Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

Matt. 1:18-25

A few days ago I was sitting on our couch in the middle of a big Christmas mess. Decorations were strewn around the living room and ornaments were spread out around me. I had been hanging them on the tree while Carolyn was arranging candles on our hutch. And then it struck me. The two of us were alone. Annie was still at college in Pennsylvania and Emily was singing with the youth ensemble somewhere. Our little girls weren’t going to be decorating the tree with us anymore. The two of them who had worn Santa hats and sang “I want a hippopotamus for Christmas” had grown up while we weren’t looking. And I sat down with melancholy sweeping over me.

But, it was a good mess. Emily would be home in a few hours, Annie in a few days and in the meantime, Carolyn and I shed a tear together and thanked God for our family. It was just a little reminder that Christmas can get messy and not always a good mess. Juggling conflicting schedules, and expectations, and Christmas Eve services, and even certain relatives who shall remain unnamed can get messy.

And we are in good company because the very first Christmas was a messy Christmas story. I don’t think it could have gotten any messier. Mary was an unmarried teenager, a good girl who had always dreamed of marrying a good man and having a family. Then, just when everything was going her way, she had a dream and almost without warning and definitely without the normal process, her pregnancy test strip turned blue. What will her parents think? What will Joseph do? What a mess

But, if our hearts are on track with God, shouldn’t life be easier, not harder? For Mary and Joseph it was just the opposite. With God, their lives got harder. Whether we are in a mess of our own making or somehow, God is involved, wouldn’t we like to know what God is up to and what we can do about it?

Let’s take another look at that first Christmas story and see how Joseph handled the mess he was handed. Matt. 1:18-25

18Now 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. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But 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. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” 24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son;* and he named him Jesus.

A Priest, a rabbi and a mess walk into a bar. Well, it wasn’t really that bad but I did have a mess walk into my office a few years ago. It came in with a member of the church’s prayer team. I barely knew her. Now, she wanted to pray for me. No problem, right? What’s the mess? Well, I really didn’t want to share any prayer requests with her. The fact was I didn’t trust her but I didn’t know why.

As it turned out, she didn’t trust me either. What’s more, she didn’t want to pray for me! It had taken her months to come see me. Several times, God had put it on her heart to come see me and each time she refused. Then, we ran into each other twice in one week in totally unlikely settings under very strange circumstances, you know, the kind God orchestrates. We even ran into each other at Michaels Craft Store which I shop at twice a year if I have to. After that God said to her, “How many more times do I have to put the two of you together before you will go talk to him.” She called me that week and now, here we sat, neither of us wanting to be there, neither wanting to talk. It was a mess.

Why do things like this happen? Why did God mess up Mary’s life and Joseph’s plans? What’s going on and why isn’t it easier if we are truly following God? I can think of at least two reasons. First, it seems that God is not as interested in immediate personal happiness, or comfort as He is in things like healing, forgiveness, reconciliation, transformation and fulfillment. In my mess with the prayer person, it turned out there had been years of underlying mistrust and resentment built up between the prayer team and the pastoral team. I inherited that mistrust and evidently God decided he was going to do something about it. The second thing I see God doing with our messes is preparing us for the future.

Can you imagine the future that Mary and Joseph faced? In this first mess, God was preparing them, building faith in them, giving them confidence in His guidance so that, as messes came in the future, they would be ready. Ultimately, Mary was ready for the cross because of what she experienced with the crèche. Proverbs 3:5, 6 tells us, Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make your paths straight. In our messes today, God is hardwiring into us the lessons we will need tomorrow.

Take a minute and think about a mess in your life and as good an outcome for it as you can imagine. I’m on safe ground assuming everyone can think of a mess. If Christmas doesn’t reveal messes for you, you are unique, or a man whose wife does all the shopping. And we don’t even need anyone else’s help to get into a mess. We can do it all by ourselves, with addictions and defenses and attitudes. We are complicated and our messes are complicated.

Messes come in layers and God works on multiple levels. At one level God is doing redemptive work like reconciling people to each other, overcoming pain, encouraging forgiveness. At another level God is doing discipleship work like building faith, deepening joy, creating hope. He can’t build faith by making everything neat and tidy. It’s in the middle of mess that faith grows and hope blossoms

In your mess, is there an element of redemptive work God may be doing? Is there a broken relationship, mistrust, frustration or worse? Is there a discipleship element? Could God be trying to teach you something about himself or about your faith or faithfulness?

The most honest, most helpful and most challenging thing we learn from Joseph about messes is this:

The only way out is through.

I hate that! I wish that I could just ignore the messes around me and have them clear up on their own. But, that’s not going to happen. Messes don’t get better by themselves. We can call them somebody else’s mess. We can run away from them. We can medicate them; anesthetize them, with alcohol, with drugs, pleasure, adventure or work. If none of that works, men generally want to fix them. Women generally just want things to be done their way. We learn from Joseph and Mary and from life itself, the only way out of our messes is through them.

Joseph decided to fix his mess by getting out of it. He didn’t want to hurt Mary, just quietly call off the wedding. Conveniently, that was also the easiest action he could take. We fool ourselves into thinking that the easiest, most comfortable responses to our messes are the right ones. That’s what Joseph did. He came to the conclusion that the best way out of his mess was around it, away from it, avoiding it. Verse 19 says, Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.

But, getting away from messes is not God’s way. The next verse, 20But just when Joseph had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. God’s help and resources are available to us when we decide to go through our mess. It doesn’t make it easy but we know we are not alone. The angel said, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus.

To go through his mess, Joseph had to do two things. First, marry Mary. Second, name her son Jesus. Simple, right? Not really. Since no one was going to believe the “pregnant by the Holy Spirit” story, Joseph was opting to share in Mary’s shame, as though he were the illegitimate father. And by naming him Jesus, he was acknowledging that he was, at best, a stepfather. Someone else named his son.

It’s a big challenge. Here is what he did. Verse 24, 24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he took Mary as his wife, (and when) she had borne a son;* Joseph named him Jesus. He did it. He went through the mess. If he hadn’t, the mess would not have gone away. Mary would have faced the future alone. After she gave birth, Joseph would have seen the baby Jesus growing up down the street. I think he would have been haunted that he could have had a role to play in the miracle that was unfolding.

Joseph put his arm around Mary and went through the mess with her. I will raise him as my own. I will go through this with her. We will go through it together.

Some of us are in the middle of messes this holiday season. Frankly, some of us wonder why we have to get together with certain family members or friends. We have to have a planning meeting to remind ourselves what we are not to talk about in front of uncle so and so and whatever you do, don’t bring up that mess about …fill in the blank. The problem with that strategy is that those messes seem to come back year after year. I am not saying tackle every family problem or rattle every skeleton in every the closet. But, I am saying that what we learn from Joseph and the birth of Jesus that the way out is through.

Back to my mess with the woman from the prayer team. Honest conversations are seldom easy. We said a few things but what we ended up doing was praying. By faith we went through the mess and came out of it with God’s blessing for both of us. We formed a prayer group that prayed together every week for years. God used her powerfully in my life and she remains a trusted friend. God’s blessing is the reward for the hard work of going through the mess. We come out of messes into new places of healing and wholeness that only God can create. God takes our messes and makes all things new.

I need to say that some of our messes are long term. They can go on for years and there doesn’t seem to be anything we can do about them. If you are in that kind of a situation, there is no accusation or judgment in this story or this sermon for you. You have enough on your plate without some preacher heaping guilt on you. For you, I have a prayer that I imagine Joseph prayed, though it isn’t in the Bible. “Lord, with your help I will go through this mess. Please help me, and those I love, to come out of it in wholeness and joy.” Or this prayer from Mark 9: “I believe, help my unbelief!” Joseph believed and became the husband of the woman who bore the son of God. He raised the boy who would become the man who changed the world.

Let’s go back to our messes. Have you been trying to get out of them without going through them? If God can see a young couple like Mary and Joseph through their mess and use them to give birth to the savior of the world, just imagine what he can do with your mess. Will you trust him to lead you through?