18 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 pregnant from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. 20 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. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
Matthew 1:18-25
23 “Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” 24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.
My sermon from the Fourth Sunday of Advent (December 21, 2025) on Matthew 1:18-25.
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We might currently be knee deep in shopping, wrapping presents, hanging lights, and feeling as if Christmas is already here. But here at the church, we’re still waiting for a Roman Emperor to call a census, for a pregnant teenager to walk her way to Bethlehem, and for angels to let shepherds know what God the new thing God is up to. When we think of a faithful Christmas, the details, drama, colors, and excitement are what we find in the gospel according to Luke. He, very faithfully, elevated the experience of Mary – Jesus’ mother – which wasn’t necessarily a very Biblical thing to do. The Christmas story, though, also comes from another book in our Bible. The gospel according to Matthew focused mostly on depicting what happened after Jesus was born which is why we hear about the visit of the magi, Herod’s incredible thirst for violence, and Jesus then spending his early childhood as a refugee in Egypt. But we do, in Matthew, get to learn about how Joseph needed to figure out what to do about all of this too. Joseph is a bit of an unknown since he’s only present at the beginning of Matthew and Luke before disappearing from Jesus’ story. Over the centuries, our imagination, culture, and art has depicted him as a gentle old soul with the integrity and strength to be the caregiver Jesus needed. But my personal favorite pop culture exploration of who Joseph might have been doesn’t come from a painting or a movie. It is, instead, from a song by power pop indie supergroup known as The New Pornographers.
Now this band’s sound has been described as “peppy, gleeful, headstrong guitar pop” and they’ve been active for almost 30 years. Around the year 2007, they released a 3 song Christmas themed EP called “The Spirit of Giving.” Sandwiched between the title track and the last song “Arms of Mary / Looking at a Baby,” is a 3 minute and 1 second post punk song entitled “Joseph, Who Understood.” What I appreciate most about this song is how it invites us to let Joseph be human. Rather than making him into a stoic figure who simply accepts what happened to him, Joseph has feelings, questions, doubts, and concerns. He didn’t only possess the faith we wish we had; a faith that can easily accept a future we didn’t realize was on its way. Joseph, instead, was a person who needed to do the very human thing of mourning the unrealized tomorrow the angel’s words formed in his heart. He thought he already knew what his future with Mary might be. But then, as the song begins, he’s honest about what this experience was like for him. “Rumors are flying all over Galilee” and while Joseph is trying to stay cool, “when his friends walk by, they can’t even look him in the eye.” Joseph was trying to listen, believe, and trust what his betrothed told him. But he also confessed he’s being asked to believe in way too many things. He wasn’t, I think, trying to shut down Mary or act as if what she said wasn’t true. He was, rather, admitting it sometimes takes time, energy, and work to really be transformed. It would be awesome if a true word, story, or experience another person shared with us would immediately upend whatever false expectations or assumptions we hold. Yet it often takes time to push through our own expectations and our need to be defensive when our soul becomes uncomfortable. What was shared might make us feel incredibly guilty about what we’ve done in the past or we might realize we’re maybe not as good as we thought we were. It’s not always easy to accept how our intent matters way less than the actual impact our actions and words actually have. And while we might assume a word from an angel would immediately change us, it can sometimes take a bit more time for the Word to finally break through. Joseph, then, in the very next verse of the song, named this truth out loud. He already heard how this child was sent to heal our broken time and there are some things way bigger than what we know. Joseph even throws in a little joke, declaring “when somehow you find out that you are stepfather to a God – well, Mary, that’s life.” And yet at the heart of his emotions, feelings, and experience is a phrase he then repeats over and over again. Joseph sings outloud: Oh, Mary, is he mine?
And that question is, I think, our question too. When we take seriously the entirety of Jesus’ story and of God’s activity in our world and in our lives, do we really trust Jesus is ours? I’m not trying to make faith into a choice we do on our own. Rather, when we take the fullness of ourselves seriously, do we believe – with all our doubts, questions, sin, and ways we get in the way of noticing what God is up to – can we really lean into the God-who-is-with-us. There might be folks who from the tips of their toes to the top of their heads can hold tight to who they know God to be. But I’ll admit that even I, a professional religious person and pastor, struggles with this too. When I think about all the stories, in the words of historian Kate Bowler, that shouldn’t be told – such as the story of a child who doesn’t get to grow up; the story of parents left to piece together a future they never asked for; the story of a world that doesn’t quite know how to sit with suffering; and the story of everyone carrying something heavy today – such as a diagnosis, a goodbye, or a future that no longer exists – the most faithful thing you and I can do is wonder if Jesus really is ours. And instead of rushing through the discomfort to seek the assurance that ignores the life we live, we’re invited to let Joseph’s story be our story too. We can let the space between the periods and the start of each sentence in Matthew be full of every fear, doubt, and worry. Rather than putting our trust in how strong our faith feels, we can admit it’s only God who saves. And while we want our experience of faith to withstand whatever might come, even Joseph and Mary were full of questions and doubts too. If the ones who raised Jesus needed to be given the faith to help them care for the One who would go to the Cross for us and for the world, it’s okay for you to trust God will give you that same kind of faith too. As we live and listen and love and serve, as we wonder and question and worry and hope, as we live the life God has given us to show ourselves and others what God’s love will always do, it’s often in the most surprising moments when our questions suddenly change. And then we, like Joseph, will find ourselves unexpectedly moving from “is Jesus mine?” to realizing that since Jesus has made us his own, we get to make Jesus our own too.
Amen.