Melissa was enjoying dinner with her husband and their three children at a restaurant recently—until the waiter disappeared for 20 minutes. Her husband, Tim, began muttering. Melissa braced herself. “Uh-oh, here it comes,” she remembers thinking.
“EXCUSE ME!” he screamed across the room to another waiter, then stormed off to complain to the manager. When the original server finally returned to the table, her husband yelled, “Where the hell have you been for the last 45 minutes?” and continued berating him until the man walked away.
Chaos ensued.
People at other tables stared. Melissa put her head down and a hand over her eyes. In the car on the way home, she told her husband, “You know I hate it when you do that. It ruins the dinner.”[1]
Who has not experience such an event? When you are enjoying a nice dinner and something sets someone off? All of sudden you go from peace to chaos in a matter of seconds.
Dealing with chaos during the holiday season is almost a fact of life. The family is trying to enjoy a nice dinner and Aunt Bettie complains about her divorce. Uncle Bill is angry about his job. Grandma is yelling about how her neighbors are stealing her trash! Grandma, come on who is stealing your trash?
I’m sure scenes like this play out in your family sometimes. Chaos in the midst of a well indented peaceful family dinner. What is it about families that bring out the best and worst in us? All of us have some sort of dysfunction in our families. All of us must have an embarrassing family scene we remember?
It is within a family scene that we begin an introduction to the Christ story. Yes, a family story. On this fourth Sunday of Advent we come into contact with Matthew’s gospel. Matthew’s gospel chapter 1, tells of the beginning of the Christmas story.
Luke, unlike Matthew, is not concerned with shepherds, magi or wise men, no rooms in the inn, or nativity scenes. Instead, Matthew is more concerned with the family dynamics, more accurately dysfunctional family dynamics. Chaos. Luke focuses on Mary’s joy. Matthew, focuses on Joseph’s chaotic life. More specifically his problems.
In Matthew chapter 1, Joseph somehow discovers, we are not told how, that his girlfriend- fiancé is pregnant. Great, the shame and public gossip would spread quickly. Was it Joseph? Was it another man? If this story occurred to an important family in Hollywood it would most certainly be on TMZ that night!
What makes this event so family orientated is that fact that it deals with the beginning of this family birth. What do I mean? Well, Matthew uses gennesis. Accurately translated as “birthing” in Matthew 1:18.
Now the birth (gennesis: birthing) of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.
So we have in Matthew 1:18 a gennesis, a birthing (a verb) of chaos for Joseph.
And “chaos” is not too strong a word. The birthing of the Christ is, for his parents, a big issue – a chaos. There are things that have to be explained, potential humiliation which needs to be averted, and decisions that need to be made. Jesus, in short, caused problems for his parents long before he was born. Most of us, in contrast, only do that once we appear on the scene and break a lamp in the living room.
The birthing of this chaos is having a fiancé that is pregnant. Much has been preached on Joseph and Mary’s shame and how Mary would have been the bearer of the weight of the shame. Joseph’s shame would be a private one. A shame that would have been played out in jokes, whispers, and in dark corners.
Enter the angel.
Luke states when Joseph sets his resolve to spare Mary the chaos, an angel comes in and give direction. Wouldn’t it be great if angel came in at every critical moment of our lives and made the decision for us? “I have cancer. What I do now? My daughter has just turned her back on the family, what next? My father just disowned me, what now?” Those are the critical life chaos moments. It is at those moments that make a decision. We set our face towards a goal and stick with it. Usually, it is the least painful path for us and our families.
F
or Joseph, that is the choice he made. The least painful path for everyone. However, it took angel to change his mind.
Wouldn’t all love to have an angel to help us with the “right” choice. Joseph got some help and for us, well… we do not get help like that. God sending an angel? Sometimes, it takes God, through a messenger, to bring change your mind. It took an angel to change Joseph’s mind.
The only issue is, will you listen? It is easy to listen to an angel. In the Greek, the word messenger is angelos – which where we get the English work “angel” from. The word angel in Greek means messenger.
The question for us today is, “Which messenger are we listening to?”
In the midst of chaos we look for angel, a holy appearance of the divine. We look for angels. Bright lights, clothed angelic faces, simple answers, and pure images to solve our programs. In the middle of chaos we are looking for peace.
Joseph received that peace because that divine message came to him, in Matthew:
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.’
God sends angelos to give a word of peace in the midst of chaos. In the struggles of our lives, we seek peace in the midst of chaos. Especially during Advent. Shopping, decorating, parties, family, friends, work, illness, and the unexpected. These things bring chaos. However, out Joseph’s chaos order was brought. Peace was established in the middle of chaos. The savior of the world, Emmanuel (God is with us) would bring peace out a chaotic family situation.
Are you looking for angels when you should be really looking for the messengers? The ones who are the average friend, the ubiquitous stranger, or the nomadic shepherd. In the middle of chaos, may you find the God sent messenger who speaking to you. May you, who are in chaos right now, find peace in this Christmas. And, may you, who looks for angels find a message of peace in midst of chaos from simple messengers.
[1] Story taken from: “This Loved One Wil Explode in Five, Four…” The Wall Street Journal. December 13, 2010.
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