The Christmas season is a strange mixture of excitement and chaos, of fun and frenzy, of hectic schedules that descend on us like a winter storm. Christmas is a challenging time of the year. There is no other time when our schedules are more frantic, our lives more frayed, our families more flustered. Christmas brings with it certain challenges.

Strange how we enter this time of year imagining that it should offer us a sense of comfort, a time to relax and reflect on the year gone by, a time to enjoy the warm glow of a fire while the snow covers the ground. We think Christmas should offer us a sense of competence as we buy the perfect gift to sit under the perfect tree in the perfectly decorated house, where the perfect family will gather. We wish Christmas would offer us a sense of control, that chaos will not reign in our lives as it did last year, that the credit card bills will not mount, that we will finally get that weight under control... after the holidays.

Yet, it is in those three areas that God challenges us the most. The announcement of Christ’s birth to Joseph in Matthew 1 brings us face to face with God’s presence, as the promise from Isaiah is that the Messiah is Immanuel, God with us. But it is that very promise of God’s presence which tears down the idols we’ve erected, idols of our own comfort, our own competence, our own control. It is only then will we be able to grasp onto the powerful truth that the name given to that baby born 2000 years ago really means that God will save us from those idols. The challenge of Christmas is the very challenge of the Gospel.

God's Presence Challenged Joseph's Comfort

As Joseph prepares to be married to his beloved he hears the distressing news. Without explanation, without warning he finds out she is pregnant. We are told in verse 18 that Mary was pledged to be married. This period of engagement is different from our culture. Betrothal in that culture was a solemn ceremony and the act binding. During this time the couple were viewed as husband and wife. Notice in verse 19 Joseph is called her husband, although the marriage was not consummated. The process of moving from betrothal to marriage involved two steps.

The betrothal or Kadusha constituted a legally ratified marriage. The girl could be as young as 12 or 13. She was henceforth his wife, and any infringement on his marital rights could be punished as adultery. She remained at her family home for about a year. This was a period of protection, to prove fidelity. If there would be problems, they could be spotted. The marriage was valid, but not consummated and ending it was considered a divorce.

At that time the mohar was paid by the groom to his father-in-law. The bride price was not buying the rights to the woman as one would pay for a cow or a goat. The money helped compensate the father for the wedding celebration which could last a week. It was also a form of insurance; if the husband were to die, the girl's father would give it to her so that she would have something to live on as a widow. It was also a divorce insurance. If the husband got cold feet after the engagement and wanted to break the contract, he would sacrifice the dowry. In fact the father-in-law often held the dowry until his own death, so the husband had good reason to make the marriage work not just for the first year, but for years to come.

Then after a period of six months to a year there would be the Chuppa, the ceremony in which the couple moved from the period of betrothal to consummation. Prior to this point the couple was seen as married, but the relationship was not consummated. It was during this time that news came to Joseph that Mary was expecting a child. Joseph had not touched her, but now she was pregnant. The conclusion was easy as to what happened.

Joseph, while waiting for the Chuppa, finds out that his betrothed is pregnant. Without any explanation, without any warning, he is faced with a difficult decision. How is Joseph going to react to the news?

First we are told he is a righteous man, which means he will not treat this situation lightly.

God's law was clear in a situation like this. Joseph here is characterized as one who was devoted to God's law. Deuteronomy 22 plainly stated that if one pledged to be married commits adultery she must be stoned. There is no way he could marry her now.

But while virtuous he was also merciful. Joseph did not want to disgrace her

These two statements show the turmoil in Joseph. On the one hand the situation was quite plain. The woman he was to marry has shown herself to be living a lie. On the other hand, to charge her with adultery, to force the situation into a public trial could result in her death or at least mark her for life. Because of God's work in their life, Joseph was torn between justice and compassion. So Joseph decided to take the compassionate route. He would privately divorce her, an out of court settlement. She would keep the dowry; he would share in the disgrace too.

Imagine his discomfort. How could he walk down the streets of Nazareth? The stares, the wagging tongues. What did he do wrong? What we from this side of the Cross understand as a great privilege, he experienced then and there as a tremendous challenge to his comfortable life.

Just as God set about to use Mary and Joseph in a powerful way, He did not set aside the reality of the discomfort which would come to them. We like to imagine that God’s presence in our life should be translated into a comfortable life, an easier life. But that is rarely the case.

Arizona Jeans have a great series of commercials on TV these days. In one commercial a teenage girl sits with her friends on the couch in the living room, while her overweight father walks past them wearing only Speedo swim trunks, announcing to her grossed out friends that they can use the hot tub. Then comes the line for Arizona jeans, "At least part of you is comfortable."

The commercial points out how we often want just one little corner of life to be safe, comfortable. Joseph no doubt had many concerns in life, but at least when it came to his impending marriage, that area was just about as perfect as it could get - until the news.

This is just like the women we examined last week in Jesus’s family tree whose privileged position in the genealogy of the Messiah were met with looks of disgust from those who viewed their lifestyles with disdain. But to be used by God, to have God’s presence in our life may mean discomfort. When Isaiah was confronted by God’s presence in Isaiah 6, God’s presence challenged his comfort to such an extent that he was certain he would die. God’s presence at first does not comfort us, but challenges our ideas of what comfort should be.

Being a Christian can bring as much discomfort in our life as comfort. God's presence brings with it offense, scandal, just as Joseph and Mary encountered. This aspect of the Christian life is easily lost as we live in a religious climate that tolerates expressions of faith to a certain comfortable degree. But cross that threshold of propriety and you are marked as a fanatic. We mistakenly believe we can live as cultural Christians, as ones who synchronize our faith with the culture around us, so that we do not stand out. Yet there are times God calls us to move, to act, to respond in ways which run counter to our culture.

God’s presence challenges Joseph’s competence

When God's presence challenges our comfort zones, it often does so by challenging our competence. We are brought head to head with the harsh truth that we are not as strong, as powerful as we think we are. Joseph found himself in a difficult position. He loved his wife, but knew that something was dreadfully wrong - so he decided to end the relationship. As he tossed and turned in bed, God's presence again intervened. Once again Joseph was challenged. This time his very competence was what was challenged.

There was nothing he could do but accept what God was doing. He adds nothing to God's plan. He is not to shrink back in fear from marrying Mary. God explained that the child is not a product of Mary's immorality, but God presence. The very thing he thought he could do, be a husband and father, is taken from him. While he is from the line and house of David, while the Messiah comes from his own family, he could not be the father of the Messiah; he is not even able to name the child.

Joseph is commanded to take Mary home, take the next step, from the Kadusha to the Chuppa, from betrothal to the full marriage.

In so doing, Joseph takes on her shame. The cloud of humiliation now hangs over him. When the baby is born people will quickly realize that it was conceived prior to the Chuppa, that Joseph was not a very honorable man. While God pronounces him to be righteous, his public standing would falter. He would no longer appear competent to those around him. He would not look very righteous. Instead he would look like an impulsive, lustful fiancé who refused to do the right thing and wait.

Joseph is then commanded to take the child that is not his and accept it as his own, giving Him His name.

He is to name the child. In a day and age when there were no blood tests to demonstrate cases of paternity, if a man named the child the child is assumed to be his. Joseph, by exercising the father's right to name the child acknowledges Jesus and thus becomes the legal father of the child. But he is not even given the privilege of choosing the name. The name is given to him: Jesus. This is the Greek for Joshua. The Hebrew would be Yeshua, meaning Jehovah saves. The meaning of the name is explained further: He will save His people from their sins.

Joseph is asked to take on the accusation of sinfulness. As a living example, Joseph demonstrates what his adopted son will do in reality. What Joseph, even as a righteous man, is unable to do: save himself, no less a people, from their sins; this one not yet born will accomplish this task.

Christmas is a time when we want our competence to shine forth. We want to be able to buy the right gift, one that could bring a tear even to the eye of our otherwise grizzled father-in-law, one that would amaze our wife that we actually thought about what to get her on a day other than Christmas Eve. We picture our kids falling at our feet and flowing with profuse praise for our wonderful love. It is Christmas when we ready the house, decorate it with care. We throw parties; we don our festive attire. This is the time when we are all Martha Stewart wannabes. Christmas is all about our competence.

I think one reason we like Christmas as a religious holiday is that we vainly imagine that at least here our own competence should shine forth. When the incarnation of the Creator is in the form of a helpless infant, we think, "At last, I can help a defenseless baby!" But we forget that even as a newborn, the incarnate God came to earth not asking for our assistance, but in that form shows how helpless we really are. Just as Joseph is very much out of the loop here, as he has nothing to add other than accepting this child, other than obedience which flows out of faith, so we are called on to believe.

For so many people Jesus at Christmas is just a helpless child. It is as if we can doing something for Him. But God sending Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, God With Us, is not just a nice thing God does for us, but a stinging indictment of our need, our incompetence, our failure, our sin. So God, in sending Jesus Christ, challenges our comfort; it asks us to break out of the comfortable and be willing to be used of God in uncomfortable ways. The coming of Jesus Christ also points to the reason for His coming: His own death. While Christmas cheer and the holiday spirit are great, we also have to soberly reflect on God's charge against us, that we have sinned, that we can not establish a relationship with God - otherwise there would be no reason for God to send His Son.

We love to believe the lie of our own competence. How often it is at the very point where we think we are competent, God lets us know how much we need Him. I recall one time (for there were many) when my competence mattered, but my incompetence was all that was seen. It was during my ordination exam. The questions usually start out simple, and get more complex. I felt rather competent since my licensure exam went well; my written ordination exams were exemplary. In the opening minutes of the three hour exam I was asked the question which would humiliate and undo me. "Name the books of the Bible." What any ten year old should know, I drew a blank. I came to the Minor Prophets and froze. Before me sat the grand inquisitor, perhaps doubting my very salvation, no less my call to the ministry. I sputtered and mumbled and gave up, whereupon I was remonstrated severely. There I sat, incompetent. Do you know what I wanted to do? Die! Do you know what I needed, though? The truth of the Gospel had to pull me up from my incompetence, reminding me that my standing before God was based on something other than my ability to provide an elementary listing of the books of the Bible.

What are your areas of competence? While all else may fail, in what area do you excel? It is there that God wants you to trust Him for that is the area where God may need to remind you that your abilities are not the end all in life.

The prediction of Jesus's birth was a challenge of control

The message from the angel ends in verse 21; Matthew picks back up in verse 22 explaining what all this means. This event is not something that just happens. God had been at work prior to this event. His coming was foretold by the prophet Isaiah. All which happened was always in God’s control. We love the lie of our comfort and our competence because we ultimately believe the lie of our own control. Isaiah 7 helps us here.

700 years before the birth of Christ there sat on the throne in Judah a king called Ahaz. Ahaz had a problem. He was challenged by the king of the northern tribes, the king of Israel, who made an alliance with the King of Syria. The threat of these two conspirators was to destroy David's dynasty and to establish a king of their own choice (Isaiah 7:6). What was to become of the glorious promise if this plot were to succeed? Of the messianic prediction found in 2 Samuel 7:12,13? Would the coming Redeemer ever be born as the son and legal heir of David? Everything was at stake.

No doubt Ahaz's comfort zone was challenged. His competence was called into question. How could he defend himself against these two armies? His intention to defend David’s royal line appears honorable. The problem is that he thought he could control his life’s circumstances, that it was up to him.

Isaiah, the prophet, steps in to admonish Ahaz to place trust in Jehovah. Isaiah tells Ahaz to ask God for a sign to show him He is in control of the situation, a sign of God's protecting care. But Ahaz feigns a pious excuse and in mock humility refuses the sign (verse 12). In fact, Ahaz has other plans. His trust is not in God to control the situation, but Ahaz has sought to control the situation by calling on the army of Assyria to come to his aid.

It is then Isaiah responds. A sign will be given - verses 13-14. Your desire to control you own life, your desire to ignore God's promise to you and your family will result in judgment. The sign Isaiah gives looks past Ahaz and is spoken to the entire house of David. It looks ahead to what God will do in Mary's life in bringing a child that will bypass the line of Ahaz and the house of David through Solomon. The sign will be that God's presence will come, but Ahaz will never witness it. In his desire to control his own destiny he is overlooked by God's design.

The birth of Jesus Christ, God descending to earth in the form of a servant, God's presence with us, should challenge our concept of our own control, just as it did with Ahaz. Here in Matthew 1:23 we have the reason for the incarnation: God with us; but that reason, just as it was given to Ahaz, is one that is meant to remind us who is in control. As Joseph names this child, he responds in faith that God and God alone is the one in control.

David in Psalm 20 acknowledges that people place their trust in a wide variety of things; during his day it was in horses and chariots. For us it can be government, finances, family. Emmanuel, God's presence in our life, will challenge all that. It is God, God alone, who in and through His Son saves His people. While some trust in chariots and some in horses, in physical strength, knowledge, reputation, prestige, position, magnificent and impressive machinery, none of these whether operating singly or in conjunction with all the others, is able to deliver man from his chief enemy, the foe that destroys the heart -  namely, sin.

Does this mean we sit on our hands and do nothing? Not at all. God's presence which challenges us to allow Him to control implies an active obedience which flows from faith. Joseph gets up and obeys; he responds, he acts. We are to as well. Our action is likewise to be one of obedience to that which God has revealed in His Word because we believe what Christ has done for us.

Christmas is about the Incarnation, of God taking on flesh. It is about God with us. The good news here is good news only when we consider why God had to do this, when we allow the truth of the Gospel to sink down deep in our lives. We must first grapple with the hard truth of our own unworthiness, our sin. God is with us not to make us feel better about ourselves, but because Christ came to die in our place, to save us from our own sinfulness.