Today’s passage
is not about Mary.
We hear prophecy in Isaiah
and we hear its fulfilment in Matthew.
The young woman, the virgin,
shall conceive and bear a son.
They shall call or name him
Emmanuel:
God is with us.
Pay attention to the rest of our music today.
All of it,
from the procession onward
is really helping us focus
where today’s gospel text is.
As usual, it’s about Jesus –
and today his naming matters a lot.
When Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant,
he considers doing the upright, legal thing,
and quietly leaving her,
abandoning their betrothal
but not shaming or destroying her
in the process.
An angel appears to Joseph in a dream
and tells him to hold on.
“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.”
Jesus, or Yeshua from Yehoshua
is word play on salvation and saving.
That’s the role Jesus will have
for his people and all people.
Matthew is setting up
the central theme of his gospel.
He opens a bookend that closes at the end of the gospel,
when Jesus says,
“I am with you always,
to the end of the age.”
While the child’s name will be Jesus,
his title and role will be Emmanuel:
God with us.
Matthew is not interested
in offering proof of Jesus’ divinity.
We’ll get that from John on Christmas Day
and the First Sunday after Christmas.
Matthew today is telling us
proclaiming to his church and to ours
that in Jesus,
God is with us.
While Jesus’ conception is a miracle,
fulfillment of the prophecy we heard in Isaiah
this is more about Jesus
being a part of God’s plan of salvation
than a necessity because he is divine.
Anna Case Winters writes,
“[The miraculous conception]
echoes the extraordinary conceptions
of central figures in the history of Israel
such as Isaac and Samuel,
who were born to women thought to be barren…
Their extraordinary conceptions
were taken to be signs that God
had a special purpose for them
in God’s saving work.
God is involved
and the unsuspecting
are expecting.”
For context, Anna Case Winters tells us,
“This Gospel was written in a time
when there was conflict and division
in the community of faith;
when some were insiders
and others were outsiders;
when political and religious leaders
were co-opted, mistrusted, and discredited;
when the great majority of the common people
were without power; and
[a time] when cultures clashed.”
As Matthew speaks to his Jewish audience
he directly and indirectly
calls back to the Hebrew Scriptures.
Joseph is trying to keep his Jewish uniqueness
by leaving Mary.
But then an angel shows up
and says,
“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.”
Matthew adds commentary,
“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.’”
God is with us.
Matthew opens his book with that today
and closes it with Jesus saying
that he’ll be with us always,
even to the end of the age.
As Matthew lays the groundwork
for the rest of this new genre of writing –
gospel, good news about Jesus the Christ,
God’s anointed one –
we’re getting key insights
into how he will write
and what hearing this gospel this year
will include.
Matthew is not writing to Greeks.
On Christmas Day and next Sunday
we’ll hear John’s laying out
Jesus’ divinity.
I truly can’t wait to hear
what Canon Carla does
with John’s Greek about the Word of God.
Wednesday night
we’ll hear what I think most of us what to hear
on Christmas Eve:
Luke’s full and tender account
of a baby being born
when there’s no room in the inn.
As Matthew starts making his case,
starts assuring his audience
that God is with us,
he points backwards.
Throughout Matthew’s gospel,
he’s going to make a point
that this Jesus lives up to his name.
Jesus has come to bring salvation to his people
and indeed to all of creation.
He’s bringing that salvation
because he’s God’s chosen
and is the fulfilment of prophecy.
As Advent comes to an end
we’re preparing for the Christ child.
We hear Matthew’s utilitarian birth narrative
on the Sunday before Christmas this year!
Advent isn’t the only thing
coming to an end.
This is my last Sunday sermon with you.
Canon Carla Robinson,
Canon for Multicultural Ministries
and Community Transformation
is preaching next week
as we end this pastoral relationship
and I take leave of you.
There is no adult Christian education next week
so I hope you’ll come early to visit and see me
if that’s what you want.
Before I heard God’s clear call
that our time together is ending
we booked a ferry for Friday Harbor
not knowing that when we left after church
it would be leaving leaving.
I am blessed that when I came to you in 2019
no one expected me
to be a savior for this congregation.
We didn’t know what 2020 and following had in store
but one of my maxims as a priest
is that I’m not anyone’s savior.
Rather than shirking responsibility,
which I know what that sounds like to some extent,
it’s been an attempt to hear Matthew’s good news
about Jesus, God’s messiah.
I’m not any one’s or any church’s savior
because we’ve already got one of those!
“You are to name him Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins.”
And we will call him
Emmanuel:
God is with us.
While my family and I are leaving this place,
God is with us all.
I am blessed
that that is not my job or role!
Being God, I mean.
You are in good leadership’s hands
and beyond that
you are in God’s.
O come, O come Emmanuel.
O come, God with us.
Amen.