We’re in the third week of our
sermon series “Angels Among Us”, looking at the role angels played in the
Christmas story. We’ve talked about how the angel Gabriel spoke with
Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and then six months later spoke to
Mary, the mother of Jesus. Today, we look at the conversations an angel
had with Joseph.
We don’t know whether this angel was
Gabriel or not. Matthew does not tell us the angel’s name. He just
says, each time, “an angel of the Lord”. It could’ve been Gabriel, but it
might not have been. It might not even have been the same angel each
time. We don’t know.
Joseph hears from an angel three
times. We read all three today. Each time, it follows pretty much
the same pattern. First, the angel appears to Joseph in a dream.
That’s different from the times Gabriel appeared to Zechariah and Mary.
We did not hear anything about a dream in those stories. Zechariah
and Mary, as far as we know, were wide awake. But for Joseph, the angel
shows up in his sleep.
Each time, of course, the angel
gives Joseph a message. And listen to what happens next. The first
time, we’re told, “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had
commanded him.” The second time, we’re told, “So he got up, took the
child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt”, which of course is
what the angel had told him to do. And the third time, we’re told, “So he
got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel,” which
again was what the angel told him.
Remember, when Gabriel talked to
Zechariah and Mary, they were given the chance to have a conversation.
They got to ask questions. But not Joseph. The way the story
is told, the angel appears to Joseph in a dream, the angel tells him to do
something, and Joseph wakes up and immediately does it. No hesitation.
No questions asked. He just does what the angel of the Lord told
him to do.
I wonder why that was. Why did
the angel not give Joseph the chance to ask questions? Why did Joseph not
get to voice any doubts or objections? It was like what Joseph thought or
felt did not matter. He just gets his orders and does as he’s told.
Did you ever think what would’ve
happened if Joseph had not done that? What if Joseph had said no? I
assume he could have. What if Joseph had said, you know, I just cannot do
this. It’s too hard. It’s too much. I’m sorry, angel, but
tell God you need to find somebody else. I cannot do it.
But you know, maybe that’s why
Joseph was chosen. Because God knew Joseph would not say no.
Because God knew Joseph had a faith that was strong enough to not ask
questions. Joseph had a faith that was strong enough to not raise any
objections. Did you notice, Joseph does not appear to have been afraid of
the angel, the way Zechariah was and Mary was and most people are. If an
angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and told Joseph to do something, well,
that was good enough for him. He went ahead and did it. Period.
There’s one more thing that shows up
in the description of all these angelic appearances. Some of you probably
caught it. The first time, we’re told, “All this took place to fulfill
what the Lord had said through the prophet.” The second time, it’s, “And
so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet.” And the
third time, “So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets.”
We wondered last week about whether
the angels knew what was going to happen when they were sent out to give these
messages. We don’t know, but there’s one thing we do know. God knew
what was going to happen.
God knew exactly how this was all
going to play out. God had told the prophets about it centuries before.
God did not give them all the details, but he gave them enough so that,
when these things happened, people would recognize what was going on.
People would know that Jesus was the Savior. Some people, like the
Pharisees, refused to admit it or acknowledge it, but that always happens,
right? We all tend to see what we want to see. The Pharisees did
not want to see that Jesus was the Savior, and so they did not. But
people who had their minds open and their eyes open did see it. And they
saw it because of what the prophets had said all those centuries ago.
I have to think that God chose the
key players in the Christmas story with great care. God did not just
choose Mary and Joseph, or even Zechariah and his wife Elizabeth, at random.
God chose them because they were people of great faith. God chose
them because they were people who would trust God. They trusted God
enough that they would agree to do things that seemed impossible. They
trusted God enough to do things they did not want to do. They trusted God
enough to do the things that were necessary for the things the prophets said to
come true.
And they did that deliberately.
After all, they knew about these Old Testament prophecies, too.
Everybody knew about them. Mary and Joseph knew they were following
a plan that had been laid out centuries before. They did not know the
details of the plan, but they knew God was behind it. They knew that,
whatever was going to happen, God was in control of it and that it would happen
the way God wanted it to happen.
We’ve talked in this sermon series about
how God has messages for all of us, and those messages are designed to shake us
up. We’ve also talked about how God asks us to start on a path without
knowing exactly where that path will lead. And we’ve talked about how
hard that is for us to do, because we’re fairly comfortable with our lives as
they are and we don’t want to change things when we don’t know where that
change might take us. It takes a lot of faith, a lot of trust in God to
be willing to do that. It’s not easy for us to have that much faith.
Maybe it will be easier for us if we
remember how all these things the angel told Joseph were to fulfill Old
Testament prophecies, how God had planned all this stuff out centuries before.
Because that’s proof to us that God knows what’s going to happen in the
future. And God does not just know the future in broad strokes, either.
God knows the details. God knew the details involved in Jesus’
story. And God knows the details of your story and my story, too.
Now, we still have free will.
Joseph had free will. Joseph could’ve said no. Joseph
could’ve gone ahead and divorced Mary like he planned to. Joseph was
chosen not because he could not refuse to do what God wanted, but
because God knew he would not refuse. God knew that Joseph had enough
faith that he would willingly do what God wanted.
But the point is that God knows our
stories. God has been planning them for a long time. God has
brought us to this point in time. And now, God is giving each of us a
message to take us to the next point in time. God is asking us to take a
step. That’s all we get to see, that next step. But God sees the
whole path. God knows exactly where it’s going to take us. Just
like God knew exactly what would happen with Zechariah and Elizabeth, with Joseph
and Mary, and with Jesus, God knows exactly what will happen for each of us
when we trust God enough to take that next step on the path God has laid out
for us.
But because we have free will, the
choice is up to us. We can be like Joseph. We can hear God’s
message, and get up, and do what God has told us to do. We can trust God
and follow that path. Or, we can say no. We can say, you know, I
just cannot do this. It’s too hard. It’s too much. I’m sorry,
God, but you need to find somebody else. I cannot do it.
God has a plan for each one of us.
God has a plan for you, and God has a plan for me. God sees the
whole path that’s ahead of us. We don’t, but God does. God knows
our story, and God knows how the story will end.
Joseph listened to God’s message.
Joseph followed God’s plan. And the story came out just the way God
had planned it. If we listen to God’s message and follow God’s plan, our
story will come out the way God has planned it, too.
But it’s our choice.
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