FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT December 21, 2025

Intro to the Season and Day: Advent and Christmas don’t really work for people who like EVERYTHING neat, tidy and predictable. Today we hear about the upheaval one couple lives through—and we also hear that God’s disruptive ways are about to generate a whole new thing.

Prayer of the Day Stir up your power, Lord Christ, and come. With your abundant grace and might, free us from the sin that hinders our faith, that eagerly we may receive your promises, for you live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen

Isaiah 7:10-110Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, saying, 11Ask a sign of the Lord your God; let it be deep as Sheol or high as heaven. 12But Ahaz said, I will not ask, and I will not put the Lord to the test. 13Then Isaiah said: “Hear then, O house of David! Is it too little for you to weary mortals, that you weary my God also? 14Therefore 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. 15He shall eat curds and honey by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good. 16For before the child knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land before whose two kings you are in dread will be deserted.

Matthew 1:18-25. 18Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. 20But just when he had resolved to do 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 as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.” 24When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Reflections— The life stirring inside Mary is from the Holy Spirit. Matthew tells us this. God’s messenger appears to Joseph in a dream to tell him that the child conceived in Mary is from the Holy Spirit.

Now is an opportune time to remember how God’s Spirit is imagined in the scripture—the word in the Hebrew scripture sounds breathy…ruah…and the word can mean “breath”. Some of us perform breathing exercises that can either calm us or energize us. Most of us are partial to regularly having air move in and out of the lungs. None of us neglects breathing; at least for very long. So we might imagine God’s Spirit as essential and as close as our own breath.

The scripture also imagines the Spirit of God as wind and the wod ruah can also mean wind. At creation the Spirit of God blows gale force knocking chaos and nothingness into the wondrous creation itself.

Spirit gusts into the lives of kings and prophets knocking their lives into trajectories they might not have ordinarily committed themselves to.

Now Joseph learns in a dream that the life Mary carries within her is from such a Holy Spirit. If Joseph felt as though life ways careening sidewise before he might have felt like he was in freefall now.

Joseph is called righteous; which is far more than being a nice guy or a mensch. Just treatment and ethical living are woven into his character. His betrothal to Mary is much more of a commitment than our modern engagements to be married. In fact, if someone’s betrothed died in that period, the surviving partner was considered widowed. Having sexual relations with another person during this betrothal was considered adultery. The social and moral code of the day and culture allowed for death sentences in cases of adultery.

Joseph’s intended course was merciful and just and not borne from a bruised ego. He tries to bring about the most workable resolution to a complicated and painful situation. Then God shows up and tells him that the very path Joseph thinks is a blind alley is actually God’s pathway to bringing wholeness and healing to the world.

Mary and Joseph’s story is all about disruption—the very thing most of us risk averse types fear most.

Now might be an opportune moment to imagine God as trickster. The notion is hardly original to me. Indigenous people believe that trickster’s schemes are meant to open new pathways to wholeness and living in the world as it is. Christian theologians like Lewis Hyde believe that God’s trickery is integral to a world that is being birthed; a world like the prophets envision where lion lies down with the lamb and humans finally come to their senses and work to feed people instead of displacing them or killing them.

Advent reminds us that life is full of disruption—we’re also reminded that once in a while the disruption isn’t the end. Words from Professor James Boyce as he quotes from Robert Smith’s respected commentary on the Gospels prove apt and may they be both comforting and challenging to us as a community of faith:

This Jesus is “pure gift, holy surprise, a fresh act of God, a new genesis, a new creation.” And all it comes about “from the Holy Spirit.” We live with the awareness that God’s power is among us and ready to lead us in ways that we can only imagine. Is that good news, or is the prospect a bit frightening? If we do not anticipate the Christmas event both with hope and with just a bit of anxious fear, then we are not sufficiently tuned to the implications of God’s presence among us. (From Working Preacher, an online resource from Luther Seminary St. Paul, MN USA-2007)