“WHAT’S IN A NAME?”
Matthew 1:18-25
(12-23-07) Advent 4

My favorite Joseph story is one I shared with you a number of years ago.
A minister who works in Managua, Nicaragua, tells a story of one Christmas
when the plaster figure of Joseph in the manger scene fell over and got smashed.
So they just took one of the shepherds and substituted him for Joseph
and nobody knew the difference. Joseph is a bit of an enigma.
The Gospel according to Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus,
beginning with Abraham, going through King David,
right down to Matthan, the father of Jacob, who was the father of Joseph.
There are 40 men who are named in this genealogy before we reach Joseph
and each of them is referred to as the father of the next name mentioned.
That is, until we come to Joseph.
He is not named as the father of Jesus, but rather as the husband of Mary,
of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
Of course there is good reason he is not named as the father of Jesus,
we’d all be in a bit of trouble if he were!
But did you realize that Joseph never speaks in the entire biblical narrative?
Mary sings her Magnificat, but Joseph never utters a word.
And Mary figures prominently throughout the entire life of Jesus and beyond,
she is at the cross when Jesus is crucified
and she is among the disciples who are gathered in Jerusalem
when the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost.
But the last reference to Joseph takes place when Jesus was 12 years old
and remained in the temple at Jerusalem during the festival of Passover.
The bible records that Jesus’ parents were worried about his whereabouts.
But that’s the last we hear of Joseph.
Most people assume that Joseph died before the ministry of Jesus began,
or at least he died before Jesus was crucified.
But as important as Mary is to the biblical narrative and to the birth of Jesus,
Joseph is no less important.
He doesn’t say it, but his yes is just as vital to the Jesus story as Mary’s.
Think about the situation facing Joseph.
He is engaged to be married.
His fiancée is found to be pregnant.
I remember all the advice I got when I was a young man.
Be careful who you marry.
Before I spent my year in Korea between my second and third years of seminary,
I got some advice from a friend.
Don’t get into a relationship with a girl from Korea, he said.
It will be harmful for your ministry.
I’m glad I didn’t listen to him.

Maybe Joseph heard all the advice as well.
Be wise in who you marry, you choose the wrong girl, you will regret it.
Mary was pregnant, she was possibly delusional.
So Joseph, being a righteous man, was going to do the honourable thing,
he was going to dismiss her quietly.
He wouldn’t expose her to public disgrace
and who knows what else she would have endured if the news became public.
Joseph is kind, he is righteous.
For that alone he should be commended.

But there’s more.
Just before Joseph was planning to dismiss Mary,
an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and tells him that its true,
Mary child is from the Holy Spirit.
Do not be afraid to take her as your wife, the angel tells Joseph.
Mary will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
for he will save his people from their sins.
Now if Joseph didn’t run from the situation before,
surely this would have convinced him
to run as fast and as far away from Mary as he could.
But he doesn’t.
He listens to the angel, he says yes to God.
Not verbally, but more importantly, he obeys with his actions.
Joseph is not a man of many words,
in fact I have already told you
that he doesn’t utter a single word in the entire biblical narrative,
but his actions speak loudly and clearly.
His life says yes to God.

As we reflect on the Christmas story,
we would do well to think about the kind of person Joseph was.
He was righteous, he was kind, he was open to the possibility of God in his life
for when God revealed himself to Joseph,
he was more than ready to listen and obey.
God’s not as interested in the yes’s we make with our mouths
as he is in the yes’s we live out by our actions.
We would do well to reflect on whether our lives say yes to God,
regardless of what our mouths might say.

One of the things that Joseph does in his obedience to God
is to name the baby that is born Jesus, according to the instruction of the angel.
Jesus, as we have already read, means,
one who will save his people from their sins.
That’s quite the name!
Most names have some meaning attached to them.
The meaning of my name, Victor, seems quite obvious.
But I also have a Korean name and that name, Sung Jae, means,
an existence of achievement.
My parents apparently had high hopes for me.
Not so bad, however, as a minister I knew in Toronto who named his son Allbright.
My children Jacob and Hannah, also have Korean names,
my son’s name, Doh Hyun, means,
one who brings brightness and illumination that shines like gold,
and my daughter’s name, Hae Lin, means, abundant grace.
All very nice, but none of our names can match up with the name of Jesus,
the one who saves his people from their sins.
My parents may have had high hopes for me, as I have for my children,
but even the most optimistic of parents would never dare name their children
‘one who saves their people from their sins.’
That name is reserved for Jesus alone.

But you know, the angel actually says that Jesus will have another name.
The angel refers to a prophecy from Isaiah
which says that the virgin will conceive and bear a son
and they shall name him Emmanuel, which means, God is with us.
Both of these names are crucial
in our understanding of who Jesus is and what Jesus does.
We have either seen the words or heard the words, “Jesus saves.”
And really, that’s exactly what he does,
that’s exactly what his name means, Jesus saves.
Interestingly, the name Jesus is an English translation of the Greek, Iesous,
which is itself a translation of the Hebrew, Yeshua.
This name is also often translated as Joshua.
The root word save also forms the roots of the names Isaiah and Hosea.
All of these names mean save.
And in some way each of the people who we most closely associate with these names, Joshua the leader of the Israelites after Moses,
and the prophets Isaiah and Hosea,
they did act as people who saved, or tried to save, the Israelites.
But only Jesus has a second name, Emmanuel,
which brings the nature of his salvation into clear focus.

God is with us.
Jesus saves, not as a leader like Joshua saves.
He doesn’t save by leading the people of God into battle,
to take possession of the promised land.
He doesn’t save like the prophets, who tried, often in vain,
to preach the word of God and the warning of God,
to the Kings and people of the nation.
Jesus saves, because he is the embodiment of God in the flesh.
He is God with us.
Jesus saves because only God can truly save us
and God in Jesus Christ is God with us.
What’s in a name?
When the name is Emmanuel, when the name is Jesus,
what’s in the name is our salvation,
what’s in the name is God’s most precious and greatest gift to us,
the gift of our salvation in the gift of God himself.

That’s what Christmas is all about, isn’t it?
Its about God coming to be with us, to be one of us,
in the baby born in Bethlehem, in the baby named Jesus.
What’s in a name?
Because Jesus is Emmanuel,
Jesus is not just another saviour
among all sorts of other would be saviours.
No, because Jesus is also Emmanuel, he is God with us.
The fullness of God is with this baby born in the manger.
And because God is with us,
because God himself in Jesus lived the fully human life,
complete with the reality of pain and suffering, misery and sorrow,
complete with the temptation to sin and the possibility of saying no,
because God in Jesus is God with us,
only then can we be saved
and can we be redeemed and be reconciled to God.

It’s a wonderful gift, that God is not just in his heaven above,
a distant deity, content to look upon our meagre existence
with whatever satisfaction our sufferings and trials might bring him,
but that he is a God who truly cares for creation,
that he is a God who truly cares for you and for me.
The longing of the human heart has always been that God would be with us, among us. From the midst of exile the prophet Isaiah speaks of that longing when he writes,
O that you would tear open the heavens and come down,
and St. John, in the book of Revelation records the hope of human history in his vision, Where the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them as their God,
they will be his peoples and God himself will be with them,
he will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more, mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.

It doesn’t matter where we are or what we may be facing.
In Jesus, God is with us, Jesus is Emmanuel.
Whether its in a hospital, laid up with an illness,
whether its at the side of a loved one who is dying,
whether its in a home taking care of a spouse
who no longer can take care of themselves or who no longer recognizes us,
God is with us.
Whether we are celebrating the exhilaration of a new birth,
the exaltation of a new achievement,
the excitement of a new job or a new phase in life,
God is with us.
Whether we are staring at a financial abyss,
whether depression threatens to shroud our lives once again in its dark cloud,
whether we are broken in our relationships and in our spirits,
God is with us.

God is with us in Afghanistan this Christmas,
as the men and women of our armed forces struggle to bring peace and stability
to a nation which most of them would have never even thought about
prior to their deployment there.
God is with us this Christmas in the people of Malawi,
in places like Ekwendeni,
as they work to care for each other
and work with their partners in mission and ministry,
such as Presbyterian World Service and Development,
to bring healing and hope to the impoverished land.
God is with us this Christmas in places like Bangladesh
and on the border between Mexico and the southern United States,
where human struggle is so obvious
and where human hope is so necessary.

God is with us this Christmas in the line ups at the Mustard Seed and the Drop In Centre where people are looking for help and a helping hand.
God is with us this Christmas here at Grace Church,
where on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day,
our church will be open as usual for the 15 guests
who will eat here and sleep here
because there is no room in the Inn or anywhere else.

God is with us this Christmas in our homes,
where families reunite, where children return from school,
where parents are brought home from lodges and seniors care homes,
where we smile through awkward dinners with siblings and relatives
we don’t really know as well as we should
or really care for as deeply as we could.
God is with us whether the new year promises us endless possibilities
or whether we would rather not face what surely and inevitably awaits us.
God is with us.
That’s the good news of Christmas.
No matter what we face, we are no longer alone.
God is with us and God with us, Emmanuel, desires to save us.
This is what Christmas is all about.
What’s in a name?
When that name is Emmanuel, God with us in Jesus the Christ,
it means everything to us.
This Christmas, in response to Jesus, who is Emmanuel,
who desires to save us, who alone can save us,
I pray that we like Joseph and Mary,
would be open to the possibility of God in our lives,
that we would also say yes to God,
with our mouths, but even more importantly, with our lives.

Prayer: God of Jesus Christ, God who came to be with us in Emmanuel, God who desires to save us and sent your son Jesus to save us from our sins, you are the hope of human hearts. We thank you for your love and for your passion for us. We thank you that there is no place on earth, no one on earth, no situation of need or suffering or pain or misery that is beyond your desire and your compassion. In Jesus you came to be with us, to be with us, to save us. Help us not merely to hear your words, but to listen with our hearts and with our spirits, so that we would know that there is nothing more important this Christmas than to say yes to your desire to be with us. No matter what our lives may be like, you can be with us, you want to be with us, you want to save us. May we be open to the possibility of Emmanuel in our lives, this Christmas and always. Through the name of Jesus the Christ, who is Emmanuel, God with us, we pray, Amen.