The sermon for December 24 was based on Matthew 1:18-25.

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

How messed up is the world? Even the Christmas specials these days feature broken families, out-of-wedlock pregnancies, unwanted children, mistrust, and infidelity. Ah, but there is nothing new under the sun. Consider the nativity story, not the new movie, but St. Matthew's account: Joseph on the brink of divorce; Mary pregnant out-of-wedlock; Jesus, though not unwanted, certainly a huge disruption on Joseph's future plans; and Joseph mistrusting his fiancé of infidelity. After all, he knew that he wasn't the father. If this is how it was with the holy family, this world is messed up, indeed.

How messed up is your life? Bethany Lutheran Church is not immune to the sins of this age. Even if your family isn't broken, it isn't as peaceful and loving as it should be. Especially at this time of year, under already strained relationships, tempers flare up with the frustration of the season. Think about your relationships with the members of your family. Start with your relationship with your spouse . . . your parents . . . your children . . . your brothers and sisters. Do you always treat one another with Christian love, let alone the special love reserved for those sharing hearth and home? Now consider your relationships with extended family, aunts and uncles and cousins. Is everything right and good, or is everything a chaotic mess? As the circle of relationships gets wider, the catalogue of sins and brokenness gets longer and longer. Indeed, your life, too, is messed up with sin.

Why is that? As you consider each of your relationships with others, whom do you blame for the brokenness? Before you are tempted to blame everyone else, I ask you: who is common to each of your broken relationships? You are! The fact is, in each earthly relationship soured by sin, both parties are usually to blame. You have been sinned against; but you also have sinned. That is why you pray, "Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." There are plenty of trespasses to go around; the blame for the brokenness falls on both heads. Your sins and the sins of others have ruined your relationships and tainted your Christmas preparations this year and every year.

If your sins had only ruined your relationships with other men, your condition would be much better than sin would have it. But the truth is much darker. Infinitely more important than any human relationship is your relationship with almighty God. Sin has destroyed that relationship, too. Only in this case, the blame is all yours. The relationship is not just tainted, or less than it should be. Sin completely destroys your relationship with God. The consequences of this brokenness go far beyond flaring tempers around the Christmas dinner, far beyond separate celebrations at mom's house and then at dad and stepmom's. When your relationship with God is broken, you go to hell . . . forever.

If the true meaning of Christmas were friends and family warmly gathering to exchange tokens of love and affection, then this holiday would be hollow, indeed. Thanks be to God that Christmas means a whole lot more than chestnuts roasting on an open fire. It even means more than celebrating God's birthday. If God had been born in order to set Himself up as an evil tyrant, then His birth would be nothing to celebrate. But you do celebrate His birth, because He came into this messed up world in order to do what His name says. The name given by the angel in Joseph's dream was Jesus, for He was born to save His people from their sins.

The Lord God almighty stepped down from His crystal throne surrounded by the angels, archangels, and all the company of heaven. He descended from the holy serenity of His celestial temple, and plunged down into this world of darkness. He laid aside the use of His divine power and entered the womb of the young Virgin Mary. There in that hidden place, your tiny, fetal God grew, already turning this sin-filled world upside down by His presence. Mary, the unwed teen-ager, became the mother of God. Her bewildered fiancé, being a just man, wanted to break off the engagement. Her life would be ruined; his life seemed ruined already. Only one thing could set this chaos aright: the revelation of the Word of God.

And so, your newly conceived God issued a command from Mary's womb to one of His angels, sent to Joseph in a dream. But what the angel reported was unbelievable. Think about it. You husbands, what would you think if your wife became pregnant, and you knew you weren't the father. Would a dream you had as you tossed and turned in your troubled sleep make everything alright? Maybe dream angels are convincing enough to completely set aside reason, but I propose another explanation. Maybe Joseph actually believed the Word of God, in spite of the ravings of reason. Maybe Joseph actually listened to the Holy Scriptures, in which God had promised that a virgin would bear a Son, who would be God visiting His people to save them from their sins. If Joseph was a man of faith, then he was waiting for the fulfillment of all God's Old Testament promises. He was expectantly waiting for the day when a virgin would bear a Son. Now that day had arrived, announced by the angel of his dream. Joseph believed God's Word, and responded in good faith.

So Joseph took pregnant Mary to be his wife, and he raised her little Boy as his God-given charge. No doubt, nearly everyone in Nazareth took Joseph for an old fool, a cuckold of his wayward wife. But God's Word told Joseph otherwise, and so he put up with the whisperings and wagging tongues of Nazareth, and took good care of the Son of God. He clung to that Word, believing that God had come to save His people from their sins.

Joseph didn't live long enough to see that salvation accomplished on the cross. He likely died before Jesus performed His first miracle at Cana, where Mary was taking charge at the wedding reception, but no mention is made of Joseph. Joseph took care of Jesus to the end of the carpenter's days, for even afterward people still took Jesus as the carpenter's Son.

But you know better, for you also believe the Word of God. Jesus is the Son of God, come to save His people from their sins. For this purpose He was born into the holy family. That is why God took on mortal flesh and blood, so that He could die and pay the price for the sins of His people. The journey that Joseph began in Nazareth took Jesus to Bethlehem, and to Egypt, and ended just outside Jerusalem on a hill called Calvary. There on the cross, Jesus saved His people from their sins. There He died to save you.

That is God's Word to you today. Jesus died to save you from your sins. And that Word is just as hard to believe as the Word delivered by the angel to Joseph. But it is also just as true. The truth of God remains hidden and contrary to all appearances and human reason. A virgin bore a Son who died to save you. A handful of water from the font raises you from death and makes you a son of God. A word spoken from this chancel absolves you from all your sins. A piece of bread and a sip of wine give you immortality. You cannot by your own reason or strength believe any of these truths. But the Word of God stands as true today as it did in the days of Joseph. Jesus saves you from yours sins. Baptism doth also now save you. Whosesoever sins I remit, they are remitted. This bread and wine are the very Body and Blood of Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, given and shed for you for the forgiveness of all your sins. God's Word is true.

Almighty God has entered your sin-broken world. Jesus Christ has come into your sin-broken life. He has come to save you. All appearances and reason to the contrary, Jesus' presence changes everything. He comes to repair what sin has broken. First and foremost, He repairs your broken relationship with God. Jesus has atoned for your sins, and that takes away God's wrath and enmity. In spite of all the brokenness of your life, God loves you with everlasting love. He forgives you, and makes your relationship with Him what it should be. He is your Father; and you are His child. Jesus is your friend and brother. The Holy Ghost is your comforter and constant companion. With sin removed, Jesus completely perfects your relationship with God. And when your relationship with God is perfect, you go to heaven . . . forever.

With everything set right between you and God, your relationships with others take on a new dimension. I am not going to lie to you and say that they are all going to be better. When you believe in God, sometimes your relationships with others get worse. When you take God at His Word, others might consider you a fool, or obnoxious, or close minded. So be it. As you cling to the Word of God, you can put up with all the whisperings and wagging tongues. Even when reason and appearances scream otherwise, you trust in God's promises, revealed to you in His Word. Then your feet are on solid ground, and you are able to withstand all the assaults of the devil and the swirling chaos of a world full of sin.

And what of that new dimension in your relationships with others? Remember that common element in all those relationships? The common element is you. Well, Jesus has changed who you are, and that changes all your relationships. He dwells within you and has made you a forgiven child of God, and that will have an effect on your relationships. As the Holy Ghost sanctifies you, you will begin to treat others with the grace and charity and forgiveness that God has poured upon you. Forgiveness heals broken relationships, even between men. And when forgiveness is mutual between men and women, relationships once broken can become healthy relationships, even in this messed up world.

And so you celebrate Christmas, Jesus' birth into this world of broken relationships. You celebrate, because Jesus comes to fix what was broken. He has restored God's friendship with you, and that makes all the difference. With that relationship restored, forgiveness is possible where once there was fighting. Love is possible where once there was hatred. And even if the forgiveness and love are one-sided, God will give you peace and joy. He has saved you, and all His people, and in this way, He makes your Christmas merry. Amen.

The peace of God, which passes . . .

Last Updated: 7/15/2008