John 3:16-18

16 For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

God So Loved the World

Christmas is such a special time of year, isn’t it? We can get a little starry-eyed with all the lights and garland and pretty decorations. Life gets a little out of balance – but in a good way – when you’re bombarded by family and friends. There are presents with your name on them, and it’s not even your birthday! And then there’s the food! The ham. The duck. The potatoes. The Brussel sprouts with bacon. The chocolate and the cookies. No work. No school. It’s almost too good to be true, like your own little fairy tale.

But it’s not all mistletoe and eggnog, is it? How long can you be in the same room as Uncle #2 without getting annoyed and angry? Maybe your Christmas tree is looking pretty bare this year and you haven’t seen a single gift with your name on it. Are you alone this Christmas – no company staying over, no party or dinner invitations? Is this your first Christmas with a notable absence around the dinner table?

As happy a time as Christmas is supposed to be, I couldn’t help but get a little down myself yesterday as I was moving all 490 pounds of our food drive donations. What a gift our neighborhood contributed to people in need! What a blessing! But the fact that there are people in that kind of need at this time of year…

I’ve heard some of your stories about loss and trial and hardship – stories I would have only expected to hear on fictional dramas. I see the anxiety and depression written on faces; I feel it in my own heart.

Christmas can sometimes feel like that fresh layer of snow – it makes everything look pretty and clean… for a couple days, until it gets trampled and dirty and gross again. The decorations are only going to be up for so long. Eventually your company will go back home. Your presents will soon lose their novelty. You’ll have to face reality again before you know it. It can all seem so fleeting, so temporary.

But there is one part of Christmas that lasts. Long after the tree is out on the curb, long after the leftovers are eaten and gone, long after the radio stations stop playing Christmas music, you can still hear about the love of your God.

We heard it a minute ago: “For God so loved the world…” That’s you! Can you believe it? The Almighty God, the Creator of heaven and earth, who can hold the whole universe in the palm of his hand, loves you.

What have you done to deserve that love? Are you a pretty good person? Good parent? Good student? Maybe. But what makes you stand out? Out of the billions of people on this planet why should God love you? Have you cured cancer? Brought peace to war-torn countries? Saved one life?

What about that guilt you carry, or the secrets you don’t want anyone to know? If your loved ones found out what you did, or if they could read some of your thoughts, would they still love you? Imagine a God who knows all things, done in dark corners and on incognito browsers. Imagine a God who can look into hearts and hear our thoughts, who can uncover every lie and compile every wrong we’ve ever done but never been caught doing.

Imagine a God who knows all things, and still loves you anyway. That’s our God! That’s the God who loves this world enough to do something about it.

You see, sin – in whatever form it takes – is evil. It’s an act of hostility against God. It makes us his enemies. Lying, cheating, stealing. Having lustful, greedy, angry thoughts. Ignoring him in our daily lives. They’re all an act rebellion against him, and yet, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son.”

The baby whose birth we celebrate tonight is the Son God gave. Jesus is the Savior God sent into this world to show you how much he loves you. These aren’t just words. God acted. God sacrificed everything. For you.

Can you imagine doing what God did for you? If you had a son – the apple of your eye, healthy as can be – and another parent whose own child was catatonic came up to you and begged you for your son’s liver, lungs and brain, would you give them to him? Would you sacrifice your son for a stranger? Of course not! That’s unthinkable.

Now, what if that person whose child was in danger was your arch nemesis, who fights you at every turn, who complains about you behind your back, who actively works against you? Would you sacrifice your son for his? God would. God did. For you.

He sent Jesus to be born at Christmas knowing full well what would happen to him on Good Friday, knowing that the people he was sent to save would reject and ridicule him, would crucify and kill him. God knew that Jesus would die a criminal’s death – not for crimes that he had done, but to bear your shame and guilt – but God sent him anyway, to forgive your sin and to give you eternal life.

God loved you so much that he sacrificed his own Son to save you. God loves you so much that does not hold your sin against you anymore. It’s been crucified with Jesus. Can you believe it? Jesus says you can. In fact, Jesus says, “God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

Eternal life! That’s God’s gift to you through faith in Jesus, and it’s better than any gift you’ll get this year. That’s what makes Christmas infinitely better than a fresh coat of snow, because it doesn’t just last one or two days; it’s yours forever.

Finally, that’s what this night is all about. We are here to celebrate a birth from two thousand years ago that promises us a life that will go on for endless millions of years. All because God so loved the world. All because God so loves you. Take this love with you tonight and unwrap it again and again throughout the year. God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son so that you shall not perish but have eternal life. Amen.

Matthew 1:18-25

18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: his mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

And He Gave Him the Name Jesus

“And he gave him the name Jesus.” It may be the least exciting sentence in this whole passage, but it may also be the most significant.

It starts with “he.” That’s Joseph. It’s normal for a father to be the one to name his son. But Joseph was no ordinary father, and the child born to Mary was no ordinary son. For all intents and purposes, Joseph looked like your ordinary carpenter. He wasn’t wealthy. His family didn’t hold any particular sway in his community. But his ancestry was rich and powerful.

We didn’t read it, but the only thing that Matthew writes in his gospel before the birth of Jesus, is the family tree of Joseph. We don’t need Ancestry.com to figure it; Matthew records 52 generations going all the way back to Abraham. And what we find there is amazing.

Like all family trees, the top is narrower than the bottom. That is to say, Father Abraham had many sons, and many sons had father Abraham. A lot of people at the time of Joseph could claim to be a descendant of Abraham. But, as we go through this list, we see celebrity after celebrity – names that we recognize, like Isaac and Jacob and Judah. All three of them are discussed at great length in the book of Genesis. All of them received the promise and blessing of God that their children would become a great nation and that all nations on earth would be blessed through them.

Then we see Boaz who took in the widow Ruth and provided for her. And then David and Solomon his grandson and great-grandson who became the two greatest kings Israel ever had. After them, 13 more kings all the way until the Babylonian captivity when any right to rule was taken away from them and never given back.

That’s why we don’t know names like Eliakim or Zadok or Eleazar, because by the time they returned to Israel, being of the line of David didn’t matter too much anymore. Which is also why, even though Joseph was the direct descendant of King David, he didn’t sit on a throne or rule over a kingdom. He could be a no-name carpenter that no one paid attention to.

But God did. He hadn’t forgotten his promises to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to King David and King Solomon. Everyone else may have lost sight of the line of the Savior weaving its way through history, but God hadn’t. Joseph was the man.

You could also say that figuratively about Joseph’s spirituality. He was “the man.” Matthew describes him as being “a righteous man,” and everything we hear about him is positive. He was a faithful believer and conscientious in everything he did. He knew God’s law and wanted to live according to God’s will.

Which is why, when he found out that his fiancée was pregnant – and they hadn’t slept together yet (which is another sign of Joseph’s righteousness) – Joseph was ready to divorce her. The only conclusion he could come to was that she had been unfaithful to him, which is the only proper grounds for divorce.

Joseph was well within his rights, but he wasn’t about to abuse those rights or seek revenge. He was still planning to act in love and compassion. He didn’t want to “expose [Mary] to public disgrace.” It wasn’t about getting even or giving her what she deserved or even giving up on her. Even in divorce, Joseph showed his integrity to protect and honor the woman he promised to love his whole life long – even when it seemed like she had broken that promise to him. Joseph was a standup guy.

Now, at this point in the story, it’s hard to see how we could get from divorcing a seemingly unfaithful fiancée to naming her son Jesus. That’s not usually how it works. Once you split, you split. You don’t start parenting your cheating spouse’s children. Which is another reason why this unexciting sentence (“And he gave him the name Jesus.”) is so significant, because it means that God had to intervene.

While Joseph was still mulling over how to solve a problem like Mary, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and explained the most amazing sequence of events to him. Let’s just allow the angel’s message to stand for itself: “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus.”[1]

Mary hadn’t cheated after all! This was a supernatural pregnancy that only God could bring about! It was a miracle!

So, why didn’t Mary tell Joseph? Matthew says that Mary was “found to be with child,”[2] not that “Mary told Joseph she was pregnant.” Can you imagine how that would have gone over? “Yeah, I bet ‘God made you pregnant’! You expect me to believe that?” But when an angel comes and gives you an explanation that you could never have dreamt up on your own, you listen. God had planned the perfect scenario to keep Mary and Joseph together. Because, like preserving the line of the Savior even after the kingship was taken away from David’s family, keeping Mary safe was priority #1.

Joseph, this righteous man, this conscientious believer, who showed that he sincerely loved Mary, was the perfect one to endure the inevitable questions and speculation. What would it have looked like to the rest of the world as Mary’s belly grew? Joseph wouldn’t seem so righteous. His reputation might be ruined. But better that people think less of Joseph than that he divorce Mary and she becomes an outcast without anyone to protect or provide for her at this pivotal time. Better that Joseph be the subject of slander than the mother of the Savior be made so vulnerable.

It was literally a miracle that allowed Joseph to stay with Mary and to take on the daunting task that God was giving him. It sounds so simple to hear the angel say, “and you are to give him the name Jesus.”[3] But Joseph was going to do more than name Jesus. He was going to raise him. He was going to be responsible for making sure that God’s Son was holy – circumcised on the eighth day, all the appropriate sacrifices offered, all the necessary pilgrimages made – not to mention mentoring our Wonderful Counselor through puberty.

It’s no wonder that the angel would say to him, “Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife.”[4] There was a lot to be afraid of! But Joseph believed the angel and behaved according to his faith in God.

So, he was there to name Jesus. But maybe the most significant part of this significant sentence is the last word – “And he gave him the name Jesus.”

The child growing in Mary’s belly was none other than the long-promised and sought-after Savior of the world. He was the fulfillment of all God’s greatest promises. He was who God meant when he promised Abraham, “All peoples on earth will be blessed through you.”[5] He was the one who would sit on the throne of his father David forever.[6] He was the one God was talking about when he promised King Ahaz, “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son.”[7]

Here he was! The Messiah. The Christ. And Joseph was to name him Jesus because “he will save his people from their sins.”[8] That’s what the name Jesus literally means, i.e. “The LORD saves.” It was a common name. In Hebrew it’s the name Joshua. There were plenty of Joshes running around Judea when Jesus was born, because there were a lot of parents who were looking ahead to God fulfilling that promise.

But Jesus would be a different Josh, because his parents didn’t name him that in the hope that God would save, but knowing that Jesus was their salvation.

He came to “save his people from their sins,”[9] which is significant too, because there were (and are) a lot of misconceptions about what kind of salvation this world needs. In Jesus’ day, a lot of Jews were looking to be saved from the Romans. They wanted a political and national savior. They wanted someone to make Israel great again. But that’s not what Jesus came to do. He came to save his people from their sins.

So, today, even though we often like to think injustice and hatred and intolerance are our greatest enemies, Jesus is still our Savior from sin. That’s our greatest threat – not climate change or terrorism or political polarization. It’s sin. It’s the natural inclination that we all have to disobey God. It’s the thing that makes us so angry and impatient with other people. It’s the source of our bitterness and resentment. It’s the reason people don’t get along and the cause for our depression and anxiety. But more than that, it’s the thing that separates us from our God.

You’ve seen its effects in this world. You know what sin can do to people. It can destroy marriages. It can sour souls. It can take lives. But ultimately, sin damns. It sends sinners to hell. And everyone of us sinful.

Just think what you would have done in Joseph’s shoes if you found out that your fiancée had been unfaithful to you. I couldn’t have been as level-headed and loving as Joseph was, and it’s not like he was perfect. I look at the heroes of faith in Jesus’ ancestry and I can’t even live up to them, let alone to God’s perfect standard. And Abraham doubted God. David was a murderer. Solomon couldn’t keep it in his pants. If I can’t even live up to them, how could God ever love me?

Well, the answer is “Jesus.” The LORD saves. I don’t have to understand why God would love me, I just know that he does. And I know that because of this sentence: “And he gave him the name Jesus.”

God intervened in human history hundreds of times over thousands of years to bring this child into the world for one purpose – to save sinners. No matter what I do, no matter how I fail him – no matter how horrible this world gets – God loved me enough to send his Son to be born of Mary, to be watched over by Joseph, to live and die and rise again to forgive my sins and yours and the sins of the whole world.

Joseph seemed like an ordinary carpenter. Fathers normally named their children. Jesus would have been a common name. But there’s more to this sentence than meets the eye, and these seven words convey your salvation and capture the spirit and purpose of Christmas. God loves you and gave you his Son to be your Savior. Do not be afraid. Believe. Amen.

[1] Matthew 1:20

[2] Matthew 1:18

[3] Matthew 1:21

[4] Matthew 1:20

[5] Genesis 12:3

[6] Luke 1:32,33

[7] Isaiah 7:14

[8] Matthew 1:21

[9] Ibid