Advent calls us to the discipline of waiting. But, for what are we waiting, and how do we wait? Preachers and worship leaders will respond to that question in differing ways, including those who respond something like this: “We don’t sing Christmas carols or talk about the birth of Christ until Christmas Eve.” But today’s Gospel lesson makes that negative commitment somewhat harder to sustain, with its “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way” (Matthew 1:18).
This birth narrative is not the greeting card story that we sometimes like to construct, is it? Suffice it to say that we have a complicated story here, and it’s complicated because God started meddling in the lives of perfectly innocent and upstanding folks like Joseph and Mary. Watch out when the Holy Spirit starts to work in your midst. But, please, we’re talking about a baby here, so let’s not make this story too abstract. Anyone who has welcomed a new child into the family knows that it’s a wonderful experience, but it’s also more than a little disorienting. Nothing will ever be the same. Welcoming another human being will change you, as every married person learns, as the church experiences when it receives new and different people.
You can see, then, that this text is not just about what happened to Mary and Joseph two thousand years ago. It’s also about our discipleship and the way the Holy Spirit is moving to bring Jesus into our midst today. We wait for him and he comes to us in the face of our neighbors, even in the face of neglected and abused children. Ready or not, Christ is coming, and we won’t have to wait long. So, be ready for God’s meddlesome and disruptive work; but be prepared for an adventure as well.