Trading Tokens for God’s Unfolding Story

Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year A
21 December 2025

Isaiah 7:10-16
Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19
Romans 1:1-7
Matthew 1:18-25

I never quite understood the tradition of four Advent candles representing hope, peace, joy, and love. I don’t object to hope, peace, joy, and love, but – aside from appearing arbitrary – it seems a domestication of the themes of Advent.
Advent means “coming”. Consequently, we observe Advent by focusing on God’s coming. The coming of God has two aspects, there is the return of Christ on the last day, and there is God’s coming at Christmas. And the One who comes again is the same as the one who comes at Christmas.
You may be surprised to learn that the traditional themes of Advent are death, judgment, heaven, and hell.¹ And there is the answer to why some would prefer hope, peace, joy, and love. Besides, the world around us has been getting into “the Christmas spirit” ever since Halloween was done.

But not naming the candles of our Advent wreath hope, peace, love, and joy may help us understand that hope, peace, love, and joy are serious things. How do we maintain hope in a world that seems out of kilter, how do we remain peaceful in a time when anger has become socially acceptable, how do we love neighbours and enemies, not to mention relatives, and how do we remain joyful when life seems hard? There is no question that hope, peace, love, and joy are Christian attitudes toward the world, yet naming candles on a few Sunday’s in December may not get us there. In fact, the hope of Advent is for a new beginning.

The first book of the Bible is called Genesis, which means beginning. It tells of the beginning of creation. It’s first sentence reads, ¹In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, ²the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then, by telling us two stories, it continues to tell of the creation of the world.
We come upon the word “Genesis” in Matthew 1. When Matthew writes, Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way, it says that the genesis of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. And so Matthew is doing more than naming four candles, Matthew is telling us that in Jesus God is making a new beginning. We recall that St Paul speaks of a new creation. In the 21^st chapter of the book of Revelation the one who was seated on the throne said, ‘See, I am making all things new.’ In other words, Matthew says what comes about in Jesus is newness, and that this is not just the newness of a little child but that this newness has cosmic proportions.

Now, while Jesus brings newness and is the new creation, and everyone in Christ shares in the new creation, there is also continuity, for the God who breathed the universe into being is the God who comes among us in Jesus. It is not a different story from the one before, from the story of God’s covenant with Israel, it is the same story that unfolds. This is important for it makes clear that there is only one God and also that this God can be trusted, for God remains faithful and keeps promises.
You may have noticed that the angel appears to Joseph in a dream. He is not the first Joseph to whom an angel speaks in a dream. And both of them lead their families to safety in Egypt.
We also may have noticed how today’s Gospel reading echoed our first reading. In our first reading the prophet Isaiah said to Ahaz, the king of Judah, Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Look, the young woman is with child and shall bear a son and shall name him Immanuel. When Matthew quotes this verse he reminds us that God is faithful, that Jesus is the One foretold, and is the fulfillment of God’s promise. So there is continuity: The God of Israel is the God who sends Jesus.
Now, if you paid close attention you will have noticed that what in the reading from Isaiah was a young woman becomes the virgin. The LXX, the Greek translation of the Old Testament translates young woman as virgin and this is the text Matthew quotes. But the thing that is important here and why this isn’t an error, is that Jesus is both human and divine. Jesus brings all of God before humanity and all of humanity before God. It is what the Council of Nicea understood 1700 years ago.

Usually, when we read Matthew’s story about the birth of Jesus we notice the dilemma that Joseph faces and must resolve, and we will come to that. But there is something else we must notice. This story of newness and salvation comes to ordinary people. Joseph is a tekton, a construction worker, and despite his family tree which as Jesus’s adoptive father he lends to Jesus, he is what we would call impoverished nobility. Both Mary and Joseph remind us that God makes the common holy. That was true for Abraham and Sarah, and it is true for us today.

And now to Joseph’s dilemma. Matthew tells us that Joseph was a righteous man. Luther translated devout and righteous. Righteousness is an important theme in Matthew’s gospel. In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus blesses those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. Jesus says that not one letter, not even one stroke of a letter, will pass from the law, and says that unless our righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees, we will not enter the kingdom of heaven. In Matthew’s gospel the law is not abolished but it is exceeded.²

That Joseph is introduced as a righteous man means that while he certainly is personally hurt that his fiancé is pregnant, as it would suggest either infidelity or sexual assault, it creates a further problem, for there are rules as to what he must do. Two options are possible, the first one is to expose Mary publicly, which well may have involved stoning.³ The other option was to dismiss her quietly, but it is not so long ago that in our world the pregnancy of single women was seen as shameful. And so even a quiet dismissal, however, compassionate, still would have involved public shame.
You will recall that Matthew introduces us to two names for Jesus, one is the one the angel tells Joseph to name Jesus, Yeshua, or Jesus, meaning to save. Jesus is the Saviour. The other name the tradition has also kept. Perhaps you recall it from Händel’s Messiah, it is the fulfilment of what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”
Jesus is God with us, in the child at Bethlehem and in his promise at the end of Matthew’s Gospel to be with us always to the end of the age.

Joseph listens to the angel and takes Mary as his wife. We may first think of it as romantic, but it is in obedience to God. Joseph keeps the law by understanding that love is the greatest law as we learn from Jesus later in Matthew’s gospel, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” ³⁸This is the greatest and first commandment. ³⁹And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” ⁴⁰On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’ (Matthew 22) Of course, when he says this, Jesus quotes the Torah.⁴

It would be wrong to say that Joseph forgave sin for the angel had opened his eyes to God’s design. But the child to be born is Jesus for he will save his people from their sins. This is not to be thought as a moralistic accounting of the sins of individuals but as a restoration to be God’s people. And the forgiveness of sin is the effect of God’s presence. The saviour Jesus is God with us. And it is Jesus who enables us to live in hope, peace, love, and joy.

Thanks be to God.