Mary comes at the end of the genealogy and, really, at the end of a long and painful story. And when she comes, for Matthew, she comes with scandal. Joseph is a righteous man, we are told, and he wants to divorce her quietly. After all, how did she get pregnant? It's all wrong. And the story keep going with the wrong! No room in the Inn, Herod killing babies. So much wrong. And Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba and exile. All of this wrong. But God is working in all of it. "But when the time had fully come, God sent his son, born of a woman"! In all of the long, painful darkness, God knows just when to let the light in! 

Transcript

Christmas is a strange time. I mean, driving is nuts, parking is nuts (we should all just get rid of cars), and by the time we get to Christmas - the decorations having started the beginning of October in Costco (which is also always nuts) we’re tired of them. 

 Think of how strange it all is: We see manger scenes right next to blown up santa’s, and and blown up Elsa’s and and blown up baby yoda’s in santa outfits. Some houses are over-the-top lights where you can turn your radios to their blinking while other entire blocks are lifeless.

 Rudolf right next to the wise men. In our laws and on our radios (Spotify playlists) Silent Night, Holy Night and the song of Mary with its cries for the mighty to be brought low and the poor to be lifted up right next to “Grandma got run over by a reindeer” and Weird Al Crooning “The Night Santa Went Crazy, the night saint Nick went insane.” 

 But the mess in some ways is just right. I mean, I’m not trying to celebrate all of the incessant “I want, I want, I wants” and the over the-the-top commercialization of what is a truly holy day, but the mess is the stuff of life. And what world does God come into anyway but this messy one? 

 How many of you married people are from from a family that opens all the presents at once and you married someone from a family that opens them one at a time. It’s a mess. And how many of you have brought back presents year after year from the same person because they really don’t know you and it is now abundantly clear that they don’t really care to know you. It’s a mess. Or how many of us are just estranged from loved ones? It’s a mess! How many long for families? It’s a mess.

 But think. We have been sitting in this long genealogy together beginning with the nomad Abraham and his wife Sarah who was barren, who long knew the sadness of desiring a child. And we have seen Judah and his boys play a “safe” life only to abuse their power. And we have seen Rahab live the red-district life. And we have seen the deep sorrow of Naomi and Ruth and the objectification of women and the abuse of power by David. If we kept going by individuals and events we would see more and more of mess. We would see wars and famines and broken families and again and again the abuse of power. It’s all such a mess. 

 But it is into this world that the Lord comes, rather uninvited. 

 And the story of Mary and Joseph again highlight it for us. 

 If we looked at Mary’s song in the gospel of Luke we would see the mess. She talks about the proud and the mighty on their thrones. She sing of the hunger and the poor.

 And if we look here at this story of Mary and Joseph right after this genealogy in Matthew what we find is a man, a just man, a righteous man, who lives in the mess of life. He’s betrothed (engaged) to be married to this woman and he finds out that she is pregnant - go figure, I mean, all of the rest of this story for Matthew has had some sexual scandal! 

 What we have before us when we come to celebrate the brith of our Lord is a total mess, wrapping paper all over the house, the drunk uncle spitting off muggle words at his wife and total catastrophe of a holiday. Mom is crying in the kitchen because she wanted, just for once, for everyone to get along! It’s a mess.

Listen to part of a sermon that Dietrich Bonhoeffer gave in Advent of 1933:

 “If God chooses Mary as an instrument, if God himself wants to come into this world in the manger at Bethlehem, that is no idyllic family affair, but the beginning of a complete turnaround, a reordering of everything on this earth.

 If we with to take part in this Advent and Christmas event, then we cannot simply be bystanders or onlookers, as if we were at the theater, enjoying all the cheerful images. 

 He repels the great and the powerful. He puts down the mighty from their thrones, he humbles the arrogant, his arm overpowers all the proud and the strong, he raises what is lowly and makes it great and splendid in his compassion. 

 Therefore we cannot approach his mangers as if it were the cradle of any other child. Those who wish to come to his manger find that something is happening within them.

”Dietrich Bonhoeffer, third Sunday in Advent 1933

 God comes into this world! Your world. Not some sanitized, dirties, messy less, manger scene bought off the wall of Macy or Gimbles. No, this world, Tamar’s world, Rahab’s world, Ruth world, Bathsheba’s world, Mary’s world, Joseph’s world, the world in Ukraine and Gaza and capital hill and Green St. 

 And Paul tells us in Galatians that it was at the fullness of time that God sent his son, born of a woman. It was just right. 

 And Matthew has set up this long long list of people at the beginning of his gospel, his book about Jesus. There is a long waiting for God, but this genealogy has also taught us that Jesus comes into a messy world and brings his grace. 

 You know, there is something odd in this genealogy that I have wanted to share with you. It’s not a genealogy like we would do one. It clearly skips a number of generations at times and we don’t really like that. Maybe for some of you it makes your questions the truth of the Bible. But Matthew isn’t so much doing history as he is doing theology. And his theology is teaching us of the mess of it all and the grace and mercy that God is spreading deep and wide in his history. But it also telling us this: that we matter to God and that he perfectly comes to us. 

 ¹⁷ So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. 

 Sort of a strange detail to us, especially since there were certainly more than 42 generations in that time period. But the very next thing it Matthew says is “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way”. “Now the bright of Jeshua (God saves) the Messiah (the long awaited one) took place in this way! God comes right at the right time. He’s the beginning of the seventh seventh! 

 Listen to Patty Kirk in her book, Confessions of an Amateur Believer

 “What Joseph’s story tells us, though, is that we matter to God.  We are visited by angels nightly, but, unlike Joseph, we ignore them. We matter to God.  Inexplicably.  Undeservedly.  Even we dedicated Christians tend to forget this truth – or doubt it or altogether reject it - when we encounter trouble.  It is difficult to understand why we matter, but we do.  God is watching, listening to us, speaking promises into the cacophony of our worries and the certainty of their fulfillment into our most deeply buried hopes. . . .  Faith means literally believing that in all things, even the crappiest ones, God works for the good of those who love him.”

 Brothers and Sisters, I hope you have the merriest of Christmas’, but the beauty of the Christmas story is not that God came into the merriment of it all, but it’s deepest beauty is that when the time had fully come God sent his son, born of Mary into a world of David’s and Joseph’s and Tamar and Rahabs and into a world where there is no room for him in the Inn. God comes to the mess and that is good news for you are for me and all who are far off. That is the news the angels sing, Glad tidings and great joy for all people! Amen