The Christmas Story, Part 1: The Scandal and the Sting

I want to start this week’s blog post with a brief video clip. Watch and enjoy! 

 

I wanted to use this clip because it sounds like a lot of Christmas pageants I’ve seen. It gets the essence of the story right, and it makes humorous the stuff that’s actually the most miraculous, like “You’re gonna have a baby!” 

An Unmarried Teenager

What it takes away from us, though, is the scandal and the sting of what actually happened. There’s always the temptation to domesticate the Christmas story, but there’s so much more to it than the bland version that results. What happens in this story is, in fact, a kind of scandalous breaking of all the normal rules that no one would ever expect. 

First of all, as Mary says in the video, “I’m just a teenager, and I’m not even married.” And yet it is to this young girl whom the Lord chooses, by the Holy Spirit, to bring a child. That in itself is shocking. And Mary is not a person of any particular kind of background or lineage that would cause us to say, “Oh yeah, she’s a part of the royal line.” That actually comes from Joseph. 

But as you know from the story, it’s not as if Joseph is some kind of prince. He may have a little blue blood in him, but actually, he’s just a blue-collar carpenter. He’s not a person of any particular distinction, which is why even in the story when the angels appear to Joseph, the angel calls him, “son of David” (Matt. 18:20b).

In other words, “Step up to the plate; I want you to be more than a carpenter right now.” This is big. 

A Planned Divorce

So of course, when Mary goes to Joseph and says, “I’m going to have a baby,” Joseph knows he is not the father. The Scripture is very careful to let us know that there had been no marital relationships. And so, what is Joseph going to do? When he thinks about it, the only answer is “This is adultery.” 

You see, Joseph and Mary were engaged to be married, and in that culture, engagement was betrothal. It was enacted by a public ceremony where the man and the woman would stand before the rabbi, and they would make commitments to each other to enter into marriage at a particular point in time. According to Mosaic law, once they were betrothed, there had to be a divorce if they were actually going to break up.

So this is what the Scripture says: He’s a good man, he doesn’t want to embarrass her, he doesn’t know what’s going on, he obviously really cares about her—but what is the only thing he can do? What is the only honorable thing he can do? The only honorable thing for him to do is to divorce her, or as it says in the King James, “put her away quietly” (Matt. 1:19b). But that’s really what it means: a planned divorce.

An Ostracized Adulteress

From this point on, what will happen to Mary is clear: She is an ostracized adulteress. No one will want to marry her at all. And she will carry that shame for the rest of her life as a single mom with a kid, especially when nobody knows who the father really is. 

But the angel appears to Joseph and says, “Joseph. Son of David.” In other words, “This is important.” I like the video: “She’s not lying.” The Scripture tells us, “The child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 4:19b). 

And that’s an important thing to be able to say, because here in the beginning of the Gospel of Matthew is an introduction to the ministry of the Holy Spirit. All through the Gospels, all through Acts and the epistles, it is always the ministry of the Holy Spirit to make Jesus present. Always. 

And even in the Creed, we’re very careful to say that the baby was conceived “by the power of the Holy Spirit” (Matt. 1:20c). In other words, it’s not this age-old story of the gods coming down and having relationships with mortals. But rather, something was miraculously imparted into Mary, into her womb, that was the beginnings of the Son of God. 

And so Joseph, because he is that kind of man, listens to the angel and decides, “I’m not going to divorce her after all.” But what does he have to do? He has to get her out of town. Because everybody will know, when they get married. People will count on their fingers: “Hmm. How many months has it been?”

And so they travel to a new place. And the departure is not only a fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy, but it’s also expression of God’s care for Joseph and Mary in this highly scandalous and totally unusual situation. 

In what “scandalous” situations have you seen God at work? Share this blog and your response on Twitter. Please include my username, @revgregbrewer. 

(This post is an adaption of Bishop Brewer’s sermon on Dec. 18, 2016, at Grace Episcopal Church, Port Orange, Florida.)

Unless otherwise noted, Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.