Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25
What do you think Joseph had planned for his life, prior to the angel coming to him in his dream? I can’t imagine that his life-plan involved, in the first place, discovering that his fiancee was pregnant by not-him. Who plans for that? I imagine that his original plan, right after he was engaged to Mary, was to prepare his family home for her, and after they were married to start their own family together. That sounds like what any reasonable fiance would want, right? But very quickly, that plan went out the window. Because Mary was pregnant. And so he had to readjust his plan. And so his new plan, before the angel appeared to him, was to quietly dissolve his engagement with Mary so that he could leave her with a clear conscience and find a new wife and begin again. He was a righteous man and didn’t want to embarrass her publicly, (and there was an idea in Judaism around that time that publicly disgracing someone would bar you from God’s kingdom, so that’s why his righteousness comes into play here), and so he was going to discreetly put her aside. Not really the way he wanted his life to turn out, but not as bad as it could be. Not as bad as marrying a woman and having to pretend that their firstborn child was his when it wasn’t. In the face of unexpected events, he came up with a new plan that would, if not perfect, would still work for him.
How do you make plans for the future? Do you go with what feels right? Or do you try to be more deliberate? Most of us make plans by thinking about what we want, and then calculating what’s possible, and then we consider what’s best for everyone else involved, and then we try to find some balance between all of these different things. Whether you’re planning for Christmas, or planning for the next five years of your life, whether you’re planning your funeral or whether you’re planning what the church should do in the coming years, we all go through this process of trying to balance between what we want, what’s possible, and what’s best for the larger group.
Our Old Testament reading from Isaiah is an example of this, actually. Now I’ll tell you right away that this portion of Isaiah is impossible to understand if you don’t know the political and military environment that it was written in. Basically, Ahaz, who was the king of Judah, the southern part of Israel that includes Jerusalem, was worried about the land being overtaken by his enemies, which at that time included the north part of Israel, and Syria. And so his plan was to protect the land of Judah by entering into an alliance with the Assyrians. Politically and militarily, it made sense, because Assyria was a strong military force. Ahaz was so convinced that his plan would work in fact, that, in the Bible verses just before our reading comes in, he decides against asking God if this was the plan he should be following. Like all political leaders, like all individuals, actually, Ahaz made his plan based on what he wanted, on what was possible, and on what the country needed.
But our readings for today, and our experiences in life, tell us that we often have to abandon our plans, and let go of what we want. More specifically, the Bible tells us that God often calls us to sacrifice our plans, and sacrifice what we want, in order to participate in God’s plan for our future. Look at Joseph. He had a plan to marry Mary, and raise a family with her, but then God made her pregnant through the Holy Spirit. And so he re-adjusted. And his new plan, still based primarily on what he wanted, was to break his engagement with Mary and leave her and get on with his new life. But then, God gave him what was undoubtedly life-shattering news: that God’s plan for him was to stay with Mary, to be the father to a son who was not his own, to take on the responsibilities of raising this child who was not of his blood. What kind of plan was this? For the rest of his life, Joseph would be worried that people might find out that he was not Jesus’ father, because there’s no doubt that Mary’s family would have known that he wasn’t, and maybe even some neighbours would be able to put two and two together and figure it out, and he would suffer public shame for the rest of his life that his wife’s child was conceived through someone else and that he was a failure. Who in their right mind would want that? Who would choose to follow God’s plan when being considered a failure was part of the outcome?
But Joseph did. Joseph chose God’s plan. Because along with all of this risk of public shame and knowledge that his firstborn was not actually his was God’s promise that this plan would save all of God’s people. God’s plan was for the good of the entire world, even if it made Joseph’s own life more difficult. And so Joseph, who was righteous, let go of his own plans, and let go of what he wanted, and chose to follow God’s plan as his own. He was faced with a difficult choice, and he chose God.
We too are faced with this choice, constantly. Yes, I’m talking about this congregation’s future, but I’m also talking about life in general. We are constantly faced with having to make plans for our life, and with the choice that comes with it: Develop a plan that gets us what we want, and pursue that, or let go of what we want in order to participate in God’s plan for the world. And I’m not going to tell you that this is an easy or straightforward choice. Our own plans are usually much simpler and easier to follow than God’s plans are. Look at Joseph - God’s plan for him came to him in a dream - very hard to decide to follow a dream. And look at Ahaz and Isaiah - God’s plan for them required them to let go of their plan to trust in military forces and instead to trust in a baby that hadn’t even been born. Again - very hard to just go forward blindly without any proof that things will turn out right. But the hard truth of being one of God’s children is that God does call us - God doesn’t force us, but God does call us - to sacrifice what we want in order to do participate in God’s plan.
But here’s why we do it. Here’s why Joseph let go of his plan to raise his own family and raise God’s family instead. Here’s why we stop making plans based on “what we want.” Because God’s plan is a plan for the healing of the entire world.
I say “healing” because that’s what it means every time the New Testament says “saviour.” The Greek word for Saviour is soter, which means saviour, deliverer, protecter, healer, one who makes things whole. Salvation is about healing the entire person so that they are integrated. When we talk about Jesus saving the world from their sins, we are talking about Jesus healing the world - binding together the things and the people and the communities that are broken. Where sin has fractured and broken us, Jesus heals us from those sins. Jesus makes us whole again.
This is God’s plan for the world. That it would be healed. That the entire world, the whole global community, nature, our environment, the animals and all creatures, everything would be healed. Brought back together the way it was on the seventh day of Creation. This is why God sent Jesus. To save us - to heal us. This is God’s plan.
And this is why we set aside our own wants and plans. This is why Joseph set aside his wants and plans - to have his own children with Mary and raise them up himself. Because God’s plan, as vague as it was, is so much better than our plan. Joseph’s plan concerned only his small circle. Our plans so often concern only ourselves and those around us. But God’s plan is for the entire world. For absolutely everyone.
And so we can, indeed, let go of our own plans. As hard as it is, and as much as it hurts us, we do it because we know that we, too, will be healed. God’s plan for healing the world includes us, who have sacrificed what we want. That is what it means to participate in God’s plan - it means to both sacrifice in order to take part in it, and to receive the benefits of the goodness God intends for the world.
When God calls us to give up our plans, and to give up what we want, we don’t always see right away what the value is in that. I don’t think Joseph saw any immediate rewards for giving up his plans for a stable life and a firstborn child of his own. I’m not sure he ever saw the rewards for what he did - there is no mention of him being around when Jesus died and was raised again. Sometimes we don’t get to see all of God’s plan for the world. But we participate anyway, because what else, as followers of Christ, as children of God, are we to do? Joseph did not see this future we are living, where millions of Christians have experienced the new life that Christ showed us. We cannot see the future from here, where our sacrifice for God’s plan will bring light and new life to others. Only God can see that, and so only God can plan for that, which is why only God’s plan is worth following.
The saying goes that it is the darkest before dawn. Joseph’s story is the dark moment before the dawning of Christmas. Our Advent journey makes its final stop with him, as he gives up his plans, and sacrifices his wants for the greater good God has planned. But the dawn is coming. Christmas is coming. God-in-Christ, Emmanuel, God-with-us is coming. And so, we too let go of what we want, like Joseph before us, knowing what it will cost us and knowing what the world will gain, and we turn to God and we say, Come, Lord Jesus, Come. Amen.
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