Bible Text: Matthew 1:18-25 | Preacher: Pastor Dorry Newcomer | Series: Advent 2020 | Do you know how Santa makes a list and checks it twice, keeping track of who is naughty and who is nice?  I think most people, young and old, make a special effort to “be good” this time of year.  But “being good” is not the same as “Advent obedience”.  “Being good” is defined by our culture, our parents, our society.  But Advent obedience comes from hearing the voice of God.

Just look at Mary.  Last week Pastor Karen preached about how Mary heard the word of God, and obeyed.  She cooperated with God’s Spirit and agreed to bear God’s son.  She waited patiently for all the angel revealed to her to come true.  In the eyes of the world, Mary probably would have been on the naughty list!  But she had heard God’s message for her, and she responded in obedience.

It is hearing God, not “being good”, that is the key to Advent obedience.  The word obedience shares the same root as our words auditory and audiologist.  Obedience means hearing the voice of God and doing what that voice tells us.  Our nativity scenes are beautiful depictions of Advent obedience.  Mary heard God.  The shepherds heard God.  The wise men were led by a star and then heard God telling them to return home by a different way.  John the Baptist was just a baby when Jesus was born, and he’s not pictured in our nativity scenes, but we talked earlier this month about how he heard the voice of God, and how God spoke through him, and called people to repent and obey.  Advent obedience, hearing God, is at the foundation of the Christmas story.  Maybe that’s why the gospel of John refers to Jesus as “the Word”.  Seeing Jesus and hearing God are one and the same.

Today our focus is on Joseph, and his Advent obedience.  When he first found out Mary was with child, Matthew tells us that Joseph was “a righteous man”—he was on the nice list!  He resolved to divorce Mary quietly and try to keep things out of the public eye as much as possible.  But as we’ve said, being a good person is not the same thing as Advent obedience.  When the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and told him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, Joseph listened.  He heard the message, and responded in obedience.

Hearing God.  Responding in obedience.  This is a common theme throughout the stories we read during Advent and at Christmas.  God partners with obedient people to bring about the salvation of the world.  I have been thinking about the relationship between these two concepts, salvation and obedience.  It cannot be that our salvation depends on our obedience.  We know it is only by God’s grace that we are saved, not by our works.  But I think it is fair to say that obedience, as in hearing a word from the Lord, is salvation.  In Joseph’s case, hearing a word from the Lord saved Joseph from making a mistake.  Hearing a word from the Lord saved Mary from being alone and afraid.  Hearing a word from the Lord saved the shepherds and wise men from a life distanced from God.  Obedience, hearing God, is always salvation.

The angel told Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife, because Mary was going to have God’s son, and that they were to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.  The name Jesus is taken from the Hebrew name Joshua, which means, Jehovah saves, or God helps.  The angel also quoted the prophecy of Isaiah who said the son’s name would be Immanuel, God with Us.  We are just days away from celebrating the birth of our Savior, Jesus.  He is our Savior, God in the flesh, sent to help us know that God is With Us.

It’s good to know what exactly God has given to us with the gift of his son.  It can be easy to get Santa and Savior confused!  You know how Santa works:  we ask Santa for what we want, and at least some of the time, if we’re good, Santa delivers.  I still remember the year I got a desk for Christmas.  I know that sounds nerdy, but it’s what I really wanted.  My sister Marlene wanted a bean bag chair and a Partridge Family record.  Christmas day we sat in the living room by the Christmas tree, me at my desk, Marlene in her bean bag chair, and we listened to that record and over.  It was a great day!

It’s wonderful when Santa bring us what we put at the top of our list.  But with God, it’s a little different.  Santa doesn’t know what we want until we ask.  But God knows exactly what we most want and need, even before we ask!  God doesn’t expect us to figure out what we most need spiritually.  God doesn’t expect us to figure out what would make for the best kind of life possible.  God already knows, and God wants to give it to us.  Our job is to learn what it is that God wants to give us so we can receive it and enjoy it.

And what God wants to give us is salvation. New and everlasting life.  Hope.  Peace.  Joy.  Love.  Most important, connection with the Divine.  This is God’s dream for us.  God loves us so much, he wants to do everything possible to help us accept God’s love and enjoy God’s presence with us.

A few weeks ago my husband and I attended an online marriage workshop, and the presenters said that being married gives us the chance to partner with God to prove to our spouse that they are loved and lovable.  They said marriage is one of the major ways God’s love for humanity is poured out.  Maybe that’s why I’ve always thought December is a great time to get engaged, it’s a great time to get married.  God speaks through romantic relationships to show us how much we are loved.

And what happens on a small scale between two people falling in love is a tiny snippet of what happens at Christmas.  God sent Jesus so that all the people of the world could, in a sense, fall in love.  There’s never been a single person born on this earth that God doesn’t love!  You know that?  So the first thing God wants us to receive is love.  One of my favorite Bible verses comes at the end of the New Testament, when the gospel writer John is at the end of his life. He looks back on all his experiences with God and says, you know what I’ve learned?  God IS love.  John didn’t say, “God is loving.”  John said, God is love.  Love is more than what God does.  Love is what God IS!  God sent Jesus as proof of how much God loves us.  God’s dream is that no one would go through life without knowing they are unconditionally loved.

And this has been God’s dream for a long time.  The book of Isaiah contains so many verses that point to Jesus in amazingly precise ways.  I always think of the choral masterpiece, Handel’s “Messiah””:  Behold, a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and call his name, Emmanuel.  God with us.  Obviously it sounds better when sung by a real singer and all those violins and everything in the background.  But hopefully you get the point:  God did not just wake up one day and say, “Ooh, brainstorm!  Good idea!  I’ll send my Son to show the world I am right there with them.”  No!  Jesus was not a rash impulse on God’s part.  Jesus was not a sudden decision.  Jesus was in God’s dreams for centuries!  God didn’t one day just become love.  Love is God’s nature, through and through, forever and always.

And so we have to ask the question:  what is God’s nature when we goof up?  You see, Santa keeps a list, doesn’t he?  And he checks it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty and nice.  You only get good presents if you’re on the nice list.  But God is not like Santa.  We don’t get on God’s good list by following all the rules and being nice and never getting in trouble.  We get on God’s good list by doing our best and asking God to help us when we struggle.  We get on God’s good list by admitting we can’t get it right.  We get on God’s good list, not by being good, but by committing ourselves to the Good.

Which is why we know that Advent obedience is not perfection.  Obedience is hearing God’s word and responding as best as we humanly can.  God’s nature doesn’t change whether we are good or bad.  Even at our best, we cannot do enough to deserve the gift of God’s presence with us.  Salvation comes because God is good, not because we are.

But salvation is a complex gift.  It comes all at once, but it also takes a long time to develop.  God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Jesus’ ministry.  Remember how we said Advent is a time to do some road work?  The prophet Isaiah wrote, “Prepare the way for the Lord, make straight paths for him.  Every alley shall be filled in.  Every mountain and hill made low.  The crooked roads shall become straight, the rough ways smooth.  And all mankind will see God’s salvation.”  We may wish the rough roads would become smooth right this minute, but salvation doesn’t work that way.  That is why we celebrate Advent and Christmas every year—because year by year, hopefully we receive more and more of the healing and freedom and insight God longs to give us.

How appropriate, then, when we discover that salvation is a lot like a baby!  Its presence changes everything, but it is not full grown for many years.  Salvation gives us time to learn to want what God most longs to give us.  Salvation gives us space to grow and develop.  Salvation frees us from the thinking that everything has to be perfect right this moment.  God sent Jesus into a very imperfect world!  Luke tells us how Mary had to ride 80 miles on a donkey to give birth to her baby in a cave.  Hardly a perfect start in life!  But it’s to Mary and Joseph–imperfect, challenged, frustrated, overwhelmed, out numbered, even outcast people that God chose to be born.  And it’s to US—imperfect, challenged, frustrated, overwhelmed, out numbered, even outcast people, that God chooses to dwell now.  That’s what Immanuel means.  God with us. Not just with the perfect people who live in perfect circumstances.  But with ordinary people just like us, who struggle and shine, suffer and surrender, sway and soldier on…It is to people just like us that the Savior comes, bringing with him salvation from the God who is Love.

One thing I noticed in all the scripture passages we’ve studied this Advent, God never demands obedience.  Instead, obedience is invited.  For Joseph, Mary, John the Baptist, the shepherds, the wise men, obedience is a gift and a joy, for it is a response to hearing a word from the Lord.  Obedience is a gift and a joy for us, too.  It is our response to hearing the Word that is Jesus.  He comes, not to make us perfect, but to make HOLY our imperfection, our darkness, our everyday existence.  He is a word from the Lord so special, he can take our ordinary, limited lives and turn them into eternity.

I hope you are on the nice list this year, and get everything you want from Santa.  But more importantly, I hope you will remember that “being good” is not the same thing as Advent obedience.  Advent obedience always leads to salvation, to clearing the way for Emmanuel, God With Us, to dwell with God’s people.  It is a joy to obey God.  On this fourth Sunday of Advent, the most important question is not, “What do you want for Christmas?”  The most important question is, “Do you want what God wants to give you this Christmas?”  May we hear a Word from the God who is Love, and respond in obedience and joy.  Amen.