The Scandal, Miracle and Wonder of Christmas

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When His mother, Mary, had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband, Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save people from their sins."

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken to the prophet. "Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son. They shall call His name Emmanuel," which means God with us. When Joseph woke up from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. He took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son, and he called His name Jesus.

For many of us who've been around for a long time at church, Christmas seems so familiar that we actually miss the shock of it. That is the sheer sensation of it, and the complete and utter scandal that surrounds Christmas. We know the story. We had it pointed out to us when Joanne spoke to the kids this morning. We actually saw little figurines of Mary, Joseph, the angels, shepherds, the manger, and it's also become so safe, so predictable, so comfortable.

But here's the thing, Matthew's record doesn't tell the story to make us comfortable. He tells us the story to shock us, to wake us up, because that's actually what he's doing in the brief reading that we had this morning. This is no quaint children's nativity story. It's a scandal. It's a miracle.

It's a wonder. It's God's rescue mission. It's God breaking into all of history in the most unexpected, inconvenient, uncomfortable way imaginable through a frightened teenage girl, a confused fiancé, and a borrowed stable. So today we're going to look at that, consider it, and see the Christmas story not through the soft lens of nostalgia or sentimentality, but through the sharp lens of the gospel. Let's start with Joseph.

Matthew records for us that Joseph was described as a righteous man. The Greek word for righteous man means someone who's upright, just, faithful to God's law. Joseph was the kind of man that any father would be proud to give his daughter to. A man of character, a man with real integrity, someone who you would want to be your friend. But Joseph's life takes a sudden devastating turn.

Mary is found to be with child, and that phrase "found to be" is loaded. It doesn't mean that Mary made an announcement on Instagram with a cute baby bump photo. It means that the whole town found out, that there was gossip. And right throughout the small village, everyone got to know in a most unsavoury way. People noticed, and in that culture an engagement or a betrothal was legally binding, more serious than modern day engagements.

To break it off would amount to a divorce. So imagine Joseph's shock. The woman he loves, the woman he's pledged his life to, is pregnant and he knows he's not the father. Matthew says Joseph, being a righteous man, did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to divorce her quietly. That's integrity. That's compassion.

Joseph could have gone full social media outrage, but he doesn't. He chooses mercy over revenge. Before he can act, God interrupts, and an angel of the Lord in a dream speaks to him and says, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." Now think about that for a moment. What does that mean?

What does it mean for Joseph? Put yourself in Joseph's shoes. To obey God here means to embrace shame. Everyone in town will assume that Joseph got Mary pregnant before the wedding or that he was marrying her to cover up someone else's sin. Either way, his reputation is shot.

Christmas begins, not with comfort and serenity, but with confusion and a scandal. It's true to say that sometimes God's calling in our lives doesn't make our life any easier. It makes it harder. Following Jesus, you see, might amount to losing status, your own reputation, your comfort, and even the respect of others. Following Jesus today, Christmas Day, at lunch or over the barbecue could be challenging.

What to say about the Christ of Christmas? Jesus, the reason for the season. As Joseph learns, obedience is rarely comfortable and always costly, but it's always accompanied by God's grace. Let's be honest, brutally honest for a moment. Joseph probably had questions. Really Lord, a virgin birth?

That's never happened before. Couldn't you have picked a slightly less complicated way to come into the world? If we're honest, we've all had moments like that when God's plan just seems bizarre, inconvenient, embarrassing. But that's often where His grace works most powerfully. God's interruptions are not obstacles to His plan, they are His plan. And right at the beginning of Jesus' life on earth and then at the end on the cross, we see scandal, we see shame, we see the total humility of our Saviour coming into the world.

Now we're going to stand and sing and remind ourselves what the angels were singing. Hark the herald angels sing. Glory to the newborn King. The miracle of Christmas. What does it actually mean that God becomes man?

Take a look at verse 21. "You shall call His name Jesus because He will save His people from their sins." That's basically the gospel in one sentence. Call His name Jesus because He will save people from their sins. The name Jesus in Hebrew is Yeshua and it means Yahweh saves.

The angel doesn't say He will simply teach His people to save themselves or inspire them to live a better life. No. He says He will actually do the saving. He will save people from their sins, and that's at the heart of Christmas, the very miracle of Christmas. God did not send a teacher to improve us or a coach to motivate us or a guru to enlighten us, but He came to rescue us Himself.

John's gospel puts it this way, the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. The Greek word for dwelt literally means tabernacled or pitched His tent among us. It's the language of the temple, and God is saying, I've come to move into your neighbourhood. This is the staggering claim of Christianity. Not that we somehow climb up to God, but that He has come down to us.

Every other religion says, here's the pathway to God. Do your pilgrimage. Go follow it. But Christianity says, God's here. He's coming to find you.

Let me give you an illustration. Imagine you're walking past an anthill, just a mound in the ground, and you accidentally step on part of the anthill, and hundreds of ants just scatter in panic all over the ground. You want to warn them, to tell them, I mean you no harm little ants. Let me show you the safe way. I want to save you.

But how on earth would you communicate with them? How would you let them know that you were concerned about their welfare? You literally would have to become an ant yourself, to live among them, to learn how to speak ant language if there is such a thing, and so rescue them from certain destruction. Well, in a roundabout sort of a way, that's exactly what God did at Christmas. The infinite became finite.

The creator became a creature. God has become one of us. Only how? How would God do that? In Matthew, verse 20, it's recorded there that the child is conceived by the Holy Spirit.

It isn't a myth, it's a miracle. The virgin birth tells us that Jesus is fully human, born of Mary, and at the same time fully divine, conceived by the Spirit. He's not half half. He's 100% God, 100% man. He is the God-man who bridges the gap between heaven and earth. You might ask, does the virgin birth really matter?

And yes it does. Because it means that our salvation is entirely of God's initiative. On the one hand, if Jesus had been born by ordinary means, He'd be just another human unable to save anyone. Like the rest of us born in sin, we all share in the original sin of our first parents. On the other hand, if Jesus hadn't appeared as the divine Spirit, He wouldn't be one of us.

He'd be unable to represent us. As it is, Jesus has come as the perfect high priest to represent us to the Father. Hebrews records it this way, for it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners and exalted above the heavens. In Jesus, God does what we could never ever do. He becomes one of us to rescue us from the curse of sin.

If you could orchestrate your own salvation, if you had planned a way and a rescue for your own sin, would you reckon with this? That someone, the God-man, would come in your place and die for you to reconcile you to God. When Jesus came to this world, He was born in the most humble of circumstances. He came as the baby in Bethlehem's manger. There's no doubt we would have done it different.

Maybe we would have booked a press conference at the local temple, or maybe a baby shower, that is the shower of all showers, because I'm not sure why they call it a shower. But then over Jerusalem there'd be fireworks along with angelic choirs, a social media campaign, hashtag the Saviour of the world is here. But God comes in the most unusual of circumstances through a young woman's womb, born into a manger, because God does His best work in obscurity, in humble circumstances. The kingdom of God begins small, the manger, not a throne room. He is God with us.

We're going to sing Emmanuel, God incarnate, here to dwell. Emmanuel, Emmanuel. Praise His name, Emmanuel. Back to the passage this morning from verse 23. "Behold the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call His name Emmanuel," which means God with us. If the name Jesus tells us what He came to do, that is to save people from their sins, then Emmanuel tells us who He is: God with us.

The Hebrew Emmanuel literally means "with us is God." Not God above us or God beyond us, God against us or God around us, but God with us. That is real intimacy. It speaks to us of a relationship. The little preposition "with," God with us, changes everything.

Today I'm in church with my wife, one of my sons. You're in church and if you have the blessing of being with others, you might identify them as family or close friends. It speaks to us of relationship. God with us. Now it's true to say that at Christmas time, people feel God is far away, far removed from their circumstance.

Maybe they're mourning the loss of a loved one, uncertainty or disappointment, business deals gone wrong. And you wonder, where is God in all of this? But Christmas will answer that question. He is with you. Not in theory, not just in doctrine, not in sentiment, but in His very real presence.

When my kids were small, I remember one night hearing a cry from the next room. One of them had a bad dream, a nightmare. And I didn't stand in the doorway and yell out, "It's fine. Go back to sleep. You're waking us all up."

No. I walked into the bedroom, put my arms around him and said, "I'm here." And that's what Christmas means. God doesn't shout out from heaven, "Cheer up down there." He comes into the darkness.

He kneels beside us and He whispers, "I'm here. I am God with you." God is with us in our joy, celebrating our laughter. God's with us in sorrow, weeping, crying with us. God's with us in our sin, redeeming us, making us holy.

God's with us in our death, having conquered it on the cross. Maybe you're feeling tired or somewhat anxious, burnt out, you're holding it together for everyone else this Christmas. Hear this: Emmanuel, God with us. You're not alone. The God who entered your world and mine is with us, with you and with me. And we don't have to pretend that we're fine.

You don't have to clean yourself up in order to come to Him. He comes to you. He finds us. He is with us. Some of us might be carrying guilt or shame from something done a long time ago or something going on in your life even now.

But Christmas isn't about what you can give to God, it's about what God has given to us. The angel says it to Joseph, Jesus will save His people from their sins. And that includes every one of your sins and mine. Everyone. Past, present, and in the future.

I'm reminded of a famous quote that's often identified with the late preacher Timothy Keller. He said, "You are more sinful than you ever dared admit and more loved than you ever dared hope." You're more sinful than you ever dared admit, but you are more loved than you ever dared hope. And if Christmas has any message for us today, it is surely this: we are loved. We have a loving God who's reached down to us in and through His one and only Son.

Maybe for some of us God's calling you today to do something costly like Joseph, something that's going to interrupt your comfort. Don't fear the interruption, because when God disrupts our plans, it's because He's unfolding His better plan. Christmas invites us to say with Joseph, "Lord, I don't understand all this, but I trust You. I trust You." And finally, for Open House Church, this story is our calling.

We are the community of Emmanuel. We don't just receive His presence, but we carry it into the world. When we welcome the lonely, when we serve the needy, when we forgive the undeserving, when we love the unlovely, we become signposts that say, God is with us. And that's our mission this Christmas, to be with others as He is with us. Maybe you've lost the wonder of Christmas.

It's easy to happen. Life gets busy. Faith feels routine. The story feels too familiar. But look again.

Joseph, confused, but obedient. Mary, young and courageous. The manger, very rough and very real. And see the child, the Christ child, helpless, holy, hope incarnate, God's gift to humanity. The gospel says that He who created the universe became small enough to hold in your own arms.

It's the paradox of an infinite creator becoming vulnerable. So this Christmas, rediscover the scandal, be amazed at the miracle and the wonder of Emmanuel. And may you all truly know and truly understand that God is with you, God is for you, and God will never leave you. Let's pray. Lord Jesus, we marvel at Your coming into this world.

You are the Word made flesh, the Creator in a manger, the King come among us to be with us. Forgive us when we take this miracle for granted, we pray, and restore us to the wonder of Your presence, the joy of Your salvation, and give us the courage to obey You even when it costs. For those who feel weary this day, Lord, be their peace, their joy, and their comfort always. For those who feel guilty, be their forgiveness, we pray. And for those who feel far removed from You, be their Emmanuel, we pray.

And may we as a church be a place where Your presence is always felt, Your name is honoured, and Your love is known. In the name of Jesus, God with us, we pray together when we say, amen.