Mt 1:18-25
23 December 2001
4th Sunday of Advent
“He was Adopted”
Banu and I had a friend at seminary who’s an American, but as the daughter of missionaries, has lived much of her life in Japan. Her name is Mary. She would often talk about various aspects of Japanese culture. During one such discussion, she mentioned the Japanese love of Christmas, even though less than five percent of that nation is Christian.
That certainly speaks to the almost universal appeal that the holiday commemorating Jesus’ birth has acquired. With such widespread appeal, obviously Christmas means a lot of things to a lot of very different people. What does Christmas mean?
For some, it’s simply a warm and fuzzy time for family, friends, and fruitcake. For others, it’s yet another excuse to grouse and to be a Grinch. There’s really no end to the ways we find to redefine Christmas. (Or the winter holiday!) That leads many each year to pose the question in rhyme, “What’s the reason for the season?” And the answer? “Jesus! The birth of Jesus is the reason for the season!” And obviously that’s a good answer—probably better than: “giving our economy a needed boost from recession.”
Our gospel reading in Matthew certainly gives that answer plenty of support. Verse 18 starts right off: “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.” Of course, this isn’t just any birth—there’s a birth to a virgin involved here! Matthew’s version of the story, more than Luke’s, gives us a better look at Joseph’s role in all this. And he does have a critical role to play!
Unfortunately, things don’t get off to a good start. Joseph finds out that his intended, Mary, is with child—and he knows for a fact that it isn’t his! As painful as it is to admit, there’s only one conclusion to reach: Mary has been unfaithful. Still, as Matthew tells us, Joseph is “a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace” (v. 19). Instead of making a big display of how Mary has wronged him, he decides to quietly call off the wedding.
However, like an earlier Joseph to whom God spoke in dreams, this Joseph also receives a message. An angel assures him that Mary’s pregnancy has not been caused by another man. She is to have a child like none before. Joseph is urged to go ahead and “take Mary as [his] wife” (v. 20). The mother of Jesus will be legally wed!
That’s part of the role Joseph plays. Something else that’s especially important to Matthew is the fact that Joseph is a descendant of King David. The angel addresses him as “Joseph, son of David” (v. 20). Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus, which differs from Luke’s, emphasizes that Jesus is the Son of David. Being in a patrilineal society, it would be necessary to show the ancestry of Jesus through Joseph’s side of the family.
So far, we’ve seen how Joseph serves in both legal and theological roles regarding the son of Mary. He has other roles to play, of course, but probably none as important as this next one, the parental one—of adopting Jesus, of raising him as his own. Consider the privilege and responsibility of what Joseph does. Consider the influence he has on Jesus.
The fact that we scarcely hear about Joseph after the birth narratives has led many to suppose that he dies before Jesus is fully grown. The truth is, we just don’t know. All we can say is: despite the seemingly impossible set of circumstances surrounding Mary’s conception of her child, despite the obviously unexpected way he’s thrust into the role of father, Joseph agrees to the angelic proposal to raise this divinely-named son, Jesus.
That’s Joseph’s story. But what about us? Is Christmas to remain as it is for so many, a lovely story to trot out once a year? Is the birth—and adoption—of Jesus any more relevant than that?
The adoption of Jesus leads us to consider how we have been adopted. Galatians 4:4-5 tells us that “when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.” According to the apostle Paul, we who are in Christ have been adopted as God’s children. The adoption of Jesus by Joseph was a physical adoption. We have received a spiritual adoption.
There’s something about the imagery of adoption that’s noble and calls forth the best in us. God, by adopting us into the family, has invited us to realize our full potential.
For me, this imagery of adoption is especially meaningful. Like my sister, when I was an infant, I was adopted by the people I call my parents. They’re the only parents I’ve ever known. I guess because of that, the subject hasn’t often come up in conversation. It’s been the natural state of affairs for me.
Still, that doesn’t mean that both my physical and spiritual adoptions haven’t had a profound affect on me. Some people see children that are adopted as having been rejected by someone. I understand that every child’s situation is unique, but as for me, precisely because I was adopted, I never questioned whether or not I was really wanted. I knew that I had been chosen, and I knew that my parents had had to go through a lot of screening and bureaucratic procedures as a result of that choice.
So I guess I’ve always had, even if unconsciously, some sense of what it means to be chosen by God. I’ve had the sense of being brought into a family, into a way of life.
I said that God, by adopting us into the family, has invited us to realize our full potential. That can be a note of great joy—or great concern! I think that there’s no greater challenge than realizing our full potential. And I also think that because of our fallenness, our sin and shortcomings, none of us ever do. The Calvinist idea of total depravity speaks to that. But that’s not to say that some of us don’t realize more of our potential than do others—and that we’re not always called to go even further.
Elsewhere, in Romans 8:15-17, the apostle Paul says that this spirit of adoption which we’ve received leads us to glorification. Indeed, we’ve been predestined to be adopted into the family of God, as we’re told in Ephesians 1:4-5. So there’s another Calvinist doctrine to chew on!
In his book, Knowing God, J. I. Packer talks about our adoption by God. This spirit of adoption is not, he says, “a false, magical type of supernaturalism, which leads people to hanker after a transforming touch as from an electric, impersonal power that will make them feel wholly free from the burdens and bondages of living with themselves and other people.”
I think it’s safe to say that most Presbyterians aren’t prone to the temptation of looking for an “electric,” mystical moment that will solve all their problems! Unfortunately, we aren’t safe from the second part of Packer’s observation. Indeed, too often, we desperately long to be “free from the burdens and bondages of living with [ourselves] and other people.”
When I was a young man (having recently turned 37, I find it increasingly difficult to claim that adjective for myself!), I looked for just such an “electric,” mystical moment by way of drugs. I imagined that what I needed was some single, revolutionary experience to really establish me in the spiritual life.
Even after giving up drugs, I was still expecting the Holy Spirit to give me a Zen-like (or, at least, what I considered a Zen-like) experience of enlightenment. There was a time, before I became involved in the church, when I believed I didn’t need anyone else. God would communicate directly to me all that I needed for my spiritual benefit. But notice the pronouns—“I,” “me,” “my.” Sounds like someone who thinks the Christian life is a purely individual matter!
The problem with this is that I wasn’t—and often we aren’t—fully taking into account what Packer calls “the burdens and bondages” of relationship. The idea of an instant or a do-it-yourself spirituality is not in accord with the relationship-oriented spirituality that we find in Jesus Christ. The spirit of Christian adoption teaches us that our growth, our potential, is tied to the growth of the rest of the family.
It’s very easy, cut apart from the body of Christ, to just drift away into some wilderness of our own design. We’re saved from that by the one who has arrived in the flesh of the son of Mary and (by adoption) Joseph. And please remember, being in the body of Christ is not just being physically present in a church building. As with adoption, there’s also a spiritual side.
So, as children adopted into God’s family, what now? Well, for one thing, we accept the privileges and responsibilities that come with full membership in the family. We seek to find our place, our role, in the family.
In conclusion, I ask again: what does Christmas mean? It’s the very definition of the incarnation of God. It means that God has become one of us. It means that human flesh, that indeed matter itself, has become a carrier of the divine. Nothing in creation is God, but God is in all things and in all people. We would turn the world upside down if we would just put into practice the revolutionary nature of Christmas!
If Christmas means the incarnation of God, then the sacraments are incarnational worship. As Dietrich Bonhoeffer once wrote, “The word of preaching is insufficient to make us members of Christ’s Body [or to use the earlier example, God’s family]; the sacraments also have to be added. Baptism incorporates us into the unity of the Body of Christ.”[1] In the sacrament of baptism, we use matter to extend God’s grace.
As we celebrate baptism today, we welcome two more that God has adopted into the family. And as we do that, we’ll be asked to make certain promises. We’ll be given yet another opportunity to reaffirm who we are and whose we are—to live and love as the new people of God—to affirm that we have been adopted.