Your Kingdom Come,

Your Will Be Done!

Matthew 1:21-25

The Old and New… Jesus/Immanuel

 

One of the things I am excited about in our study of the Gospel of Matthew is the new treasures and old treasures coming out from the storeroom.  Here is my new favorite verse.

 

Matthew 13:52  He said to them, "Therefore every teacher of the law who has been instructed about the kingdom of heaven (that’s me) is like the owner of a house who brings out of his storeroom new treasures as well as old."

 

Can you see this?  You go to someone’s house and they want to show you their latest treasure.  “Here come in let me show you my new 54 inch plasma.”  They show you their new treasure.  Then, perhaps, they break out the old picture book.  “Here look at little this picture...  Here is Tony when he was two.  He used to be so cute.” 

 

That is what we are going to do as we study the Gospel of Matthew.  We are going to bring out old treasures.  We are going to see how God fulfills promises that are 1,000s of years old.  Jesus is the realization of the old.  But Matthew is going to bring out the new stuff.  Matthew is going to show us the unexpected; the startling; the never-before-seen-on-the-face-of-the-earth stuff.  Matthew is going to bring out new treasures for us to wonder over.

 

This morning we are going to do this.  This morning we are going to look at some very old treasures and then look at the corresponding new treasures.  After all, Christmas is next Sunday.  We need to bring out the treasures.  Who wants some treasures? “ Oh… Oh… I do. I do.”

 

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Let’s start with an old treasure…  We are still in Matthew chapter 1.  We are still in the Hero of the Advent story.  Who is the hero of the advent?  Joseph.

 

Matthew 1:20-21 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.  She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus…

 

Joseph named Mary’s baby, Jesus.  This is an old treasure.  VIhsou/j was a common name.  It is the Greek version of the Hebrew, Joshua.  Wow.  We know Joshua.  He was the one who led the Children of Israel into the Promised Land.  He was one of the great heroes of the Old Testament.   VIhsous was to be a Savior.  Joshua means savior.  When you call Jesus, you are saying Savior. 

 

Out of the old treasure chest, we find Jesus is to be a savior, just like the Old Testament saviors. 

-Jesus is going to be Joshua and lead us to the promise land.

-Jesus is going to be Gideon to deliver us from oppression.

-Jesus is going to be David to save us from the Philistines.

-Jesus is Nehemiah to deliver us from captivity.

 

The angel told Joseph that the baby is the old treasure.  Jesus is the old treasure of being a savior.

 

Notice what kind of savior the angel says Jesus is to be. 

 

Matthew 1:21  “She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

 

Wait a second, this is something new.  This is a new treasure.  Matthew’s first century Jews of Palestine didn’t want to be saved from their sins.  They wanted to be delivered from the sins of others.  They wanted to be saved from the Roman’s sins.  They wanted to be saved from the Sadducees’ sins.  They wanted to be saved from the Herods’ and the Pilates and the Tax collectors and everybody else’s sins.

 

“No,” the angel says, “This VIhsous is coming to save YOU from YOUR sins.”  “Oh.” 

-This Jesus, this new savior, is going to save us from the guilt of sin.  On the cross the new savior is going to offer forgiveness of our sins. 

-This Jesus, the new savior, is going to deliver us from the power of sin.  In the resurrection Jesus is going to break the bonds of sin and deliver us from the power of sin.  He sends his Holy Spirit to sanctify us from sin.

-This Jesus, the new savior, is going to come again bring us into the new Promised Land, looking forward to that. 

 

The name Jesus is a clue to the cross, the resurrection, the coming again.

 

Jesus another savior in an old line of saviors/Jesus a new savior come to save us from OUR sins.

 

Something old, something new; both wonderful treasures.

 

Let’s keep going.  What else is in the storeroom?

 

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Matthew 1:22-23 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:  "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."

 

Whenever you see the word fulfill in Matthew, start looking for an old treasure.  Have you ever noticed in the Bible how many times God’s heroes had odd births?  Jesus’ odd birth was foreshadowed many times.  God has messed with babies before:

-It began with Adam and Eve.  That was an odd birth.

-Isaac; God intervenes.  An old couple has a baby.

-Joseph; his mother Rachel is barren for a long time, then she has a baby.

-Moses; God intervenes and the baby ends up in Pharaoh’s house instead of drown in the Nile.

-Samuel; God intervenes and another barren women’s prayer is answered.

-Guess this one…

 

Judges 13:2-3  A certain man of Zorah, named Manoah, from the clan of the Danites, had a wife who was sterile and remained childless.The angel of the LORD appeared to her and said, "You are sterile and childless, but you are going to conceive and have a son.

…named?  Samson.

-In the New Testament, according to Luke… John the Baptist; More old parents.

 

From the old treasure chest we have a pattern; God messing with special children.  Why would you expect anything different with the birth of His son?  It is the opposite; instead of an old couple we have a virgin one.  But you see the pattern of God’s intervention in the birth of his special kids.

 

The birth of Jesus is the fulfillment of old promises.

 

But there is a new part of this treasure.

 

Matthew 1:23  "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel"--which means, "God with us."

 

There were a bunch of VIhsou/j in Nazareth but there wasn’t any Immanuels.  It was a new name.  The name Immanuel was more than anyone would dare to claim.  Immanuel; God with us.  This is new and unexpected!  Matthew’s Gospel is framed around this phrase; God with us.   It is here in the beginning of chapter 1 and it is at the end in chapter 28.

 

Matthew 28:19-20 “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely (lo) I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

 

God with us.  There is no better treasure I can give you this morning then to convince you of these three words; God with us.

 

In a very real way God became a fetus.  In a very real way the Holy Spirit impregnated Mary.  In a very real way God came to be with us.  This is startling.  This is unprecedented.  This is a new treasure.

 

Not since the Garden of Eden has God walked with humans.  But now, God walks with humans again.  And he says he will be with us to the very end of the age.  The Incarnation is all about God becoming man so he can walk with us again! 

 

A nice God, a decent God, a semi-loving God, a predictably righteous God would send us some help, maybe an angel or a prophet or a sacred text – at least some advice.  We could respect and admire a God like that.  But the Gospel of Jesus’ mercy goes far beyond conventional righteousness, decency and niceness.  At Christmas God became a naked baby.  You can’t get more vulnerable than that.  It’s beyond decent; it’s wild, lavish and dangerous love.  – Matthew Woodley -

 

God does not intervene from a distance.  God doesn’t sit on his throne sending decrees off to a faraway country.  God does the inconceivable and is conceived into this world… as a baby.  God comes to walk with us; to be one of us; to be with us.

 

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Bono the lead singer of U2 after a Christmas Eve service made an insightful observation, “Love has to become an action or something concrete.  It would have to happen.  There must be an incarnation.  Love must be flesh.”

 

1 John 4:9-10 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 

 

That is the gift of Christmas.  That is the Christmas treasure… God with us. 

 

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Matthew brings out the Old and the New treasures.

Jesus is the ordinary.  Immanuel is the miraculous.

Jesus is human.  Immanuel is divine.

Jesus is the culmination of the old.  Immanuel is and the startling new!

Jesus is son of Joseph.  Immanuel is the Son of Mary.

Jesus and Immanuel; the old and the new.

 

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This morning I want to share one more treasure.  It is an imaginary soliloquy of God talking to himself about how to connect to us. It is called…

 

An Advent Monologue

By Walter Wangerin

 

I love a child.

But she is afraid of me.

 

I want to help this child, so terribly in need of help.  For she is hungry; her cheeks are sunken to the bone; but she knows little of food less of nutrition.  I know both these things.  She is cold, and she is dirty; she lives at the end of a tattered hallway, three flights up in a tenement whose landlord long forgot the human bodies huddled in that place.  But I know how to build a fire; and I know how to wash a face.

 

She is retarded, if the truth be told, thick in her tongue, slow in her mind, yet aware of her infirmity and embarrassed by it.  But here I am well-traveled throughout the universe, and wise, and willing to share my wisdom.

 

She is lonely all the day long.  She sits in a chair with her back to the door, her knees tucked tight, her head down.  And I can see how her hair hangs to her ankles; but I cannot see her face.  She's hiding.  If I could but see her face and kiss it, I could draw the loneliness out of her.  I am mightily persuasive myself, and I could make it lovely by my love alone.

 

I love the child.

But she is afraid of me.

 

Then how can I come to her, to feed and to heal her by my love?  Knock on the door?  Enter the common way?

No.  She holds her breath at a gentle tap, pretending that she is not home; she feels unworthy of polite society.  And loud, imperious bangings would only send her into shivering tears, for police and bill collectors have troubled her in the past.

 

And should I break down the door?  Or should I show my face at the window?  Oh, what terrors I'd cause then.  These have happened before.  She's suffered the rapings of kindless men, and therefore she hangs her head, lower.

 

I am none of these, to be sure.  But if I came the way that they have come, she would not know me different.  She would not receive my love, but might likely die of a failed heart.

 

I've called from the hall.  I've sung her name through cracks in the plaster.  But I have a bright trumpet of a voice, and she covers her ears and weeps.  She thinks each word an accusation.

 

I could, of course, ignore the doors and walls and windows, simply appearing before her as I am.  I have that capability.  But she hasn't the strength to see it and would die.  She is, you see, her own deepest hiding place, and fear and death are the truest doors against me.

 

I love the child.

But she is afraid of me.

 

Then what is left?  How can I come to my beloved?  Where's the entrance that will not frighten nor kill her?  By what door can love arrive after all, truly to nurture her, to take the loneliness away, to make her beautiful, as lovely as my moon at night, my sun come morning?

 

I know what I will do.

 

I'll make the woman herself my door-and by her body enter in her life.  Ah, I like that.  I like that.  However could she be afraid of her own flesh, of something lowly underneath her ribs?  I'll be the baby waking in her womb.  Hush; she'll have the time, this way, to know my coming first before I come.  Hush; time to get ready, to touch her tummy, touching the promise alone, as it were.  When she hangs her head, she shall be looking at me, thinking of me, loving me while I gather in the deepest place of her being.  It is an excellent plan!  Hush.

 

And then, when I come, my voice shall be so dear to her.  It shall call the tenderness out of her soul and loveliness into her face.  And when I take milk at her breast, she'll sigh and sing another song, a sweet Magnificat, for she shall feel important then, and worthy, seeing that another life depends on hers.  My need shall make her rich!

 

Then what of her loneliness?  Gone.  Gone in the bond between us, though I shall not have said a word, yet.  And for my sake she shall wash her face, for she shall have a reason then.

 

And the sins that she suffered, the hurts at the hands of men, shall be transfigured by my being: I make good come out of evil; I am the good come out of evil.

 

I love the child.

Then she will not be afraid of me.

Ever so slowly and gently, so as not to startle us, God comes in the old Jesus and the new Immanuel.

 

Tim Stidham

Los Alamos Church of Christ

December 18, 2011