Matthew 1:18-25
December 21, 2025
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at Lakeshore Avenue Baptist Church, Oakland, CA.
On this Sunday before Christmas, I honestly struggled to come up with a message to give this morning. We have heard and read the Christmas story so many times to the point that we can recite them from memory. What more might I say to make it more interesting?
For me who is experiencing my first Christmas with you, what you do at Lakeshore is not that different from what we did in San Francisco. And for that matter, Christmas is remembered pretty much the same in all churches in the US as well as around the world. We light the Advent Candles and sing “O, Come All Ye Faithful!”
And our default Christmas routine is also reinforced in our culture and media with images and expectations generated by the Hallmark channel of movies and the shopping deals on our laptops. When a new Lexus is tied with a red bow or a new flat-screen TV from Best Buy advertisements come on, I wonder how many people buy a new car or a new TV every year!
When we take all of this together and we don’t ask any questions beside “Will we have ham for Christmas dinner this year?” we end up with a picture-perfect Christmas again, for another year. We invest a lot of energy and spend a lot of money to avoid emptiness and sadness.
Unconventional
What I did come up for a message on Christmas Sunday is that the first Christmas was nothing typically conventional but rather unconventional. It was not what was expected.
For Mary and Joseph, God up-ended their comfortable social expectations and conventions. Most people would not expect the incarnation to happen through the life of a young virgin girl, Mary. Many of us have forgotten just how scandalous the incarnation and the virgin birth really were. When we look at our nativity scene under our Christmas tree or at this one at Lakeshore, we not only see wonder but a scandal.
To Joseph, the pregnancy is a violation of social convention and ethics for an unmarried woman. He decides to divorce, the more humane of his customary options. Perhaps out of kindness, or regret, he will do this quietly in order not to shame her. Joseph realizes that things are not going to go as planned or as convention would have it. Mary has simply violated the important moral rule that she should not be pregnant when they were married.
Think about a time when your notion of a “perfect Christmas” failed to live up to your expectations. Did an uncle forget the pleasantries of table manners that ended up you wanting to shout, “Peace on earth and good will to all?” Maybe it was a time when a daughter or a niece announced she was pregnant but she came to the evening by herself? When this happens, despite any failures to your “perfect Christmas,” unconditional grace is offered to all.
The text tells us that Joseph is call a righteous man, but discovers that his soon to be wife is pregnant. But unconventionally, Joseph is told that the child is of the Holy Spirit, such things were unheard of.
We are all like Joseph at times, are we not? We go about our own business and do not want to make trouble. We just handle things quietly and without any fuss. It’s like at the same time every year, we do “hanging of the greens” on the first Sunday of Advent followed by drinking stone soup. We light the 4 Advent Candles.
Unexpected Things
From this story about Joseph, some of the faithful things to do and the faithful ways to be are sometimes at odds with the social conventions we are in. Joseph could have insisted in his good character and complied with social conventions to divorce Mary. He could have made a real scene to embarrass Mary for her infidelity.
But Joseph violated convention and remained faithful to Mary because God, as often God does, intervened in an unexpected way. God sent an angel to appear to Joseph in a dream. The angel basically said, “I know this is not what you expected, Joseph, but it is going to be okay. God is about to do something wonderful, despite the fact that according to Jewish custom and law you are in a rather socially unacceptable position.”
Unexpected things, things outside of convention, outside of what may be normally expected, can often be wonderful signs that God is at work. Amid all our-less than-picture-perfect Christmases, the Christmas trees that are not quite as perfect as we want them to be, the lives that we have that are not as perfect as we want them to be, God is still doing something new.
I thought about this and realized that my accepting your call to me to be your interim pastor is an example of un-expectations. I was already retired from full-time ministry for 10 years! I stopped subscribing to sermon ideas magazines. I donated dress shirts and jackets to goodwill and only wore clothes from REI and Eddie Bauer. I started to de-stress from writing a sermon every week.
But unexpected things, things outside the convention that once I was retired, I was retired. But like the angel who came to Joseph in a dream, LeAnn Flesher called me on the phone! My picture-perfect conventional retirement was disrupted because God was again doing something new in my life and hopefully in your life as Lakeshore Avenue.
It’s like on Christmas morning when we are unwrapping presents under the tree. You have expectations of what it might be but you really don’t know. And when you do unwrap the gift, the gift may lead you to doing something new. Maybe getting a skateboard so you go outside to skateboard. Maybe if you are fortunate, you may get a new phone, you can’t wait to turn it on.
New Day
What God was telling Joseph is to trust in this strange news that this child from the Holy Spirit that already has a name, Jesus, that this child will save people from their sins. Most likely, Joseph didn’t comprehend all of this until much later.
But what begins here at Christmas, what God announces, is a Savior who will show us a different way of living. Unconventionally, this child will make forgiveness of sins possible. This child will save not just those who believe but will save all of God’s children because God is love. This child will teach us to do unto others as we would like them to do unto us.
Our conventional wisdom is that some are saved and others are not. Some are more welcomed and others are not. Some are more acceptable to sit next to me and others are not. Some are more deserving for food stamps and others are not. Some pregnant women are more favored and others are not.
The new day on Christmas is that God opens a door for all of us, gives us a vision, beckoning us to trust and follow. The news catches Joseph off guard. The news catches us off guard too.
Tanzan and Ekido
There’s a Japanese story of two monks, Tanzan and Ekido traveling down a muddy road. A heavy rain saturated the area like the heavy rains we are getting today. Coming around the bend, they met a lovely girl in a silk kimono unable to cross the mired in mud intersection.
“Come here, girl,” said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the slimy ooze and set her down on the other side.
Ekido did not speak again until that night when they reached a lodging temple. Then he could no longer restrain himself, “We monks don’t go near females,” he told Tanzan, “especially not young and lovely ones. It is dangerous. Why did you do that?”
“I left the girl back there,” said Tanzan. “Are you still carrying her with you?”
Unwrapping Your Christmas Gift
When our conventional wisdom prevents us from doing what is right and just, we are failing God’s expectations of us to live a faithful life. Unconventionally and unexpectedly, Tanzan came to help a young girl. It’s when we take steps toward what God is calling us to be and do is when Christmas hope, peace, joy, and love happen.
Joseph is totally unaware of the journey that will take the one he will call “Jesus” from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, from the temple to the cross to the empty tomb. If Joseph were told all of that, the news might have overwhelmed him even more than the news he has just received.
What is God calling you out of the conventional expectations to do something new? If you were this monk, would you have carried the girl over the muddy intersection?
If you unwrapped a gift with roller skates, you would go out to try roller skating; be sure to wear a helmet and knee pads! If you unwrapped a new sweater, you would try it on to see if it fits and if it does, you might wear it for the rest of the day. If you unwrapped some Christmas cookies, you would be sure to try one on the spot!
What if you unwrapped a gift of the Christ Child, at first you may be surprised. But you will recall times when the unexpected happened, when stranger things occurred, and like Joseph, you have taken a small step to be with God.
As Mary and Joseph journeyed to the first Christmas, they did not know where God would take them; all they knew was that something wonderful had been promised and that they had been beckoned to follow.
So too, we are called to rise and follow God’s call, not knowing where the journey will take us, or the path that God has set before us.
God With Us
It has been said that during Christmas, many people are lonely. The exiled plight of Isaiah’s people is that they were lonely. When our picture-perfect Christmas doesn’t meet our expectations, we are depressed, feel disappointed, and often lonely.
The way we generally celebrate Christmas is how happy we might feel. “Am I truly happy? If not, what seems unfulfilled in my life? What do I need to be truly happy?” And we know that we can’t satisfy our loneliness or unhappiness with Christmas presents or a picture-perfect Christmas.
Certainly, there are some very happy and contented people around who believe that they have all they need. They have a good income, they love their families, and they enjoy life in general. This is as good as it possibly can get.
Today we must ask a deeper question of ourselves. “Why was I created? What is the purpose of my being here? Where will I go at the end of this life?” It’s when we ask the question, “What is my life really all about” is when we realized that we need a savior.
Once we start asking the real questions about life, we begin to understand the real meaning of Christmas. It’s when we allow ourselves to not expect what typically happens at Christmas is when we begin to be like Joseph to become surprised by God and unexpected joy comes to us.
Our sin is the choice that we make to minister to ourselves, believing that when we have a picture-perfect Christmas, we might save ourselves. At Christmas, we welcome Emmanuel, “God with us” who will save his people from their sins.
As resourceful and as capable as we are, we can’t manage to save ourselves in any of these ways that we might think of. But as Joseph showed profound trust in God to direct his life, we can also trust our lives in God because Jesus Christ, Emmanuel, is still with us and will always be with us until he returns.
Let us pray.
Gracious Lord God, Creator of the world who thought and loved so much of the created handiwork to send a Savior at Christmas. Lead us to trust you as Joseph did that may lead to unspeakable joy and unexpected promises. Come to us again and again until that day when your realm on earth is that of heaven. Bless your people here and everywhere with your love and peace. In the name of Christ Jesus, born in Bethlehem on Christmas. Amen.