So, have you found the right gift for everyone in your life right now? If you’re like me, you hate the stress of trying to find the right gift. You think over conversations that you’ve had with friends and family and puzzle over what clues they may have given that would help you give them the perfect present. Why do we stress so much? Well, probably love has something to do with it. We love the people that we’re giving gifts to and so we stress over getting them something. We also like to get things right. There’s something so satisfying about Christmas Day when someone opens the gift we got them and we got it right! We like to do the right thing. From the time that we’re young, we’re told that we should do the right thing. By the time we’re in high school, some of us have a plan for our whole lives and are determined to follow it. We like knowing what the right thing to do is and to do it. There’s nothing wrong with that, the Bible tells us to do the right thing over and over. But sometimes, life has a way of confusing us. We think that we’re on the right path and something goes horribly wrong– it doesn’t go according to plan. Like the confusion written on someone’s face when we thought that we had gotten them the perfect gift, life has a way of frowning at us. When that happens, we immediately start to ask, “Did I do something wrong? Did I choose the wrong path? The wrong friends? The wrong career? The wrong spouse?”
Maybe that’s your story. You had a plan, but things didn’t work out.
Joseph has a story like ours.
He was doing life the best he could. He was following God, making the right plans and doing the right things.
He was engaged to be married to a girl named Mary. He loved her. They would get married, have kids, continue the family business of carpentry– everything was set.
But then Mary ends up pregnant– and Joseph and her aren’t married yet. He knows the kid isn’t his (Matthew 1:18). What do you do when your plans implode? What happens when the people you love break your heart?
In all the confusion, Joseph still decides to do what’s right. Because he’s a good man, and because he doesn’t want to shine a spotlight on Mary’s shame, he decides he’s just going to divorce Mary secretly (v. 19).
Sometimes, life hurts and you just have to do the right thing and take your losses, right? End of story.
Only, sometimes, it’s not.
An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says, “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit (v. 20).
Don’t be afraid to love her. Your plan, Joseph, wasn’t wrong– even though it seems so wrong right now. You’ve got to keep going. You’ve got to keep loving her. Don’t be afraid to love.
But what about us? This situation of immaculate conception has never happened to anyone you know and I doubt it will ever happen again. How can we look to Joseph as an example for us when life implodes?
We’ve all tried to do the right thing. We’ve tried to have the right plan and follow it. But sometimes something breaks our heart, something goes horribly wrong and we think that it’s best to just walk away, like Joseph was going to walk away. Sometimes that is the best move. But, whether we are being called to walk away or not, I think what we can learn from this story is this: Don’t be afraid to keep loving. Love, at its best, is what you feel for someone and what they feel for you in joy and peace and are able to act out of that love for one another. But sometimes you don’t feel a thing. Sometimes what you feel towards someone is anger, the hurt, the betrayal– the awkwardness. You have to love them anyway. And love doesn’t act towards someone in order to get anything from them– it acts for their best even if it means you don’t get what you wanted.
Don’t be afraid to love.
But we should know that it’s not going to be easy.
The angel continues, “She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (v. 21). The angel doesn’t say that Mary will name him Jesus, but that Joseph needs to name him. In Joseph’s world, if you name the child, you’re saying to the people around you that it’s yours. You’re that child’s dad. Even though Jesus is not Joseph’s son, he’s adopting him and it will look to the world around them that Joseph and Mary did not follow God’s plan for having children only after you’re married. You see, loving Mary– loving and obeying God– will mean that Joseph will bear the same shame as Mary.
You and I need to remember this about love: Love always will lead you to suffer. If loving someone never makes you suffer, how can you even know that you love or just love what they bring you? What reward do we get if we love at no cost? (Please see the note at the end of this post about unplanned pregnancies)
When we try to do the right thing and life implodes, God might call us to willingly choose love and suffering– he might tell us to willingly choose to make things worse for ourselves before things will get better.
Why would God do that to us?
We keep reading.
“Now all of this took place to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
See, the virgin will
Become pregnant
And give birth to a son,
And they will
Name him Immanuel,’
Which is translated, ‘God with us’” (vv. 22–23).
God calls Joseph and calls us to love and to suffer because that’s what he’s doing. Jesus would bear the shame of Mary and of Joseph as they bear his. He would get the judgmental looks, the comments, the bullying that his parents will live with. He would bear the shame of being stripped naked, tortured, and hung on a cross. The God who deserves all glory, all power, all majesty, all honor, riches, and rule forever and ever would instead love and give it all up. He would trade in his riches for poverty, he would trade in his honor for dishonor, his power for weakness, his glory for shame, his rule for affliction. Why? Because he loved Mary. Because he loved Joseph. Because he loves you. Love leads God to suffer.
And so God does not call you to love and to suffer because he wants you to suffer; he calls you to love people and to suffer for people because that’s what he’s doing right now. It’s where he is. He wants you to be with him where he is. He wants you to experience what you were always made to do– love without a thought to yourself because you know that you are loved. When you follow God into those spaces, you learn, like I’m sure Mary and Joseph have found out by now, that your shame is actually your glory.
So, for us this Christmas:
Would you hear God’s call to love and commit to loving someone who isn’t easy to love? Maybe it’s going to be a family member around the Christmas Tree this year. Love them as Christ loves them.
Would you hear God’s call to love and suffer and commit your life to following Jesus in his way of love and suffering no matter the cost? I want to let you know that if that’s something you want to do, that’s what baptism is all about, so if you want to make that decision, we’d love to talk to you about being baptized.
Maybe you’ve never heard how much God loves you and what he did to show you that love– what he did to save you– and believed it. But maybe you find yourself believing it now. If that’s you, tell somebody that you believe and are giving your life to Jesus.
Don’t be afraid to receive his love.
Don’t be afraid to love.
Merry Christmas.
