He Will Save His People (Matthew 1)
Introduction
Hello, and welcome to the Will Preach for Food podcast. I’m Doug, a pastor here at Faith Lutheran Church, based out of Shelton, Washington, a congregation of the ELCA. Faith is learning how to be a welcoming community, energized by God’s amazing love. We want to make Christ known in the world, we want to grow closer to and more like Jesus. We want to joyfully serve our neighbors, each other, and the whole world. You can learn more about Faith at our website, www.faithshelton.org. This is the fourth and final Sunday in Advent. Thanks for listening.
Today we tell the Christmas story as recorded in Matthew 1. Admittedly, it lacks the manger, the angel choirs, and the shepherds watching their flocks by night that we hear about in the more familiar account in the gospel of Luke. On the other hand, it does give us a concise summary of why Christmas is such good news. “[Mary] will bear a son,” the angel tells Joseph, “and you will give him the name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Christmas celebrates the birth of the Savior, who is Christ, the Lord! Let’s read the gospel according to Matthew 1:18-25. We’ll set a little bit of context, define a couple of terms, then imagine how Jesus saves us: first as a tragic hero; next as a romantic comedy lover; and finally as Iron Man in the final battle with Thanos.
Matthew 1:18-25
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered 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 home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
This is the word of God. Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.
A Word about Joseph
The story of the birth of the Savior, Christ the Lord, begins with an angel of God appearing in a dream to a man named Joseph. Don’t be afraid, the angel says, and don’t freak out. Then the angel gives him a little heads up about what will soon go down. Your girlfriend is pregnant, and you are not the father, and that’s okay. This is God’s doing. Go ahead and marry her, the angel says, and, when the baby is born, name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. And that’s exactly what Joseph does.
Now, I could preach a whole sermon about Joseph. Do you remember that there was a Joseph in the Old Testament to whom God spoke in dreams? God used the first Joseph to provide for and protect a vulnerable population during a severe drought. Matthew connects Joseph to that one. Joseph is a dreamer, and a migrant worker who crosses borders, flees government officials in the middle of the night, and does whatever he can to provide for and protect his young wife and her son. Joseph is a resilient, hard-working, God-fearing man who instills these same values in his step-son and God’s only begotten Son, Jesus.
You Shall Give Him the Name Jesus
“You shall give him the name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus is the Greek version of Jeshua, or Joshua. The name means “YHWH saves.” Yah-shaw is the Hebrew word “to save.” The sense is “to bring into abundance, to be placed in freedom.”
In the Old Testament it is a leader named Joshua who succeeds Moses, who leads God’s people out of the wilderness and into the Promised Land. God’s people have been slaves in Egypt, but Moses liberates them and then Joshua leads and delivers them into a spacious, abundant existence: “a land flowing with milk and honey.” Joshua commands armies that go into battle to defeat the enemies of God. This is the Joshua from the old Sunday School song, the one who “fit the battle of Jericho.”
In Greek (New Testament) the word is “sohd-zoh,” and this word adds a sense of keeping safe, and of healing. Jesus’ earthly ministry involves all sorts of sohd-zoh/saving activities: healing the sick, forgiving sins, casting out demons, feeding the poor. On more than one occasion Jesus tells a person that their faith has “sohd-zohd” you: your faith has saved you, healed you, protected you.
Nowadays, the language of being saved, or “salvation,” is shorthand for the good news of the Christian faith. To say you “are saved,” is to proclaim your confidence in the mercy of God, the assurance that your sins are forgiven, that you will go to heaven after you die. This is the assurance in Mark 16 where Jesus says that “whoever believes and is baptized”—in no particular order, by the way—"shall be saved.” I think about the newly dunked, escaped convict testified in that odd George Clooney movie, O Brother, Where Art Thou: “The preacher done told me all my sins have been WARSHED away…”
He Will Save His People from Their Sins
Joseph, the angel says, Mary, your fiancé, is preggers. She is going to give birth to a son—God’s Son—and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. Like the old Joseph, God has entrusted you with the job of providing for and protecting your family. And like the old Joshua, your step-son will lead people out of slavery and wilderness into a spacious and abundant new life. He will sohd-zoh, save, heal, and rescue his people.
Who are “his people?” exactly? Even Jesus appears to wrestle with the scope of his work, wondering at one point if his role as savior might be limited to “the lost sheep of Israel” (Mt 15:24). But by the end of his ministry, Jesus understands his ministry at a global level. His death and resurrection will draw all people to himself. (John 12:31-32). Jesus had come not to condemn the world, but to save it. To save US. From our sins.
“Our sins” are what Jesus came to save us from, but what exactly does that mean? How do you understand it? Chances are, you think about it in one of three ways. And each of these is a facet of the problem and power of sin. And so that means salvation from our sins also has at least three facets, lenses, ways of making sense. Years ago I learned this in a book I read by the 20th century Christian theologian and author, Frederick Buechner, who says that the gospel is part tragedy, part comedy, and comedy, and part fairy tale. So let’s break it down a little, and consider Jesus as Kevin Costner, Julia Roberts, and Iron Man.
Tragedy
In one sense, our sins are behaviors that disobey God’s commands. “We sin against God in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.” Our words, our actions, our choices are sinful: they harm, oppress, hurt, or rob a neighbor, God, or our selves. There is a cost, a penalty, a price to pay for our crimes and wrong-doing.
There is a tragic sense of the gospel, then, that Jesus “pays the price” for our sins. He is Kevin Costner, the bodyguard, who takes a bullet to save the life of Whitney Houston. Or there is bank robbery with hostages. Jesus is the hostage negotiator who secures the freedom of the hostages by offering himself instead. The world is hostage to sin, and Jesus comes to earth to negotiate our release, finally offer himself on the cross in exchange for our freedom. The price is paid, our sins are forgiven, our guilt washed away. Jesus has saved us from our sins. But, oh, the price he paid! Jesus, our Savior, the tragic Hero.
Rom Com
Sin can also be understood as the tendency in our human nature not simply disobey God, but to fundamentally reject or oppose God and God’s will for our lives. No thank you, we say. We don’t need your handouts. We are just fine without you, God. We quote St Francis of Sinatra: I’ll do it MY way! Sin, in this sense, is separation from God, a rejection of God’s advances, saying no to God’s invitation.
Salvation, in this sense, is like a romantic comedy. You know--when the one character finally wins over the heart of the beloved. Julia Roberts and Richard Gere in Pretty Woman. When Harry Met Sally. Sleepless in Seattle. Jerry McGuire—"you had me at hello.” Jesus comes to earth to woo us and all humanity. He shows what life in the kingdom can be: manna and mercy, justice and compassion. We resist. We reject him.
But at the end of the movie, when we see Jesus on the cross, making the ultimate sacrifice, we are finally won over. We drop our guard, loosen our tie, and begin running down the street to stop her from going to the airport, or from marrying the other guy. No more running around chasing after false love. Jesus has proposed on bended knee, and we have said: I DO! Jesus has saved us, and nothing can ever separate us from his love, ever again! Salvation is a romantic comedy. Jesus is lover, and we are his beloved. He had us at “peace be with you!”
Fairy Tale
But there is a third understanding of sin. Sin is the enemy of humanity and the foil of God. Sin is the diabolical, evil, insidious force that actively works against God and against us. Part of the unholy trinity of sin, death, and the devil that wants to undo us. Sin wants to drive a wedge between each other. Sin wants to make us doubt God’s mercy and despair at the human condition. We are warned in scripture that evil prowls like a lion seeking to devour us.
We know it from experience as well that, when we are most anxious, vulnerable, inebriated, and alone, our minds and feet and imaginations wander, we are most susceptible to temptation. In these moments, if we don’t pray, we ARE prey. You know how every once in a while, just the wrong thing happens at just the wrong time? Spiritual warfare is real. Only a miracle can save us now.
The gospel here is a sort of fairy tale. Not in the sense that is a made up story, but in the sense that, like the comics, the characters are all larger than life, the dangers are more dangerous, and the crisis has universal implications. So Jesus enters a world in bondage to the powers of sin. He is foiled at every turn. But when everything is at its most bleak—Jesus on the cross, the disciples scattered—God pulls off a stunning upset. It’s the flea-flicker Hail Mary that wins the Superbowl with 3 seconds let on the clock. It’s the 2 run homerun that wins game seven of the World Series in the bottom of the 9th inning with two strikes and the Devil throwing the heat. It’s Iron Man stealing the Infinity Stones just before Thanos can snap his fingers.
Sin, death, and the devil thought they had Jesus cornered on the cross, pinned at his own goal line, dead to rights. But it turns out death’s grip wasn’t as tight as they thought. The power of sin faltered. Grace, not karma, won the day. Jesus swings for the fences, and the devil can only watch as the ball soars over his head, over the center field fence to score the winning run and secure the World Series for the Home Team. And we all live happily ever after…
Conclusion
“Mary will give birth to a son, and you will give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
Thinking about this good news as tragedy, comedy, and fairy tale can help us understand the different facets of what sin is and how Jesus saves us. This can also help us avoid the trap of trying to “explain” salvation through a single lens. After all, if salvation is a hostage exchange, who is negotiating with whom? Pretty soon you have people imagining that God the Father is the one holding the world hostage, with Jesus the Son having to convince his dad to take his life instead of ours. That’s just wrong at so many levels! Rom Coms and Fairy Tales have their limits as well. Salvation is more than sentimentalism. And much of our salvation takes place in the very mundane, ordinary tasks and choices of life.
But taken together, we can appreciate, trust, and proclaim the good news of the Savior, who is Christ the Lord: how Jesus gives his life for ours, how he paid the price for our mistakes. We can fall in love all over again as Jesus woos us with his irresistible and unconditional love. We can put our hope in Christ to save us. We cheer him on and celebrate the high stakes, overcoming all odds, never saw that coming victory of Jesus over sin, death, and the devil.
Merry Christmas, y’all. For unto us a son is given, a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. Amen.
Thanks for listening, folks. Next weekend is Christmas, so I want to wish all my listeners—both of you—a very Merry Christmas and a Happy and Blessed New Year. To learn more about Faith, go to our website, www.faithshelton.org. While you are there, like us, subscribe, donate, or sign-up for our newsletter. You can subscribe to this podcast on most podcast platforms, including Spotify, Apple, and Google. Thank you, Chas and Nadia, for your production and tech support for this podcast.