Airports and Angels: Advent 4

 

It’s starting to look a lot like Christmas, so let’s start with a Christmas song: “I feel it in my fingers / I feel it in my toes / Christmas is all around me / and so the feeling grows . . .”

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Do you know that one? It’s the one Billy Mack sings in Love Actually, a Christmas movie I love. And one of the reasons I love it is because of the opening monologue Hugh Grant gives: 

“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there—fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know, none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge—they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaky feeling you’ll find that love actually is all around.”

We’ve had three weeks of intense readings. We began with the end. We heard the Baptist tell us to repent. Then we saw him have a crisis of faith. And the lesson we were to learn was about the end of trying to relate to God through what we do. 

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Now we finally circle back to the beginning and get close to the Christmas story. As Matthew sets the scene today, the focus is on Joseph—who often slips into the background in the Christmas story.

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In his book Grace in Practice: A Theology of Everyday Life, Dr. Paul Zahl writes:

“You see this enacted every five minutes on the other side of airport security, where grandparents stand to welcome their children and grandchildren for a visit home. Watch the scene before you. It goes like this: grandmother tries to crouch down and hold her arms out for her little granddaughter or grandson, who runs through the barrier first. She tosses the child up in her arms. Then she shows off the child to her husband, the grandfather, who is standing slightly behind her. Then the mother comes through, the daughter of these embracing grandparents. All she receives is a peck on the cheek or maybe a touch on the elbow. All attention, I mean all of it, is on the grandchild, being held zealously now by the grandfather.

“Finally, about fifty feet back, struggling down the concourse, is the dad. He scarcely exists. He comes upon the complex greetings-in-operation, and sort of stands behind it and apart from it. He does get a handshake from his father-in-law; and later, in the car, a nod from his mother-in-law. But he has lost himself anyway, carrying the baby chair and all the baby food and diaper bags that are his lot to carry. Maybe he can hide behind them, thank God.”

That kind of sounds like Joseph. He doesn’t get a lot of attention but he is an amazing character. Part of what makes him so incredible is that he operates almost entirely behind the scenes. He is a testament to every person who has ever adopted or raised a child. He is a testament to every parent who has ever been over-shadowed by a child. And he is a testament to every husband or wife who has been over-shadowed by their spouse. 

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Let’s focus on Joseph and his experience today. The experience of trusting the words of an angel who spoke to him in a dream.

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“. . . an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream” and said, “Joseph . . . do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife” . . . When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife.”

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Joseph’s actions mirror Mary’s famous words when she learned she would give birth to the Messiah: “Let it be . . . according to your word.” In her word and in his actions, we see a very considered response. A miraculous portrait of obedience and acceptance. Both Mary and Joseph yield completely to a new path that is being given to them.

Someone else who went down a new path is Lenny Kravitz. Lenny is a singer-songwriter and rock star. He was raised by a Jewish father and a Christian mother. He was deeply influenced by his mother’s faith. If you start listening to Lenny’s lyrics, you’ll hear a lot about God. You know how sometimes, you hear about an artist being moved or inspired or swept up in a moment when they wrote something? Well, in 1993, in about 5 minutes, he wrote and recorded “Are You Gonna Go My Way?” It’s one of his greatest hits—and trust me—you’ve heard it, but you probably didn’t pay attention to the words because it’s the guitar riff that’s so catchy.

In an interview with Rolling Stone, Lenny said what he was trying to give voice to in that song is what Jesus would say to us. And the song goes, “I am the chosen, I’m the one / I have come to save the day / And I won’t leave until I’m done.” That sounds a lot like what John the Baptist thought of the Messiah. Remember last week when we talked about John the Baptist? We talked about how he was disappointed that Jesus didn’t judge and destroy the sinners. Well, here Joseph is disappointed. This is not the way he thought his life, his marriage, would go.

Surely, Joseph had some thoughts, worries, and concerns about how Mary suddenly became pregnant. She probably thought this new thing meant an end to the previous plans she had made—plans to be married. She knew in her culture that she would become an outcast and a single mother. But God saw to it that those who needed to be in on the story were brought up to speed on his plan. So Joseph is also visited by an angel. He, too, must have been scared by this news. Joseph goes from having one foot out the door to being fully committed to the child, and to Mary. 

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This is a powerful picture of love. It shows us that committment is a huge part of what it means to love. We learn that faith and trust are cut from the same cloth and that faith can enable people to accept new things.

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How this couple is able to enter into this new journey so willingly is remarkable. When the plans you have made are interrupted, do you respond this way? I don’t. I get upset. I whine. I think up some scheme so it might still end up the way I want. Or if I can’t figure that out, I sulk. How do you respond when your plans get messed up?

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There’s no hesitation in Mary and Joseph. No tantrums.

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Chances are, you and I will never have an angel speak to us, but we will be given opportunities to be surrender our will. There will be moments when the future we’ve planned is ripped away.

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Maybe your second son is choosing to marry someone you know isn’t good for him. Maybe you know someone who was forced into an early retirement—someone who’s career didn’t end with a bang, but with a whimper. Maybe you’ve lost something, or someone, and when you think about them you still feel a pain. Have you ever walked down the path of What Could Have Been? Have you ever thought how your life would have been different if only you had chosen to . . . ?

Mary and Joseph’s experience speaks to each and every If Only, and to All the Ones Who Got Away. But unlike us, these two young adults yield to this new reality.

Did you ever read Great Expectations? Ms. Haversham wonders around her mansion in a wedding dress, with a rotting wedding cake still set out on the table, because she can’t let go of the past and the way she wanted her life to turn out.

We see the opposite in Mary and Joseph.

In 1971, William Inge wrote a book called My Son is A Splendid Driver. In that book, there’s an interaction in a bookstore between a man and a woman. The two of them grew up together, and Joey remembers that Betsy was an aspiring young actress when they last saw each other. As he asks her about her life over the last twenty years, she reveals that she’s no longer an actress and that her life completely fell apart and she’s now in AA, where she’s learning to pick up the pieces. This is what Betsy says to Joey, “I had to give up my conception of what my life was going to be. My will had to be overcome. I had to learn that there’s a stronger will that works behind the entire universe and sometimes stops us in our headstrong way and says, ‘No,’ and then, Joey, you have to surrender to a real life. The life that is really yours.”

Betsy does a beautiful job describing the wisdom that comes from failures and the nature of surrender.

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Mary has given birth to the Savior.And his name is Jesus. His mission is to save people from their sins. We are bent and broken by sin, and we can’t save ourselves. Jesus is here to save you from your sins. That is the good news of the gospel.

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As you leave here today, it may feel like the world is against you. Your spouse won’t listen to your good advice. Your job keeps piling on new things for you to do. Your parents still tell you how you should do things. And it feels like you can’t get any further ahead in life.

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So I’m going to ask you to remember that “Immanuel” means God is with you. And if God is with you that means he is for you. If God is for you, that means you have a friend. You have a Savior. You have a God in Jesus. And that’s not a dream—that’s the reality.