Today we read one of two Annunciations in the Gospels. Of the two, it is not my favorite.
In the first chapter of Luke, the passage we generally mean when we refer to the Annunciation, the angel Gabriel comes to Mary, speaking to her with respect and encouragement – “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Mary is “perplexed,” and so Gabriel tells her, “Do not be afraid, Mary.” He tells this young, unmarried virgin, little more than a girl, with no power in that time and place, that she will conceive the Son of God. And though Mary is at first confused and dumbfounded, she accepts the angel’s words, and God’s invitation, to bear the savior of the world. Gabriel tells her the name of her son – Jesus – and that her cousin Elizabeth is also expecting despite her advanced age – God can spark life in the unlikeliest of people – a virgin, and an elderly woman.
But in today’s passage, from the first chapter of Matthew, we don’t see Mary at all, just Joseph, and another angel (this one isn’t named). Joseph and Mary are engaged, and at that time, engagement was much more like marriage than it is now – he and Mary have promised fidelity to each other. Mary has, presumably, already told Joseph about her angel’s visit, and he has learned she is pregnant – by the Holy Spirit, she says – and she says her son is destined to save humanity from all their sins.
One can imagine how Joseph, or any other man in his time, would interpret this, what he would assume – Joseph, after all, knows the child is not his, and therefore Mary must have had an affair, and she’s making up a story to protect her reputation and possibly even her life – in those days, a woman who is accused of adultery could be put to death. He is probably feeling humiliated himself, thinking that his neighbors and family see him as foolish, betrayed, a poor judge of character.
But Joseph, the Gospel of Matthew tells us, is righteous and compassionate, and he does not want to humiliate Mary, much less sentence her to be stoned, and so he has decided to, essentially, divorce her, quietly. As a young, unmarried mother, her life will likely be hard enough as it is – facing a society that looks down on her, an economy that does not allow women to gain power or wealth easily, a culture that sees men as credible, important, greater than.
And then God sends an angel to set Joseph straight, to appeal to his compassion and to his faith one step further – to tell him that Mary’s telling the truth: she will give birth to the Messiah, and no, Joseph is not the father. God is. And what does the angel tell Joseph? The same thing he tells Mary: “Do not be afraid.”
Matthew’s Annunciation story, really, is full of hope and transformation, painting the picture of a man who defies the conventions of society because of the strength of his faith in God, who is transformed by the news that God has kept his promise to send a Messiah and has chosen his betrothed, Mary, to be his mother. Joseph believes the angel, he trusts Mary, he goes ahead with their marriage – Joseph does the right thing.
But I still find the Luke annunciation story – Gabriel’s conversation with a confused and doubtful Mary – more compelling, more encouraging. It might be because in today’s reading, in Matthew’s annunciation, we don’t hear Mary’s voice once. It might be because it reminds me of just how precarious Mary’s position was, how she as a young woman living two thousand years ago had very little protection in society, very little control over her own life. Her ability to have shelter and food and a safe place in society were directly connected to her relationships with men, especially a husband. In today’s reading, her life is saved because of a dream. Joseph needs a visit from an angel to believe Mary when she tells him she hasn’t been unfaithful. I’m reminded that no matter how compassionate or righteous Joseph is, he and Mary still lived in a culture in which not everyone was equal – a culture that did not see everyone as equally deserving or equally acceptable.
But the more I think about this passage, the more I realize that just as much as the Luke Annunciation story does, these verses in Matthew turn culture on its head. What this passage might also be telling us is that things are not what they seem at first – that God’s truth is found when we set aside our assumptions and allow our perspectives to be changed. It took an angel to convince Mary she could give birth to the Savior of the world; it took an angel to convince Joseph that what seemed improbable was possible. Mary and Joseph both listened to angels who told them, “be not afraid.” They set aside their fear – of society, of the unknown, of their roles in God’s cosmic, mysterious plan – to answer God’s call to be parents to the Christ child, to follow his journey to an end that would be heartbreaking, and then joyous, starting in a stable in Bethlehem.
Things are not always as they seem. God’s choice of a young, unmarried woman to give birth to the Son of God was the choice to show the world another image of love, and another image of ourselves. Perhaps it was the reminder that God’s grace is given to all, that God’s face is in every human being, no matter how different, how questionable, how difficult they might be. Writing off a person because their politics or their life choices or their world view is different from ours means writing off a beloved child of God – and perhaps, two thousand years ago, writing off the beloved mother of God.
What would we have seen had we met Mary and Joseph on the road to Bethlehem? Would we have believed her story about the Holy Spirit? Would we have trusted her, or doubted her? Would we have seen Joseph as compassionate, or as gullible?
Matthew gives the Christ child two important names in this passage – Jesus is a version of the Old Testament name Joshua, meaning “God saves.” Emmanuel expands on that, deepens that, “God with us.” God with us. Not God coming down with armies and a sword, or appearing in a pillar of fire or a column of smoke, a burning bush, a dream – but God born as a baby, the child of an unmarried young woman and her trusting beloved, a child who becomes a refugee, a carpenter and a criminal – Presbyterian author and preacher Thomas G. Long calls it one of God’s “sideways moves.”
Would we have seen Mary and Joseph’s son, the refugee, as a healer of the sick? Would we have seen Jesus the carpenter as the savior of the world? Would we have seen Christ, arrested and crucified, as the son of God?
What do we see when we look around us at the faces in our world?
Be not afraid, the angels tell us. Emmanuel, God is with us, even in the unlikeliest of people and places. Emmanuel, God is with us, in the darkest and the most difficult places and times, because he, just like us, was born into and lived through the most difficult places and times.
Madeleine L’Engle, author of many books including A Wrinkle in Time, and writer in residence for years at the Cathedral of St. John the Divine, wrote this in her poem, “First Coming”:
He did not wait till the world was ready,
till men and nations were at peace
He came when the Heavens were unsteady
and prisoners cried out for release.
He did not wait for the perfect time.
He came when the need was deep and great.
He dined with sinners in all their grime,
turned water into wine. He did not wait
till hearts were pure. In joy he came
to a tarnished world of sin and doubt.
To a world like ours, of anguished shame
He came, and his Light would not go out.
Emmanuel, God with us:
We are loved, yes. And we are told, by angels: be not afraid to love back.
Amen.
Sermon at Trinity Episcopal Church, Staunton, on Advent IV, 2022, by the Rev. Cara Ellen Modisett. Lectionary for the day: Matthew 1:18-25
