Expect The Unexpected

            Once upon a time… in the town of Stephenville, Texas… a group of Christians prepared for Christmas.  They decorated the sanctuary of their church with poinsettias… as they did every year.  They hung beautiful wreaths on the church doors… as they did every year.  The choir practiced special music… as they did every year.  The folks gathered for their Annual Christmas Dinner… and youth program… as they did every year.  The townsfolk decorated their homes with lights… as they did every year.  The church members drove to Granbury… Fort Worth… to Houston… and Dallas… to shop for gifts… as they did every year.  They baked extra cookies and candies… as they did every year.   They made plans for family members and friends to visit… as they did every year.   And, for those who couldn’t come, they wrapped presents and shipped them… as they did every year.  As the time got shorter, they all dashed to Wal-Mart for last minute things… as they did every year.  And, through it all, they hummed Christmas carols… as they did every year.  It promised to be a wonderful holiday season… as it was every year.

            Are we doing anything this Christmas that is radically different than any Christmas before? … Or is this Christmas simply a variation of the same theme?  Repeated again… and again and again… comfortably familiar… expected.  What is it that we expect of Christmas this year? … Something different… or the same familiar song… repackaged for 2004?  And, if we expect the same familiar song… repackaged for 2004… what will it take for God to surprise us with something totally new?

            Through the Prophet Isaiah, God told the children of Israel that God was about to do something new.  Do you remember that?  I shared that with you on the First Sunday of Advent.  Then, Jesus asked the people traveling out to see John the Baptist what they expected to see… and then he promised them more than they expected.  Do you remember that?  I shared that with you on the Second Sunday of Advent.  Then, God, speaking through the prophet Isaiah again, said that we would see unusual signs of the Messiah’s coming… radical changes to the world around us… things like flowers blooming in the wilderness… and pools of water in the desert…blind people who could see again… disabled people leaping and dancing.  Do you remember that?  I shared that with you on the Third Sunday of Advent.  This is the Fourth Sunday of Advent.  Are you beginning to see a pattern in God’s word?

            It’s Sunday.  It’s the last Sunday before Christmas.  We’re singing Christmas carols.  We’re doing the Advent wreath thing.  We’ve got the candlelight service planned for Christmas Eve.  We’ve got the crèche scene in the Fellowship Hall.  And you are all sitting there… looking at me… waiting…  for what?  …For the story of the baby in the manger? … the inn with no vacancies… the shepherds on the hillside… the angels singing… the star shining… wise men coming… what?  You know all of that.  You’ve heard it every year!  Why would I tell it again?  … Except that… like a child’s favorite bedtime story… it is a story we all love to hear… again… and again… and again… just like we do every year.

Come back on Friday night… and we’ll tell that story again.  But I am not going to tell it this morning.  Why?  Because you expect it… and I want you to expect the unexpected.  I want you to truly hear the miracle of Jesus’ birth... in a new and different way.  Then… maybe… that old story will have a new meaning for you this Christmas.  A meaning that will touch your heart… and change your soul.

            Do you remember O. Henry’s short story called “The Gift of the Magi?”  It’s a story about a man and his wife who each went out to buy a Christmas gift for the other?  The man sold his prized possession, a gold watch, to purchase a set lovely tortoise shell combs for his wife’s beautiful, long hair.  At the same time, she cut off her beautiful, long hair and sold it, in order to purchase a new chain for his handsome gold watch.  The story ends when they each discover that the other no longer possesses the object that their gift was designed to enhance.  I always wondered what happened after that.  Do you think, when they came together on Christmas morning, that they cried over what they had given up … or blamed the other for the loss of a precious possession?  Or do you think they sat and stared at each other for a long, long time… stunned at the realization of the depth of the other person’s love for them… the objects they purchased and the objects they sold both forgotten in the overwhelming wonder of this new discovery?  I like to think that it was the latter… the stunned realization of the depth of their love for each other.  It was beautiful… It was overwhelming… It was… unexpected.  That’s the story of Christmas… not the gift itself… but what the gift represented to the giver… and to those who receive.  How beautiful… How overwhelming… How unexpected.

It is subtle… the story of Christmas… for we have heard it so often, that many of us have become immune to the magic of it.  So, Matthew tells it in a different way… for he does not hit us over the head with supernatural events… like thousands of angels singing … or a group of shepherds worshipping a baby in a dirty, crowded stable behind an inn.  Instead, he tells us the “begats.”  Now the younger folks won’t know what I am talking about, but the older ones will… for when we were young, we heard someone read the King James Version and we wondered what the heck they were talking about.  You see, Matthew starts his story about Jesus with who begat whom.  And that’s what I want to talk about this morning… the importance of the message that Matthew conveyed in that list of names.

Only two of the gospel writers include the genealogy of Jesus:  Matthew and Luke.  Luke’s purpose is clear, for he states, at the beginning of his book, that he wants a clear and orderly account of Jesus’ life recorded for posterity.  Matthew never says that… and Matthew shares things in his list that Luke does not include in his.  Matthew includes the women… not all of them… just certain women.  But these women who are included say volumes about God… about Jesus… and about what this gift of God truly symbolizes.

So, let’s take a closer look.  Who were these women who are specifically mentioned by Matthew in the genealogy of Jesus?  Who were they?  Well, the first one that he mentions is Tamar, a woman who was the victim of incest with her own brother.   The second one mentioned is Rahab… the prostitute… the one who helped Joshua and his spies enter the city of Jericho.  The third one is Ruth, the Moabite woman… an outsider… historically, an enemy of Israel.  And the fourth one is Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah, who was guilty of adultery with King David.  (Pause)  And the last one is Mary, a peasant woman whose pregnancy was evident before her marriage to Joseph.  Quite a collection!  Why would Matthew want to specifically mention these women?  Why were these women important to the story that Matthew wanted to tell about Jesus?

Let me share with you an observation that I made early in my years of living in the South.  Before I came to Texas, no one ever asked me whether I was related to anyone they knew, but in the years that I have lived here, I find that it is one of the first questions that people ask.  “Are you related to any of the Bryants in Texas?” they ask.  And, as a result of this line of questioning, I have learned that there are Bryants all over Texas.  There are Bryants in Gainesville… Bryants in Longview… Bryants in Walnut Springs… Bryants in Port Aransas… Bryants in Snyder… Bryants in Tahoka… Bryants in Brownsville… and Bryants in Sweetwater.  I have also learned that it is very important to some people to know who my people are… (which might be one reason that I dragged my parents with me to Stephenville… so y’all would know who my people are.)  Why is that important?  Well, I suppose that it all goes back to that old adage that says that an acorn doesn’t fall very far from the tree.  So, if you know the parents, you might have a good gauge of what the children are like.  Though I will tell you that, in my case, the parents are definitely a cut above.   I wish I could be more like them.

But, let’s get back to Matthew.  The inclusion of these women in the genealogy of Jesus reveals several things about this gift of God to us.  First of all, the revelation that these women were included in the genealogy of Jesus is startlingly unexpected.  Women were not important in first century Palestine.  They were property.  They had no voice.  In most instances, their presence is not even mentioned in the Bible.  And these women were sinners… tainted… defiled… ruined… outsiders… non-persons, if you will.  So, their inclusion in Matthew’s genealogy clearly states that God can do whatever God wants to do… whenever God wants to do it… and that God can use whomever God chooses to use… in order to effect God’s will.   The message is clear:  “Do not put God in a box!”  Do not limit God’s power… or God’s actions… by human expectations.  Expect the unexpected.  For there is no box that can contain God.  (Pause)  God is God.  And God has total sovereignty and total freedom.  Total sovereignty to create… to establish… to appoint.. and to make… and total freedom to act… to move… and to choose the time… the method… and the means… for achieving God’s purpose.

Now, I want you to hear this in the same way that Jews in first century Palestine would have heard it.  For in the Jewish culture, the Messiah who was coming had to come from King David’s line.  The Jews expected a king.  They expected a child with flawless lineage… someone whose birth and pedigree could not be questioned.  Matthew’s response was to say to them:  “Don’t put God in a box!”  As Jesus said to the crowds who came to see John the Baptist, “Do not presume to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our ancestor'; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up children to Abraham.”  God can do whatever God wants to do… and use whomever God chooses to use for God’s own purpose.  Don’t put God in a box!

But there is another message that I want you to hear in this story… and that is simply this:  It does not matter who you are… or what you have done… God can use you.  I guarantee that not one of these women believed that she was worthy to be an ancestor of the chosen Messiah… the Anointed One… the One sent by God… and yet, that is exactly what God made them.  Despite their actions… their lineage… their nationality… despite their obvious rejection by the people of God… God stepped in and elevated each of them to a position of honor and esteem… just as God elevated a poor peasant girl to be the mother of God… just as God elevated a dirty, crowded stable to be the birthplace of a king… just as God elevated tiny Bethlehem to a place of historic significance.  And, if God can use Tamar… and Rahab… and Ruth… and Bathsheba… and Mary… then God can use you… and me.  God can do whatever God chooses to do with the person that you are… as unworthy and insignificant as you believe that you are.  For it is not your righteousness… or your good works that make you worthy… it is God’s action alone that does it.

Which brings me to my final point for today.  The gift that comes from God does not come to those who deserve it… it comes to us… the unworthy… the insignificant… the undeserving… the sinners.  Which is why my favorite call to confession is the one that begins “The proof of God’s amazing love is this, that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”  While we were yet sinners… yes, while we are exactly who we are… broken… battered… bewildered… and defiant… God gives us a gift.  And the gift that comes to us does not come because we ask for it… but because God chooses to give it… freely… with sovereign authority… to those who least deserve it… to you and to me. How magnificently un-expected!  Amen.