Readings

As you probably guessed, our first reading was chosen because today’s Gospel quotes from it. Ahaz is the king of Judah—what’s left of Solomon’s kingdom after the northern tribes left to form Israel.  Everyone in the region is afraid: the hungry Assyrian Empire (modern Iraq) is expanding. It’s something like having Russia as your next-door neighbor. Israel and Aram (modern Syria) want to fight, and, since Ahaz doesn’t, they plan to invade Judah.

In our text Isaiah is imploring Ahaz to trust the Lord. And, despite Ahaz’ refusal of a sign, the Lord offers one anyway: a young woman is now pregnant and will bear a son who will be named Emmanuel (“God with us”). The child will serve as a sort of calendar: before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, Israel and Aram will be non-issues. But Ahaz doesn’t trust. As the Book of Kings tells it Ahaz sent messengers to the Assyrian king: “I am your servant and your son. Come up, and rescue me from the hand of the king of Aram and from the hand of the king of Israel, who are attacking me” (2 Ki. 16:7). Servant and son, no longer of the Lord, but of the Assyrian king. What a fall!

But the question still hangs in the air: Emmanuel (“God with us”): what will that turn out to mean?

Some 700 years later the question is not how to respond to the Assyrian Empire, but how to respond to the Roman Empire. (The factions we meet in the New Testament, the Pharisees, Sadducees, Herodians, Zealots, etc. separate by how they answer that question.) And in the middle of all that Mary is pregnant. For Matthew it’s an Ahaz moment, with Joseph and his generation facing the same choice Ahaz and his generation faced: trust or not. Emmanuel (“God with us”): what will that turn out to mean?

Joseph is the first to have to choose. Matthew describes Joseph as a righteous man. That’s important, because the argument about what righteousness means runs through Matthew’s Gospel. Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven” (5:20). For Joseph, “righteous” means not exposing Mary to disgrace, but quietly dismissing her. Ahaz had Isaiah; Joseph has “an angel of the Lord,” who redefines “righteous” behavior. And Joseph—thank God—trusts, and takes Mary as his wife.

“Emmanuel” (God with us): whatever that means, it doesn’t mean “business as usual.” Business as usual for Ahaz was a matter of arithmetic: how many divisions do we have? How many do Israel and Aram have? How many does Assyria have? Emmanuel? Hard to quantify that. Business as usual for Joseph meant a compassionate dismissal of Mary. But “Emmanuel” significantly shifted “righteous.”

Now, a sidebar. What does Matthew’s “fulfill” mean? There are plenty of examples of prophets speaking about the future and those words proving true. Isaiah’s words in today’s reading about the fate of Israel and Aram is an example. But that’s not the only way “fulfill” works. In the case of Isaiah’s young woman, the child simply serves as a calendar. So Matthew’s just taking advantage of the Greek text’s translation of “young woman” as “virgin” to support his Jesus-fulfills-prophecy agenda? No. What Matthew has recognized is that the situations Ahaz and Joseph face are similar, and that this time around God’s action is even more breathtaking. This time around “Emmanuel” points to a far more profound “God with us,” and Matthew writes his Gospel also to help us discover some of what that means. Isaiah’s words have been filled fuller than he could have imagined.

Notice, by the way, the choices Matthew has made as a narrator. “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way” sets us up to expect an account of the birth. But Matthew focuses on the choice Joseph faces. Why? Perhaps because Matthew’s audience is in a similar situation. For the Jewish Christians in Matthew’s audience “righteousness” had meant having as little to do with the gentiles as possible. But Emmanuel, and now they’re part of a renewed Israel in which Jew and Gentile call each other “brother” and “sister.” They might be excused for thinking Joseph had it easy.

Where am I going with this? Since 1966 I’ve been a Star Trek fan: “boldly go where no one has gone before.” That’s not a bad weak analogy for the journey to which the Christmas story invites us. The Messiah, the Christ, has come. There were plenty of scripts for how that was supposed to play out. But since this is a matter of Emmanuel (“God with us”) it’s not about following a script, and one of the first ones who has to deal with this is Joseph. Sometimes, as in our Gospel, there’s a direct command to be obeyed. Sometimes it’s a matter of Spirit-led discernment. Paul in Ephesians: “Try to find out what is pleasing to the Lord” (5:10). We continually turn to Holy Scripture for nourishment, not because it’s the script, but because—under the guidance of the Holy Spirit—it enables us to faithfully improvise as we follow our risen Lord.

Joseph’s feast day is March 19; let’s use the collect for that feast to take us out:

“O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the spouse of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.”