This Advent season, we prepare our hearts for Christmas with a series guided by Dr. Amy-Jill Levine’s Light of the World: A Beginner’s Guide to Advent.
This week concludes our Advent series and looks forward to our Christmas Eve and Christmas Day services. Please invite family, neighbors, and friends to join in any and all of our vibrant Worship services! As we look forward to these, we continue the story of Advent with a change. The previous three weeks have been informed by the infancy account of the Gospel of Luke. We have explored the stories of Zechariah and Elizabeth, of the annunciation to Mary and her beautiful Magnificat, and the prophets Simeon and Anna.
This week we transition to the Gospel of Matthew, and this account doesn’t include any of these stories! Instead we glimpse the story from Joseph’s perspective, and then we hear the story of the Magi who come from the east following a star and bringing symbolic gifts.
Matthew 1:18-24 (CEB)
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. When Mary his mother was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she became pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph her husband was a righteous man. Because he didn’t want to humiliate her, he decided to call off their engagement quietly. 20 As he was thinking about this, an angel from the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because the child she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.” 22 Now all of this took place so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled:
23 Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a son,
And they will call him, Emmanuel. (Emmanuel means “God with us.”)24 When Joseph woke up, he did just as an angel from God commanded and took Mary as his wife.
Consider these questions:
- Faithful reading of these stories calls us to consider two things. First, what impact would these differing perspectives tell the first hearers of these stories?
- Second, what do the different perspectives tell us today? How do they inform our reading in the context of this world?
- The text tells us Joseph was a righteous man. How does he show this?
- How does Joseph respond to his vision? How do you think you would respond if you had a similar unexpected (supernatural?) experience?
- The Magi follow a star. Would you categorize this as unexpected and/or supernatural? Would you find that similar to Joseph’s experience? Different? How?
- What do you think the Magi expected to find at the culmination of their journey? How do you think they responded when they found the Holy Family? How do you think the Holy Family responded to the Magi?