Vigil of the nativity – Sunday 24 December A✠D 2023
✠ Psalmody: Psalm 2:6-7;24:1, 3-5;98:3b–4a, 2;2:7
✠ Lection: Isaiah 62:1–4a;Romans 1:1–6;St. Matthew 1:18b–21
In the Name of the Father and of the ✠ Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Blessed Advent and Merry Christmas! What we experience today is a liturgical oddity that is infrequently seen, but oddity may convey a shred of negativity. Let us not at all be negative on this Eve of the Holy Nativity of Our Lord that is also the fourth and final Sunday in Advent. When that fourth Sunday falls on December 24th, the Church has historically observed an interesting blend for the morning service in which the paraments and other ceremonies retain that of Advent but the propers, that is, the readings and other things that change each week in the service, are pulled in from those for the Christmas Vigil. So, we are properly closing out Advent by our ceremonies, keeping in mind all that we’ve heard since earlier this month in preparation for our coming King, while enjoying a round of Christmas appetizers thrown in that will have us feasting here, eating there, and hearing and singing Lessons and Carols this afternoon in ultimate preparation for the main course to come in the Christ Mass at 10:30am tomorrow. This mixture of a Christmas Eve/Advent 4 morning doesn’t take place often, but this year is especially unique in that it falls right before a leap year, which means we’ll do this again in just five years’ time. Yes, it’s good and proper to pray and hope that the Lord sustains our congregation until then and beyond! It’s a great hope to have, because we’ve got it real good here with what He’s doing.
And what He’s doing is giving us reason to rejoice again at His coming. Today’s focused reason is from early in the Gospel according to St. Matthew. Let us now again go even back unto Nazareth, and see this thing which is come to pass, which the Lord hath made known unto us. We have the historical account of the home into which the Son of God was born, but consider well the situation, for it almost didn’t happen because of what Joseph had intended to do.
After Mary the mother of Jesus was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together. This timing is extremely important. We must understand betrothal, for it is different than merely saying, “yes,” to the question will you marry me. It meant much more. For us, even legally speaking, we do not see marriage as being official until the day of the wedding when vows are exchanged, certificates are signed, and guests throw stuff at the newlyweds. From then on, for us, it is a marriage. But in these ancient times, marriage had stages to it, with each of them being equally official and legal. A man would seek a wife, likely pay a dowry to her father, and enter into a binding agreement for her, with her, for marriage, an agreement called betrothal, which was basically a waiting period for preparing for the entire integration of two becoming one flesh; much, much more serious and binding than our engagement, and only reversed by divorce or death. Already during this betrothal, this waiting period, it would be right for the man to consider the woman his wife, although yet without the full consummation of the marriage that would come in a later ceremony after which he would then properly receive her into his chamber and into his home. For virgins, this betrothal period would last about a year at the end of which that consummating ceremony and celebration would then take place. It’s into the Blessed Virgin Mary’s waiting period, her betrothal to Joseph, that we enter into Nazareth this morning. Joseph has sought to be married to Mary, paid the dowry, has been making preparations to bring her finally into his home as his beloved. We are told that he is a just man, meaning that he is righteous. He has not gotten ahead of himself. He has kept his hands off of her, rightfully waiting for the day when she is in full-measure, final stage declared to be his wife in all intimate measure. But now, Mary is pregnant. Look through Joseph’s eyes and wonder with him: But how is Mary pregnant? Naturally speaking, if Joseph knows that it cannot be by him, he’s left with only one conclusion: Mary has been unfaithful and has broken the sixth commandment.
Being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, Joseph would’ve had to have dealt with what the Torah says in Deuteronomy 22, because not making her a pubic example entailed far more than just her being humiliated in the eyes of other people through adultery becoming known. Moses writes: If a young woman who is a virgin is betrothed to a husband, and a man finds her in the city and lies with her, then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones. Therefore, we can surely conclude that Joseph was also merciful, and in wanting neither death nor humiliation to happen to Mary, he was minded to put her away secretly, not to sone her, not to shame her, but to divorce her as quietly as possible. Love covers a multitude of sins. In this case, Joseph was wrong in thinking that Mary had sinned, but even in thinking that she had, he sought her good. He loved her in this way, enough to cover her sin, or what he presumed was her sin. He didn’t want to play a part in seeing that she received full consequences for her sin. He is a saintly example for how we may cover one another’s shame.
So, now we think of being there with him, before he takes his nap and hears from the angel. He was betrothed to a virgin, had prepared well to receive her righteously, and the virgin ends up apparently at least no longer being a virgin by means of another man in an act of adultery which has her pregnant with at-least-not-Joseph’s child. It’s quite an interesting year of betrothal, is it not?
Let’s leave them right there and look at the big picture. Let’s step way back and take a look at the plan of salvation and how ours, and the whole world’s, enters into that betrothal picture. In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth and in six, natural, 24-hour days, finished creating every thing else in them, including man. Man sinned and submitted all of that creation to darkness and corruption. Everything and everyone is dying. God responded to man’s transgression and certain death by promising that the Seed of the woman would crush the serpent’s head and free us from his tyranny of death. It was then for more than 4,000 years that man and all creation waited for that promised Seed. No, the universe is not billions, not even millions, of years old, but about 6,500.
Those 4,000 years of eager waiting for the Promise to come finally ended in a very specific year. You know the one. Therefore the Lord Himself will give you a sign: Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel. It needed to be in that year of betrothal, because a sinless One had to be born of a virgin, without a natural, earthly father, for it is by the father that sin is passed on to the child. She had to know not a man, and the Blessed Virgin Mary had indeed yet to. But it also had to be that year because every child needs a father in all the years beyond his conception and birth. Glory be to God that He is our almighty Father, for He is gracious and merciful to single mothers. But their singleness is not what He designed. God formed woman out of the side of man to be a suitable helper for him and for him to be all that a husband and father is meant to be by godly design: protector, provider, leader, teacher, sacrifice.
So, it had to be the year when righteous Virgin Mary was betrothed to righteous Joseph because the Savior must be conceived by the Holy Spirit, sinless, and born of a virgin, by such being called the Son of God. Likewise, in His humility as fully man, or properly speaking at this point, fully child, he needed that earthly father. It couldn’t have happened a year later, because the final marriage ceremony would’ve take place and Mary would no longer be virgin. It couldn’t have happened a year earlier because Mary was virgin, but not yet betrothed to Joseph. She would’ve been a single mother. By the conception of the Christ Child taking place in this year, He was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary and was adopted as his own son by a godly man who fulfilled that fatherly vocation wonderfully. No one but a righteous, just man would respond, although in assumptive error at first, with compassion and mercy to a pregnant, betrothed wife. And only such a man would then heed the words of the angel and take Mary to be his wife and her child as his own.
Behold the sincere value of adoption, because to take a child to yourself as your own although he is not of your own flesh is a tremendously merciful and loving act. It has great value in this life, but now consider your adoption as sons. Men and women alike should thankfully embrace the title sons of God, for if sons, then heirs. Don’t let modern feminist agendas rob you of the joy of being called an heir of the eternal God in the designation by your Father as son. But you were conceived in sin as children of the devil and were bound to his same fate, the lake of fire for eternity. You needed a righteous Father. You needed to be adopted by the Father Who art in heaven. The magnificent and stunning reality and purpose of God’s 4,000 year precision down to that year wherein the womb of Mary, betrothed to Joseph, was the promised Seed, was that He did it for each and every one of you, yes, for all y’all. The fullness of time, the coming of the King, incarnation of the eternal Son took place precisely at the right time so that He could not only receive the name Jesus, but would fulfill it. The Father sent word that His Son in the flesh was to be called Jesus, which means Yahweh saves, the LORD saves; it means Savior and for the entirety of Advent, we’ve prepared for His coming even now yet still garbed in subdued darker colors while building up to joyful bursting within as the angels could not help but do when they sang Gloria in Excelsis Deo that first Christmas night. Glory be to God on high! We will return to that song with them tomorrow morning as we celebrate Christ Mass in full measure. Do join us. Restore into your life that rightful place of Christmas Day, not as an American holiday, but as a Christian Holy Day. We will pray. We will sing. We will rejoice. We will feast in remembrance of Him, in remembrance of how the 4,000 year wait went on for not a single one more, but Christ Jesus was born in Bethlehem to save you, His people, from your sins.
In ✠ Jesus’ Name. Amen.