In my sermon on the first Sunday of Advent, I spoke about three people whom I called ‘the great figures of Advent’, the prophet Isaiah, the Blessed Virgin Mary and John the Baptist. I said then that, during Advent, we’d hear from and about all three of these people as we’re called to prepare for the coming of Christmas, the celebration of our Lord’s Incarnation, and as we look forward to his return in glory. And so we have. But today we heard about another person who’s central to the story of our Lord’s Incarnation, but one who’s often somewhat overshadowed by the others and can be overlooked because of that. And that person is Joseph.
We might not read so much about Joseph in the Scriptures as we do about the other three, but I don’t think there can be much doubt that he was chosen by God to fulfil the role he played in the story of our Lord’s Incarnation just as were Isaiah, Mary and John chosen to fulfil their roles in the story. Because what if Joseph had been a different sort of man, a man who’d acted differently than he actually did?
Our Gospel reading this morning tells us that Joseph was unwilling to make a public example of Mary, but what if he’d been so upset, so angry when he found out that Mary was pregnant with a child that wasn’t his, that he’d decided to make a fuss, to go public and divorce her? Mary could have been stoned to death and that would have been the end of the story almost before it had begun wouldn’t it? Even if Mary hadn’t been put to death for adultery, she probably wouldn’t have gone to Bethlehem to give birth, why would she? It was Joseph who was of David’s line, he was the one who had to go to Bethlehem for the census. We’re not told that of Mary herself, and how then would the Scriptures have been fulfilled that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem?
But we’re told that Joseph was a righteous man, in other words, he was a man who did what was right in God’s eyes. As such he was a man who would have feared the Lord, a man of wisdom who knew the right thing to do and wasn’t afraid to do it, regardless of what others thought. And so, Joseph considered what the right thing to do in this case was, and as he did, an angel appeared to him bringing a message from God telling him to take Mary as his wife because her child was of the Hoy Spirit. And Joseph, being a righteous man who feared the Lord, did what God wanted him to do, just as Mary had done when the angel visited her with a message from God.
We can see in this story, the story of a woman and a man doing what God asked them to do, the story of Adam and Eve brought full circle.
When we speak about the story of Adam and Eve, we often speak about it as the Fall of Man, or Adam’s Fall don’t we? We say that it was through Adam that sin entered the world. That’s fine so long as we remember that Adam means man in a general way rather than thinking of Adam as an individual person. But if we think about this story as the story of two individual people, the first human beings, who actually committed the first sin? It wasn’t the man, Adam, but the woman, Eve. It’s Eve who commits the first deliberate act of disobedience towards God, the first sin. Eve eats the forbidden fruit, and then offers some to Adam who also eats, and sin and death enter the world.
The Church often speaks of Mary as the second Eve, by which we mean that through her obedience to God, Eve’s disobedience was undone. But Joseph played his part in undoing that disobedience too because his obedience to God, his willingness to join Mary in her obedience, is crucial to the story of our Lord’s Incarnation. We could say that, as Mary’s obedience counteracted Eve’s disobedience, Joseph’s obedience counteracted Adam’s disobedience. In both cases, the woman acted first and the man followed. And so, just as through the joint disobedience of Eve and Adam, sin and death entered the world, through the joint obedience of Mary and Joseph, the forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life, was allowed to enter the world.
Over the last few weeks, we’ve been hearing from and about these great figures of Advent and what we’ve been hearing all falls under the central theme of Advent which is to Wake up! To get ready and be ready to meet and greet the Lord when he returns. To stay awake, so that we’re always ready for the Lord because we don’t know when he will return, and it could be at any time. This is what we see in Isaiah, Mary, Joseph and John. None of them knew that the Lord would enter their lives when he did, nor in the way he did, but because they were righteous people, people who feared the Lord and who looked to do his will in their lives, they were ready when they did meet him and so they were able to do what he asked them to do.
We could say that the great message, and the great challenge for us during Advent, is to make sure that we’re like these people. Or perhaps that we’re less like Adam and Eve, and more like Mary and Joseph. If we remember the story in Genesis, Adam and Eve weren’t ready to meet the Lord when he came looking for them in the garden, and so they hid themselves from him.
Mary and Joseph, on the other hand, were ready to meet the Lord when he entered their lives. They didn’t try to hide or run away, no matter how unexpected or frightening that was when it happened, and no matter how troubling and dangerous the message they were given was. And so they were able to do what God asked of them.
So as we look at ourselves and our lives, to whom do we most compare, Adam and Eve, or Mary and Joseph? The truth is that we’re all a mixture of the two, but who are we most like? Sadly, I think we can be a lot more like Adam and Eve than we might want to think or admit. None of us are truly obedient to God in our lives. We all sin, and encourage others to sin, to be disobedient towards God; we do that merely by being sinful ourselves. And we’re all too easily swayed to be disobedient towards God by others.
One of the things I’ve spoken several times about during Advent is church attendance and the need for people who say they’re Christians to show that by coming to church regularly. And yet one of the most common ways we show ourselves to be like Adam and Eve is through our attendance at church, or rather the lack of it.
It’s Christ’s own example to worship God on the Sabbath and so it should be our practice too. In the Eucharistic Prayer which we pray at every Eucharist, we speak about our worship of God as ‘our duty and service’ to God, as our ‘spiritual sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving’ to God for all he does and has done for us. And yet, when it come to actually performing that duty and offering something back to God for all he does and has done for us, how many people prefer to do something else instead, or think something else is more important? Just think of the reasons people often give for not coming to church. The service is too early (or too late). It’s too cold, it’s too dark; I’ve got to walk the dog, feed the neighbour’s cat, water the neighbour’s plants (and yes, I have been told that on more than one occasion as a reason why someone couldn’t come to church). And then there’s the very common one around this time of year, I can’t come because I have to wait in for a delivery.
Or we hear things like, I’ve got into this story on Eastenders, or Coronation Street, or Emmerdale, or whichever soap it might be, and I don’t want to miss how it ends. I can’t come because United (or City) are playing and it’s on the tele. I won’t have time because I’m going out later and I need to get ready (and yes, I’ve heard that one more than once too).
And we can so easily encourage other people, to do these things, and be so easily swayed into doing them ourselves. For example, on a pre-ordination visit to the parish where I was going to serve my first curacy, I overheard a conversation between a couple of ladies. They were talking about whether to go to my ordination service at Blackburn Cathedral the following Saturday morning and the conversation went like this.
“Are you going to that service at the cathedral next Saturday?”
“I don’t know. Are you?”
“No, I’m not going. I’m going to a band concert on Saturday night. I’m not going to a service at the cathedral on Saturday morning as well.”
“Oh. Well I was going to go with you.”
“Well I’m not going.”
“Oh well, if you’re not going, I’m not going either.”
We might not think these things matter because, after all, if we don’t go to church it’s only 1 or 2 people not going. But they do matter. They matter because if people see Christians not going to church for these reasons, why should they think that going to church is in any way important. If Christians won’t go to church if it’s early or late or cold or dark, why should anyone else? If the dog, the neighbour’s cat and plants, waiting in for a delivery, what’s on the television, or getting ready to go out partying are all more important than worshipping God to Christians, why should anyone else think it’s important to worship God?
These things matter because they can have a very, very detrimental effect on the Church. Many people will remember, I’m sure, when Evensong was sung in every parish church, every Sunday. These days, it’s hardly ever sung in any parish church and the blame for the demise of Sunday Evensong has been laid squarely at the feet of a television programme, The Forsythe Saga. That programme was first shown on Saturday evenings in 1967, but when it was repeated on Sunday evenings in 1968-9, congregations at Evensong were decimated because people stayed in to watch The Forsythe Saga rather than going to church. And, in the vast majority of parishes, those congregations never recovered and neither has the tradition of Sunday Evensong in the Church of England.
But this is just one of the ways we can be more like Adam and Eve than like Mary and Joseph. If we think about our lives honestly, I’m sure we can all think of many ways in which we disobey God because it’s easier than being obedient to him.
I’m sure we can all think of ways in which we’re unfaithful to God because being faithful means putting him first and our own pleasure second. And I’m sure we can all think of ways in which we’ve encouraged others to be disobedient and unfaithful by excusing disobedience and unfaithfulness in ourselves in their presence.
The Advent message and challenge is to Wake up! To be ready to meet the Lord when he comes, whenever that might be. What would we do if the Lord were to suddenly come into our lives? Would we, like Isaiah, say “Here am I, send me.” Or would we say,” Sorry, I’ve got something else to do, can’t someone else do it?” Would we, like Mary, say, “Let it be to me according to your word.” Or would we say, “That sounds a difficult and dangerous, can’t you make it a bit easier? I’ll do it then.” Would we, like Joseph, do the right thing regardless of the consequences for us, or would we do what was easiest and most convenient for us, regardless of the consequences for others? Would we, like John, born into a priestly family, give up a life of comfort to be about God’s business, or would we only be prepared to do God’s will so long as we could do it when and where we want to, and so long as it doesn’t interfere with our everyday lives?
Amen.
The Propers for Advent 4 can be viewed here.
Parish Church of St Mark Chadderton 