The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
I want to begin by saying a few things about what we call Feast Days. Some feast days of the Church cluster around a specific period of our Lord’s life and ministry, while other feast days are meant to celebrate the narratives of Apostles, prophets, martyrs, preachers, missionaries – our heroes and heroines who gave their life in service to Christ and his Church. This past week we have examples of both types of feasts. St. Stephens Day and St. John’s Day are feasts that celebrate the particular contributions of these two men in the building of the Kingdom of Christ. These are not mythic heroes from some golden age in never-never-land; they both lived and preached the Kingdom of God in Jerusalem and Asia in the Apostolic Age. The Feast of the Holy Innocents is different because that feast is a chapter in our Lord’s own birth and infancy narrative. January 1, the Feast of the Circumcision, is the eight day after our celebration of Christmas; the Sundays after Christmas focus on Joseph’s love and watch care over the infant Jesus; and then the Epiphany season begins with the account of the Magi’s visit and that is followed by our Lord’s interrogation of the doctors in the Temple when he was 12 years-old. All of these feasts are chapters that make up the narrative of our Lord’s birth and infancy. These feasts identify our Lord Jesus Christ. They answer the questions that drive so much of the action of the Gospels, but especially the Fourth Gospel: who is Jesus and where did he come from? Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter, form the other great set of feasts that cluster round the last days and hours Jesus’ earthly life and ministry. But what is my point? These feasts of our Lord identify and certify his humanity, his divinity and his mission from the Father, and their love for his creation. The Prayer Book Feasts of saints celebrate the heroes and heroines of the Church who made grasping our Lord’s identity and love the whole purpose of their life.
And so this 1st Sunday of Christmas we have an installment of our Lord’s narrative that opens up to the Church more of his identity:
The birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost.
The declaration is unequivocal: Mary’s pregnancy was a result of her encounter with the Holy Ghost (the third Person of the Trinity) and not Joseph or any other human being. We know this to be true because the lion’s share of this text is given over to the very reasonable questions that troubled Joseph to the point that he was driven to secretly contemplate divorcing Mary because she was with child and he knew that he was not the father. It is certainly clear from the text that he was rattled when he found out that she was pregnant and at one point he settled his worried mind by determining to divorce her, but to do so secretly so as not to shame her publically and to avoid endangering her life. He was a good man. But as he continued to think on these troubles, having not yet taken any action, he must have fallen into a fitful sleep when an angel of God appeared to him in a dream. This messenger from the Lord of Heaven had a very specific announcement to deliver to Joseph: He should rest assured that the child Mary was carrying was fathered by God and when the child is born they were to name him Jesus because he would save his people from their sins. Furthermore, the miraculous conception of this child is something that everyone in Israel, indeed everyone in the whole world has been waiting for whether they knew it or not. A Prophet had long ago declared that, wonder of wonders, a virgin would conceive a child and give birth to a son and they should call his name Emmanuel that means “God with us.” According to the text Joseph awoke from his sleep and did exactly what the Angel of the Lord had told him to do: he happily took Mary as his wife and when she gave birth, he named the child Jesus.
This coming Tuesday is January 1st which is the Feast of the Circumcision of our Lord:
And when eight days were accomplished for the circumcising of the child, his name was called JESUS, which was so named of the angel before he was conceived in the womb.
Had our Lord not been circumcised we would have never even heard his Name. His circumcision was necessary, not merely for the letter of the law, but also to establish that he was a Jew. Later on when Jesus was striding through Israel and more and more revealing his true identity as the Messiah, the Pharisees could have brought Jesus’ whole project to an end instantly by simply proving that he was not a Jew.
They certainly tried everything else. The big shots, the ruling class, back in Jerusalem were politicians who aimed to keep their power. With John the Baptist out of the way, their only worry had become the growing popularity of his cousin Jesus – a carpenter born in the backwater village. But they had people on the payroll close by and they had their spies and their professional garbage collectors.
There is nothing new about dirt. They gathered dirt, or they manufacture dirt. Blessed St. John the Divine recorded one of Jesus’ arguments with the Pharisees over Abraham and Jewish fatherhood, the Jews pulled out a piece of the dirt they had manufactured out of half truths:
We be not born of fornication…
How did they know that Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father? They had their operatives. They had their enemy list and files in the home office. They knew our Lord’s linage. And they assumed the worse and then developed it into the narrative they wanted to tell about Jesus, which is what people continue to do. It makes a sordid tale: “We were not born of fornication.” Another fair translation would be: “We were not born of prostitution.” I wonder how Jesus felt when they said that? He was after all human and he loved his mother. And here they are publically dragging her life through the dirt. He does seem to bristle just then: “You know why you cannot take in what I say? Because I speak on behalf of the God of Israel, God, who is my Father, and I do exactly what he does, while you speak the words of your father, the Devil, and you do what your father wants you to do. He was a murderer; you are murderers. He was a liar; you are liars.” I am happy the Pharisees said, “We were not born of fornication;” because it makes it clear that everyone agree that Joseph was not Jesus’ biological father.
But what does that say about his Jewish identity? Absolutely nothing. Because Jesus identity as a Jew comes through his Mother. His legal credentials were unassailable. Circumcised on the eight day: In his humanity, Jesus is marked with the sign of the covenant and he is incorporated into Israel. Same with John the Baptist. And the same with St. Paul: “circumcised on the eight day…a Hebrew of Hebrews.” For all their slander, all their muck raking, the Pharisees never once raise the issue of Jesus’ circumcision and his identity as Jew.
Faith in Jesus Christ means that we believe the specific Person that Joseph, in obedience to the Angel, named Jesus to be who he claimed to be: in his humanity he is the Son of Mary born in Bethlehem, in his divinity he is the Son of the Father and there never was a time when he was not. He is the Messiah and the Savior of the world. We trust Jesus of Nazareth. We trust a Lord raised from the dead, who is alive right now, who has given us eternal life, forgiven us our sins, and will one day return .
Then Joseph being raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him, and took unto him his wife: and knew her not till she had brought forth her firstborn son: and he called his name JESUS.