Matthew 1:18-25

Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Today’s Gospel made me think of one of the latest trends in our social media culture – the “gender reveal” party. Have you seen or heard about or maybe been a part of one of these? They seem to be the new addition to the list of things many couples do to celebrate the coming of a new baby. The short of the long is, the baby’s sex is kept a secret from all but a couple of family members or friends and a clever way is concocted to reveal the news of the baby’s biology to the parents-to-be, and often-times, to the newest baby’s siblings-to-be, as well.

You can Google it, if you’re curious. I decided to spare you this morning. Because I’ve seen videos of blue smoke bombs on the beach… Race cars that blow pink exhaust when the engine is revved… Exploding golf balls… Cakes, cupcakes, and donuts, all filled with the appropriately colored filling… Fireworks, of course… I even saw a couple who commissioned the lights on the Ferris wheel at a local carnival to turn blue for their big announcement.

And you can file this one under “Pastor Mark must be getting old,” but I’m kind of glad “Gender Reveal Parties” weren’t a thing yet when my kids were on the way. It all just seems like too much to worry about. (For what it’s worth, I’m also not on board with “prom-posals” and whatever over-the-top, Instagram-worthy thing the kids these days have to do to get someone to go to “HOCO” with them, either.) I know! I might actually be my father at this point. Or my grandfather. Or the Grinch. I don’t care. Get off my lawn!

Anyway, Christa would probably say it’s because I’m lazy when it comes to that sort of thing. But I think there’s enough to do to get ready for a new baby as it is. Aren’t there enough clothes to buy and furniture to assemble? Aren’t there enough showers to host or to attend, without adding another special event to the calendar? Let alone one where you have to coordinate a sharing of top-secret information between the OB-GYN and your mother or mother-in-law or best friend or the most disinterested third-party so as not to make any of the aforementioned Very Important People angry about who got to know what before who?

And then there’s all of those extra-special ways people concoct to reveal the big reveal… pink cupcakes and blue balloons, exploding golf balls and fireworks … the possibilities are endless, really… and one more way to make an already crazy, anxious, stressful, uber-exciting time in your life, even more of all of those things, it seems to me – crazy, anxious, stressful and all the rest.

Still, no matter how hard you try – none of these modern day “Gender Reveal Parties” even come close to what happened for Joseph and Mary in the days before Jesus was born.

There they were, this First Century, happy, couple-to-be. Joseph was betrothed to Mary, which meant they were promised to each other, but hadn’t made it official – in any of the ways yet, if you know what I mean. They were being patient. They were jumping through all the appropriate hoops. They were staying the course. They were living by the law.

Then Joseph finds out that, despite all of their best efforts, all of their righteous and holy living, Mary is pregnant. And he knows it’s not his – it can’t be. He must have wondered who would believe him. He must have wondered what people would say. He must have wondered what he should do next.

When you read this story with 21st Century eyes, you might think Joseph would have to be a jerk to simply “dismiss her quietly,” which was his plan. But when you remember when he lived and realize what he knew, Joseph turns out to look more like a hero.

Because Joseph knew he would be expected to do more than just “dismiss her quietly.” Joseph knew his culture and his faith told him he had a right to – at the very least – shame and disgrace and shun the woman who was supposed to become his bride. He may even have been expected to have Mary put to death – as was the custom for a jilted, first century bachelor, in such a predicament.

So, just when Joseph makes the bold decision to dismiss her quietly, to let her go, to essentially break from custom and break the law and to eat crow in order to save her from disgrace and abuse and all sorts of pain and humiliation, he has this revelation in a dream.

“This isn’t what it looks like,” Joseph hears from the angel. “I know what it looks like. I know what you’re thinking. I know what everyone else is going to think… and say… and assume. But this is none of that.”

“This is a holy thing. This will be a holy birth. This will be a sacred baby. Do not dismiss Mary quietly – don’t dismiss her at all. Believe her. Take her as your wife, just as you had planned. Marry her in spite of what everyone might say or think or do. Have this baby. It’s going to be a boy, by the way. You should name him Jesus – because he’s going to save his people from their sins.”

Now that’s a “gender reveal” – and then some – with a punch – am I right? And believe it or not – like it or not – all of this “revealing”, whether it’s a cupcake in 2019 or an angel in a dream, back in the First Century – all of it means to accomplish the same thing:

These “reveals” mean to fill us with hope and expectation. These revelations mean to move us action. They mean to prepare our hearts and our lives and our homes and our world for the new life that’s on the way.

I guess if the cupcake is blue, some people would paint the walls to the nursery accordingly. I imagine if the confetti is pink that means you might shop for clothes and accessories differently. No matter what, the reason for knowing and sharing and celebrating the news is so that you do something about it, in preparation for the one who is to come.

And the same is true – and tremendously more significant – where Jesus is concerned. What would… what could… what should… we do differently as we prepare to celebrate his coming, yet again? How will we live and move and be differently, knowing what we know about God’s intentions for Jesus’ birth? What does this big reveal reveal about our own lives in this world – here and now, and in the days to come?

Who can we tell about this new life that’s on the way? How can we share what we know this Jesus means for our lives and for the sake of this world? Where can we be more generous? How can we be more kind? In what ways can we be more grateful and forgiving and hopeful and patient and faithful and like this child who comes among us to be all of those things?

It’s a boy, people! His name will be Jesus… Emmanuel… it means “GOD IS WITH US”… and he comes to save us from ourselves, to save us from our sins, to save us for the sake of the world. All things – and each of us – can and should – be different and better and blessed because of it.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

John 1:1-5, 10-14, 16-18

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. From his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. The law indeed was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. It is God the only Son, who is close to the Father’s heart, who has made him known.

I want to start by sharing a video with you – it’s short and sweet, just 4 minutes – about grief, from someone who has done some serious thinking about and living with it in just the last four years. Her name is Nora McInerny and I’ll let her tell you what you need to know…

For what it’s worth, there is more to this Ted Talk – another 10 minutes, or so, to be exact – if you want to look her up on your own. She also has a podcast called, “Terrible, Thanks for Asking,” which seems interesting enough, if you’re curious. But this caught my attention a couple of weeks ago and I think it’s so much of what brings us here tonight.

When we started having these “Blue Christmas” worship services 10 years or so ago, they were new to me – and kind of a new thing in this neck of the woods, as far as I could tell at the time. And what started – in my mind – as a special kind of service, meant to serve a small, niche of a target audience – has become, in my mind, something I believe is – or should be – for anyone and everyone – because grief is or will be for every one of us at some time or another, if it hasn’t crossed our path just yet.

And I believe it is a hard and holy and faithful practice to own our grief, the way Nora McInerny describes it. Whatever it is that brings us here – or whatever griefs that find us in this life – the death of loved ones (or the fear of losing ones we love), the loss of jobs, the troubles of our children, the struggles of addiction, the fighting in our families, the ending of relationships, whatever it may be – these events mark us, indelibly. These events and experiences make us and reshape us as people in the world and as children of God. And it’s silly, if not delusional, to pretend or to believe or to behave otherwise.

So, my hope for tonight is never to prevent grief, or to fix grief, or to pretend that struggle and sadness are not part of life in this world or part of our life in this season. In fact, tonight is about precisely the opposite. It’s about naming just exactly for what and why God showed up, in Jesus, in the first place. Jesus wasn’t born just for the fun of it – for the sake of celebration and joy and mistletoe and silent nights, remember.

Jesus was born for such a time as this – as much as anything else. Jesus was born for the sake of the lost and lowly, for the sake of the grieving and struggling, for the sick and lonely, for the dark and despairing. And tonight is about remembering the truth of that and the hope there is in that truth. And it’s about letting our faith – and our friends who share it – surround us in ways that we trust together, and hope together, and endure together. And, if you’re not sure you have it in you to trust or hope or endure or believe at every turn these days, tonight is about letting someone else trust for you, or hope for you, or endure for and with and alongside you, if that will help.

Because, if we’re honest, this season is about multi-tasking with more than just the shopping lists and the food prep and the visits with family and whatever else keeps us so busy. This season is also, very much about multi-tasking our emotions.

It’s about holding our grief and our fear and our struggles in one hand, even while the world around us is trying to hand us cookies and smiles and celebrations and all kinds of wonderful reasons for very real joy. Like so many shopping bags, though, it can be hard to carry it all at once. But we can do it – we are called to do it – together. God doesn’t ask us to set aside or to set aside or to move on from our grief in order to hold onto all the other stuff, too. God gives us Jesus whose coming reminds that we can move forward with it, with hope for something more to come.

I like how Nora McInerny talks about how she catches herself referring to her deceased husband in the present-tense at times; how she used to feel guilty or, at least, self-conscious about that – until she noticed that everybody does it. And how she realized that that’s because the loved-ones we’ve lost – or whatever struggles and sadnesses shape us, in this life – are very much a part of who we are and who we continue to be, as they should.

And it made me think of how often – especially at this time of the year, in these Advent days of waiting and hoping and longing for the coming of Christ’s birth – I like to refer to Jesus as “the one who was, and who is, and who is to come.” That phrase always reminds me about the nature of the God we’re waiting for in Jesus: a God who indeed was, and who is, and who, indeed, is to come.

Just like whatever grief we carry with us tonight was… and is… and is to come? So is Jesus.

Just like our struggles were and are and are yet to be … so is Jesus.

Just like our sadness, our brokenness, our loneliness; just like our fear, our loss, and our despair; just like all of it was and is and is to come … so is Jesus.

And God comes, in Jesus, not to deny it; not to make it easy at every turn; not to call us away from what grieves or hurts or scares us most. But Jesus comes to call us forward with it, so that it – and we – might be transformed by the grace of God; grace which always was and always is and is always on the way.

Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.

God's Big “Gender Reveal” - Matthew 1:18-25

Blue Christmas - Grief that Was, Is, and Is to Come