a departure. This is an extra piece of information that's being added onto the Covenant that God had shared with David.

Yes, Jesus is going to be an eternal, righteous king, but he's going to be an eternal, righteous king who saves his people from their sins. I dare say that Joseph had no idea what that meant. Because that's not part of the Covenant. But Joseph took it on trust. He understood that something was happening here that was beyond him, that was greater than himself. 

He saw the opportunity to step into it, to say, “OK, what do we do now? We stay faithful. We go the extra step. We take Mary home. We raise this child and we let God keep his promises.”

Raising that boy was not the easy answer. 

Hope is not easy. Hope is not wishing on a flipping coin. Hope is not wishing for better next time. Hope is neither fuzzy, nor particularly wuzzy. Hope is not denial of harsh reality. Hope is not irrational, optimistic hope.

As it is brought to us in the New Testament, as is brought to us through Jesus Christ, hope is...

Standing up when it would be easier to lie down.

Staying put when it would be easier to walk away.

Hope is...

Holding on with calloused hands when it would be easier to just throw them up in the air.

Digging in your heels when it would be easier to get in your car and drive away, thinking maybe it'll be easier somewhere else.

Showing up over and over and over again.

Hope requires courage. 

Courage to name what ought to be true, and courage to expect its arrival, even when faced with those who think otherwise. 

And to keep saying, “OK. What do we do now?”

Joseph was a child of the Covenant. He was a child of Yahweh's law. He had grown up with the promise of ‘Emmanuel--God with us.’ 

And he was a man of courageous hope: that the angel was speaking the truth--that this child, this Jesus, this Joshua, this ‘the-Lord-saves’ child was going to fulfill Israel’s Covenant. 

Was going to be the eternal righteous ruling king. 

Was going to bring through Israel, to the whole world, never ending blessing.

Was going to raise up a people, committed and surrendered.

That was Joseph's hope.

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