Can God be trusted?
Commentary
The central issue for this week's pericopes is the question of whether God is faithful to God's promises. Whether God can be trusted is a question some people ask when to all appearances it might seem that God turns a deaf ear precisely when we need God urgently. Can God be trusted to hear our prayers for someone we love? Can God be trusted to "be with us" in the worst of times?"
In the passage from Isaiah we see the rule by a Davidic king from Jerusalem placed in jeopardy. The issue of kingship is so important because kingship is connected to the promised reign of God, and the Messiah to come must be of Davidic descent. Can God be trusted to keep the promise about the Davidic king?
That Jesus' descent is connected to the lineage of David and Isaiah's prophecy talks about a child to be born brings full circle the promise that God is faithful. From Matthew's perspective, this is not so much a matter of biological concern as it is a theological question: Is God faithful or not? Throughout the Bible we find this issue raised again and again.
As preachers we are called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is none other than the faithfulness of God. This is not the time to focus on other questions. The stories we have before us are wonderfully moving events, and they have become emotionally attached to this season. Yet we preachers cannot allow the trimmings to blur our vision of the reality of God. Our focus is God's faithfulness to God's promise. This, in the end, is what we celebrate: God sends the Messiah -- God's own Son -- into the world, and this Son of God has as his purpose to save the people from their sins.
Isaiah 7:10-16
Among the many Advent passages from the Book of Isaiah, this one from Isaiah 7:10-16 is one of the best known for its reference to a young woman/virgin who will bear a son. On the surface it appears that this passage addresses the arrival of the Messiah, and so some people see the passage as a prophecy of Jesus' birth. We need, however, to look at another possibility for its meaning, especially because the passage is so historically conditioned.
We need to turn to verses 1 through 9 for a look at the historical setting in which our pericope takes on specific meaning. Tiglath-pileser III, King of Assyria, was on a rampage. In order to stop him from stretching his kingdom from Mesopotamia across Syria and Israel all the way to Egypt, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah of Israel entered into what has been called the Syro-Ephraimite Alliance. In order for the alliance to hold, the pair of kings needed a third party. Ahaz, king of Judah, whose capital was in Jerusalem, was the perfect fit, but Ahaz wanted no part of the alliance. With good sense Ahaz tells the other kings, "Thanks, but no thanks." Not willing to take no for an answer, King Rezin and King Pekah decide Judah will be part of the alliance with or without King Ahaz. And so the two kings put into motion a plot to remove Ahaz and replace him with "the son of Tabeel." This threat held dire circumstances: the dynasty that started with David (2 Samuel 7) when God promised there would be a Davidic king on Jerusalem's throne was in deep trouble. The threat made by the King of Syria and the King of Israel to replace the Davidic king with the son of Tabeel posed not only a historical dilemma but a theological dilemma as well -- can we count on the promises of God when things get tough? On the other hand, is it enough that the king and the people trust the promises of God? Should they not function with utter pragmatism in the face of this unprecedented challenge?
In Isaiah 7:3, the prophet is instructed by God to meet Ahaz at the end of a conduit and tell Ahaz not to be afraid. In our pericope Isaiah, speaking on behalf of God, tells Ahaz that God will prove the point and maintain the Davidic lineage. Ahaz need only ask for a sign. But Ahaz refuses the opportunity. Since Ahaz would not comply with God's request, Isaiah says, God will give the sign anyway.
"Behold," says the prophet, "a young woman shall conceive and bear a son." Some translations read "a young woman," others (such as the NRSV) read "the young woman," the preferred and more accurate translation from the Hebrew which uses the definite article. The phrase "young woman" is a translation of the Hebrew word meaning "a girl of marriageable age." That the definite article precedes the word is important, for this is not just any woman, but either a) an aforementioned young woman; b) the young woman who is in clear sight and standing nearby to Isaiah and Ahaz; or c) the queen.
If we look at the texts preceding our pericope, we find no "aforementioned" young woman, and it would seem unlikely that Isaiah is referring to the queen since the term is not used elsewhere in that sense. More than likely it refers simply to an obviously pregnant young woman who is standing nearby.
This young woman -- whoever she may be -- shall bear a son and call him Immanuel, that is to say, "God with us." The name of the child is, of course, highly symbolic, for it indicates the presence of God in the midst of the threatening situation. Much more than that cannot be said about the child's identity because, strangely enough, the name Immanuel appears again at 8:8 as the name of the land of Israel.
"He shall eat curds and honey" is variously interpreted by scholars. Many argue that the expression describes a menu for basic sustenance. Others see curds and honey as signs of prosperity that are denied to godless people (as in Job 20:17).
As for the phrase "by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good," this expression may simply reflect a natural tendency of infants early in life to choose between pleasant and unpleasant tastes. Or does this text point to an ability to make moral choices? Whatever the meaning here, before this child is able to accomplish even that much, the whole situation will be resolved. The King of Syria and the King of Ephraim will be wiped out! From beginning to end, the message is the same: God is faithful to God's promises and faithful in particular to the Davidic Covenant.
Romans 1:1-7
The apostle Paul usually wrote his letters to congregations he had established or had helped establish, and in those cases we can at least get a glimpse of his initial experiences with those congregations from the Book of Acts, where his three itineraries are traced. Often that prior history leads to some rather intimate writing on Paul's behalf, as in the case of the Letter to the Philippians. Rome, however, was not on Paul's itinerary until the end of his career and life, and so this letter, addressed to a congregation Paul did not establish and did not know intimately, bears a more formal stamp.
The date of this composition is not at all established with certainty among scholars. The suggestions range from A.D. 55 to 59. The purpose, however, can be more adequately determined on the basis of the internal evidence: to introduce himself and his theological position to the congregation there as part of their preparation for his desired visit.
The verses that comprise our pericope make up the letter's salutation. In the first six verses Paul accomplishes the following: (1) he identifies himself in terms of the gospel; (2) he defines the content of the gospel; and (3) he explains his role in God's mission. These three emphases will guide our discussion of the pericope.
First, Paul introduces himself to the Roman congregation not on the basis of his occupation or his family tree or his Roman citizenship but on the basis of his relationship to Christ. Think about the ways we introduce ourselves to other individuals or to groups when we are asked to tell who we are. Often we start with our job or position and move on to include spouse and children, dogs and cats and potbellied pigs, and eventually wax eloquently about our hobbies. Paul's style is different. He defines who he is in terms of whose he has become: "a slave of Jesus Christ." How impressive that must have sounded to a sophisticated audience living in the capital of the Roman Empire! Slaves were people with no rights of their own, separated from their families, assigned responsibilities on the basis of skills, bought and sold like cattle or fabric or grain. Paul was further "called to be an apostle." Not one of the original twelve commissioned by the earthly Jesus (Matthew 10:1-4) or by the resurrected Jesus (Matthew 28:16-20), Paul had explained how he qualified for the responsibility in a number of places (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:1ff; 2 Corinthians 10-12; Galatians 1-2). Here, as in other such salutations, he makes no apology for the title. The word "apostle" means he was "sent out," and it does not require too much imagination to regard the term as a theological passive, that is, God called him and sent him out, along with others, as a missionary. Clearly the function was not of his own devising. His claim to the title indicates what has happened to him -- not his accomplishment. For that purpose of apostleship Paul was "set apart for the gospel of God." The words "set apart" can mean the same as "sanctified" in his own Hebrew language, that is, set apart from profane everyday use for some particular purpose. Paul uses the word here not in terms of isolation but of consecration for the purpose of proclaiming "the gospel of God."
Second, the content of God's gospel is the message about God's Son. Jesus was, on the one hand, completely qualified to be the Messiah or Christ because he possessed the DNA of David. That biological descent affirmed Jesus as completely human and as completely Jewish and as completely Davidic. Without that range of characteristics "according to the flesh," Jesus could not have been the Christ. On the other hand, Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power," not on the basis of the synoptic gospels' announcement at his baptism (Mark 1:11 and parallels) but on the basis of his resurrection from the dead. That resurrection which is the foundation for calling Jesus "Christ our Lord" becomes part of Paul's instructional sermon at 10:9 where Jesus as Lord and the belief in his resurrection together make up the essential confession required for salvation.
Third, it is through the same resurrected Lord that Paul and his colleagues ("we") "received grace and apostleship" to spread the gospel "among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name." Once again, God not only "sends out" but enables through grace the mission of Paul, namely, to spread the good news about Jesus Christ among the Gentiles. Paul spells out his calling for that specific purpose most profoundly in Galatians 1:11--2:14. Indeed, at 1:15-16 he uses some of the same terminology as here: "set apart," "called me through his grace," "so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles."
Having accomplished his three purposes in those first six verses, Paul now addresses his letter: "To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints" (v. 7). Essentially, Paul had identified both himself and Jesus Christ. Now he defines the Christians in Rome in two ways: "God's beloved" and "saints." The former expression is striking because usually Paul refers to his readers as "my beloved" (See Romans 12:19; 16:5, 8, 9; 1 Corinthians 4:14, 17; 10:14; 15:58, etc.) Yet here the readers are "God's beloved" as are the people of Israel at 11:28. More significant is the use of the same word in the singular, of course, and in combination with "Son" to address Jesus both at his baptism (Mark 1:11 and parallels) and at the transfiguration (Mark 9:7 and parallels). Thanks to their baptism as God's children, the Christians in Rome can be called by the same word used of Jesus: "God's beloved."
As for their "call to be saints," Paul takes a term out of his Judaism, particularly out of Jewish apocalyptic where it applied to those who were faithful, even martyrs, in the name of persecution (see Daniel 7:18, 21, 25, 27), and gives it freely to those adopted to be God's children. If Paul's calling is to be an apostle (v. 1), theirs is to be saints, living out their faith while residents of the seat of the Roman Empire.
Matthew 1:18-25
Whereas the Gospel of Luke begins with a lively drama about the birth of Jesus and the announcement of Jesus' birth to shepherds, Matthew begins his gospel with a long genealogical list. The literary method is about as exciting as the genealogical lists in Genesis and Numbers. Apparently the ancient writers did not consider that people in our day, who make New Year's resolutions to read the Bible from beginning to end, inevitably drop out when they encounter the genealogies. As in those family trees in the Old Testament, however, the list here serves a purpose. Matthew lists fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen generations from the deportation to the birth of Jesus the Messiah. Why fourteen? In all probability there is a message conveyed by the number that is confirmed by the content. In Hebrew each letter of the alphabet carries a numeric value. The value for the letters of the name of David (DVD = 4+6+4) adds up to fourteen. The symbolic use of fourteen three times virtually amounts to a "liturgical act," a way of indicating that Jesus is none other than a descendant of David. That Jesus derives from Jesse's family tree is a crucial issue for Matthew: Jesus is the expected Davidic Messiah in spite of all appearances. Jesus was not born in royal surroundings. Jesus did not receive a royal education fitting princes. Jesus was rejected by his own people. Jesus was crucified like a common criminal and buried in a borrowed tomb. At least he had to possess the right genes. How else could anyone accept the claim that he was the expected Messiah?
Yet the Davidic genes only heighten the confusion about Jesus' origin, because the baby "conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit" (v. 20). That was the explanation given by an angel to Joseph. He needed some assurance. Mary is pregnant but she has not lived with Joseph. The child that is coming due comes to her from the Holy Spirit. Joseph has trouble with this -- as any man would -- but an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and tells Joseph that this is okay. The theological point of the story, as in Luke's narrative about the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary (Luke 1:35), is that the initiative for the birth of Jesus Christ did not come from human beings but from God. No matter what an interpreter does about the biology of Jesus' conception, the theology of his origin focuses on the fulfillment of God's promise to establish the kingdom with a messiah at its head.
It is important to note that as Matthew focuses on the promise behind this event, namely the prophecy of Isaiah 7:10-17, he connects the pregnancy of Mary to the prophecy by using the Greek word parthenos, meaning virgin. Because of the creative work of the Holy Spirit in causing Mary to conceive, Matthew changes from the Hebrew word meaning "young woman of marriageable age" to "virgin" in an attempt to highlight the mystery that surrounds the birth of Jesus. Jesus, though born miraculously, comes into Joseph's family and so is of Davidic descent. Jesus is born according to Spirit and flesh. (Compare the identity of Jesus in our second lesson at Romans 1:1-7.)
Take Mary as your wife, the angel says, and name the son Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Even the name Jesus is no accident. It did not jump off a page from a book of baby's names. It came directly from the Holy Spirit, and it was the name that in Hebrew means "Joshua," or "Yahweh saves." The name was not merely a matter of identification. It was the identity of Jesus, and it announced what God was about to do.
Now a dream comes to Joseph, and God offers Joseph his fifteen minutes of fame. Without this little story about Joseph, the man is about as useful as a refrigerator in an igloo. While the family tree provided the necessary genealogy for Jesus, Joseph himself plays virtually no role in the Gospels. Here, however, he rises to the occasion. Joseph does as the angel commands him. The presence of the Spirit in his life allows Joseph to obey the command of the angel to marry Mary, even though the conception defies human reason. The act of obedience here serves as the first of a pair of bookends in Matthew's Gospel. At the end we will encounter this same response in the women who early in the morning, as the first day of the week was dawning, went to the tomb. What happened at the tomb is also contrary to all human reason, but the women followed the one simple instruction given to them by the angel: Go quickly and tell his disciples, "He has been raised from the dead." And the women went, just as "Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him."
The last two verses of the pericope -- as important as they are not only for Joseph's example but for the continuance of the story -- do not provide the punch line for preaching on the text. On the contrary, the emphasis here and throughout the lessons is the activity of God. God promised to continue the Davidic dynasty in the time of Ahaz by delivering the king from the threat of deposition, and God provided the sign that this deliverance would occur, even soon. God fulfilled that promise of bringing a Davidic king to rule over the kingdom of heaven by impregnating Mary through the Holy Spirit and connecting the young teenager to the house of David by engagement to Joseph. The relationship of the two stories is not a matter of prediction and fulfillment, even though we can easily get that impression from Matthew's use of Isaiah 7. In fact, the story of Isaiah and Ahaz addresses such an immediate crisis with such an equally immediate response that the passage originally had nothing to do with the birth of a Jesus 730-some years later.
Yet the two pericopes fit like a hand in a glove. The Isaiah prophecy deals with the question about the trustworthiness of the Lord. How could God be trusted if these puny kings of Ephraim and Syria could prevail in removing the Davidic king from the throne? After all, Israel had sung a psalm every time a new Davidic king was crowned in Jerusalem. On every such occasion neighboring kings would conspire "against the Lord's anointed," that is, Messiah, testing the proverbial waters to see how strong he might be. Their plotting was so futile that the Lord laughed at them (Psalm 2:1-4). How could any mere human plot remove the king that God had placed on the throne? Now in the conception and birth of Jesus, God proves faithful to the promise made to David himself 1,000 years earlier (2 Samuel 7). A Davidic king will rule over God's kingdom.
The apostle Paul stressed the faithfulness of God in his salutation to the Romans. The gospel that he preached was promised beforehand through the prophets (Romans 1:2). As for the reign of the Davidic Messiah, Paul announces that Christ's exalted position as Lord occurred because of his resurrection from the dead.
Whether we focus on Matthew or on Paul, God's faithfulness is affirmed by miracle -- either the miracle of a virgin birth or the miracle of resurrection from the dead. While neither one makes sense from a rational or logical point of view, they both excite our thankfulness for God's faithfulness through the miracle of faith.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 7:10-16
"O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down" (Isaiah 64:1). When we contemplate the evil and violence in our world, that is often our plea -- for God to come down and to set things right. We need the power of God that can put down tyrants, the love of God that can replace hatred with mercy, the forgiveness of God that can wipe out all the guilty past and restore our hearts and the hearts of all human beings to peace and goodness. And the message at this Christmastime is that God has answered our plea; he has sent us a Savior to cleanse and restore his creation to goodness.
But what are we given for a Savior? A baby! The tiny infant of a lowly peasant woman and her carpenter husband, born in a stable and laid in a feed trough for cattle. A baby! Helpless, dependent, unable to speak or walk or feed himself. Is this the mighty Savior of the world? Is this the one whom God sends as the answer to our plea for rescue?
That also could have been the question that King Ahaz of Judah asked in our Old Testament text for the morning. For Ahaz is threatened by the armies of northern Israel and of Syria. The time is 734 B.C. in our text, during what is known as the Syro-
Ephraimitic war. A century earlier, the small states along the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean had banned together and turned back the threatening armies of the Assyrian Empire. But now Assyria is threatening again, and Syria and Ephraim (northern Israel) want to form that alliance again, with Judah as a partner in it. King Ahaz of Judah, however, wants no part of such an attempt, and he refuses to join his neighbors. As a result, Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria assemble their armies to march against Judah, to depose Ahaz, and to put a puppet on the Judean throne who will join their cause.
The word that is given to Ahaz by the prophet Isaiah is that if Ahaz will trust in the Lord, the Lord will preserve Ahaz's Davidic kingdom and destroy the rulers of Israel and Syria. But what Ahaz needs is to believe that promise. However, proclaims Isaiah, "If you will not believe, you shall not be established" (Isaiah 7:9). Indeed, to prove to Ahaz that God will protect Judah, Isaiah offers a "sign" to Ahaz, and Ahaz can choose whatever sign he wishes (vv. 10-11).
Ahaz, who has already summoned Assyria to his aid, piously and hypocritically replies, "I will not put the Lord to the test" (cf. Deuteronomy 6:16). And that, says Isaiah, wearies the Lord God (v. 13), who cannot stomach such hypocrisy -- piety apart from our heart's devotion is pain and weariness to the Lord (cf. Isaiah 1:14).
Nevertheless, continues Isaiah, God will give Ahaz a sign. A young woman of marriageable age will conceive and bear a son and call his name Immanuel (v. 14). As we know from our gospel lesson, the New Testament understood that as a prediction of the birth of Jesus Christ, reading "young woman" ('almah) from the Septuagint version as "virgin" (parthenos). But originally, that was not the meaning. Rather, the young woman was simply the wife of the prophet or, more probably, the wife of the king himself. And "Immanuel" was very likely a name that lots of women gave to their infants. But that common occurrence was to be the "sign" to Ahaz that God would keep his promise to him to defend him. God had much earlier promised that there would never be lacking a Davidic heir to sit upon the throne (2 Samuel 7). You can trust that promise, Isaiah was assuring Ahaz. One thing, however, was required of that Davidic king -- faith. "If you will not believe, you shall not be established."
But, continues our text, because Ahaz has not believed and instead has summoned Assyria's armies to his aid, before the child Immanuel is able to have adult discernment between good and evil, Syria and Ephraim will be defeated, but Judah too will be devastated by Assyria, and the only food available will be not agricultural products, but curds from the herds and wild honey from the forests (vv. 15-16).
Certainly the prophecy by Isaiah proved true. In 721 B.C., the Assyrian Empire under Sargon II defeated Syria and northern Israel, and the inhabitants of the northern kingdom were taken into exile and disappeared from history, never to be heard from again. Under King Ahaz and then King Hezekiah, Judah became a faithful vassal of Assyria until 701 B.C., when Hezekiah, against the advice of Isaiah, entered into an alliance with Philistia and revolted against Assyria, counting on the help of Egypt. Assyria, under the rule of Sennacherib, therefore attacked Judah. Forty-
six of her cities were crushed, and her complete destruction was prevented only by the payment of a heavy tribute. Judah did not believe in the Lord. Therefore she was not established, and she remained a vassal under the Assyrian yoke through most of the following seventh century B.C.
Ahaz was given a sign, a sign of a baby named Immanuel. And we too are given the same sign in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. "This shall be a sign for you," proclaimed the angel of the Lord in Luke's Christmas story. "You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And Joseph in Matthew's account is told by an angel in a dream to name that child Emmanuel (Matthew 1:23-24). Thus, Jesus Christ comes to us, not as a helpless infant, powerless to save, but as the mighty sign and Son of the God who will establish and save our lives if we trust in him. "If you do believe, you shall be established."
The Lord, you see, chooses strange ways to reassure us of his salvation, not by rending the heavens and coming down in some cataclysmic display of power, not by overwhelming us with terrifying visions, but by sending a prophet to speak words -- words that are then fulfilled in the birth of a tiny child. And in that child lies our deliverance from evil, our forgiveness for sin, our death's defeat and our sure hope of eternal life. If we believe that, we shall indeed be saved.
In the passage from Isaiah we see the rule by a Davidic king from Jerusalem placed in jeopardy. The issue of kingship is so important because kingship is connected to the promised reign of God, and the Messiah to come must be of Davidic descent. Can God be trusted to keep the promise about the Davidic king?
That Jesus' descent is connected to the lineage of David and Isaiah's prophecy talks about a child to be born brings full circle the promise that God is faithful. From Matthew's perspective, this is not so much a matter of biological concern as it is a theological question: Is God faithful or not? Throughout the Bible we find this issue raised again and again.
As preachers we are called to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ, which is none other than the faithfulness of God. This is not the time to focus on other questions. The stories we have before us are wonderfully moving events, and they have become emotionally attached to this season. Yet we preachers cannot allow the trimmings to blur our vision of the reality of God. Our focus is God's faithfulness to God's promise. This, in the end, is what we celebrate: God sends the Messiah -- God's own Son -- into the world, and this Son of God has as his purpose to save the people from their sins.
Isaiah 7:10-16
Among the many Advent passages from the Book of Isaiah, this one from Isaiah 7:10-16 is one of the best known for its reference to a young woman/virgin who will bear a son. On the surface it appears that this passage addresses the arrival of the Messiah, and so some people see the passage as a prophecy of Jesus' birth. We need, however, to look at another possibility for its meaning, especially because the passage is so historically conditioned.
We need to turn to verses 1 through 9 for a look at the historical setting in which our pericope takes on specific meaning. Tiglath-pileser III, King of Assyria, was on a rampage. In order to stop him from stretching his kingdom from Mesopotamia across Syria and Israel all the way to Egypt, King Rezin of Aram and King Pekah of Israel entered into what has been called the Syro-Ephraimite Alliance. In order for the alliance to hold, the pair of kings needed a third party. Ahaz, king of Judah, whose capital was in Jerusalem, was the perfect fit, but Ahaz wanted no part of the alliance. With good sense Ahaz tells the other kings, "Thanks, but no thanks." Not willing to take no for an answer, King Rezin and King Pekah decide Judah will be part of the alliance with or without King Ahaz. And so the two kings put into motion a plot to remove Ahaz and replace him with "the son of Tabeel." This threat held dire circumstances: the dynasty that started with David (2 Samuel 7) when God promised there would be a Davidic king on Jerusalem's throne was in deep trouble. The threat made by the King of Syria and the King of Israel to replace the Davidic king with the son of Tabeel posed not only a historical dilemma but a theological dilemma as well -- can we count on the promises of God when things get tough? On the other hand, is it enough that the king and the people trust the promises of God? Should they not function with utter pragmatism in the face of this unprecedented challenge?
In Isaiah 7:3, the prophet is instructed by God to meet Ahaz at the end of a conduit and tell Ahaz not to be afraid. In our pericope Isaiah, speaking on behalf of God, tells Ahaz that God will prove the point and maintain the Davidic lineage. Ahaz need only ask for a sign. But Ahaz refuses the opportunity. Since Ahaz would not comply with God's request, Isaiah says, God will give the sign anyway.
"Behold," says the prophet, "a young woman shall conceive and bear a son." Some translations read "a young woman," others (such as the NRSV) read "the young woman," the preferred and more accurate translation from the Hebrew which uses the definite article. The phrase "young woman" is a translation of the Hebrew word meaning "a girl of marriageable age." That the definite article precedes the word is important, for this is not just any woman, but either a) an aforementioned young woman; b) the young woman who is in clear sight and standing nearby to Isaiah and Ahaz; or c) the queen.
If we look at the texts preceding our pericope, we find no "aforementioned" young woman, and it would seem unlikely that Isaiah is referring to the queen since the term is not used elsewhere in that sense. More than likely it refers simply to an obviously pregnant young woman who is standing nearby.
This young woman -- whoever she may be -- shall bear a son and call him Immanuel, that is to say, "God with us." The name of the child is, of course, highly symbolic, for it indicates the presence of God in the midst of the threatening situation. Much more than that cannot be said about the child's identity because, strangely enough, the name Immanuel appears again at 8:8 as the name of the land of Israel.
"He shall eat curds and honey" is variously interpreted by scholars. Many argue that the expression describes a menu for basic sustenance. Others see curds and honey as signs of prosperity that are denied to godless people (as in Job 20:17).
As for the phrase "by the time he knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good," this expression may simply reflect a natural tendency of infants early in life to choose between pleasant and unpleasant tastes. Or does this text point to an ability to make moral choices? Whatever the meaning here, before this child is able to accomplish even that much, the whole situation will be resolved. The King of Syria and the King of Ephraim will be wiped out! From beginning to end, the message is the same: God is faithful to God's promises and faithful in particular to the Davidic Covenant.
Romans 1:1-7
The apostle Paul usually wrote his letters to congregations he had established or had helped establish, and in those cases we can at least get a glimpse of his initial experiences with those congregations from the Book of Acts, where his three itineraries are traced. Often that prior history leads to some rather intimate writing on Paul's behalf, as in the case of the Letter to the Philippians. Rome, however, was not on Paul's itinerary until the end of his career and life, and so this letter, addressed to a congregation Paul did not establish and did not know intimately, bears a more formal stamp.
The date of this composition is not at all established with certainty among scholars. The suggestions range from A.D. 55 to 59. The purpose, however, can be more adequately determined on the basis of the internal evidence: to introduce himself and his theological position to the congregation there as part of their preparation for his desired visit.
The verses that comprise our pericope make up the letter's salutation. In the first six verses Paul accomplishes the following: (1) he identifies himself in terms of the gospel; (2) he defines the content of the gospel; and (3) he explains his role in God's mission. These three emphases will guide our discussion of the pericope.
First, Paul introduces himself to the Roman congregation not on the basis of his occupation or his family tree or his Roman citizenship but on the basis of his relationship to Christ. Think about the ways we introduce ourselves to other individuals or to groups when we are asked to tell who we are. Often we start with our job or position and move on to include spouse and children, dogs and cats and potbellied pigs, and eventually wax eloquently about our hobbies. Paul's style is different. He defines who he is in terms of whose he has become: "a slave of Jesus Christ." How impressive that must have sounded to a sophisticated audience living in the capital of the Roman Empire! Slaves were people with no rights of their own, separated from their families, assigned responsibilities on the basis of skills, bought and sold like cattle or fabric or grain. Paul was further "called to be an apostle." Not one of the original twelve commissioned by the earthly Jesus (Matthew 10:1-4) or by the resurrected Jesus (Matthew 28:16-20), Paul had explained how he qualified for the responsibility in a number of places (see, for example, 1 Corinthians 15:1ff; 2 Corinthians 10-12; Galatians 1-2). Here, as in other such salutations, he makes no apology for the title. The word "apostle" means he was "sent out," and it does not require too much imagination to regard the term as a theological passive, that is, God called him and sent him out, along with others, as a missionary. Clearly the function was not of his own devising. His claim to the title indicates what has happened to him -- not his accomplishment. For that purpose of apostleship Paul was "set apart for the gospel of God." The words "set apart" can mean the same as "sanctified" in his own Hebrew language, that is, set apart from profane everyday use for some particular purpose. Paul uses the word here not in terms of isolation but of consecration for the purpose of proclaiming "the gospel of God."
Second, the content of God's gospel is the message about God's Son. Jesus was, on the one hand, completely qualified to be the Messiah or Christ because he possessed the DNA of David. That biological descent affirmed Jesus as completely human and as completely Jewish and as completely Davidic. Without that range of characteristics "according to the flesh," Jesus could not have been the Christ. On the other hand, Jesus was "declared to be the Son of God with power," not on the basis of the synoptic gospels' announcement at his baptism (Mark 1:11 and parallels) but on the basis of his resurrection from the dead. That resurrection which is the foundation for calling Jesus "Christ our Lord" becomes part of Paul's instructional sermon at 10:9 where Jesus as Lord and the belief in his resurrection together make up the essential confession required for salvation.
Third, it is through the same resurrected Lord that Paul and his colleagues ("we") "received grace and apostleship" to spread the gospel "among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name." Once again, God not only "sends out" but enables through grace the mission of Paul, namely, to spread the good news about Jesus Christ among the Gentiles. Paul spells out his calling for that specific purpose most profoundly in Galatians 1:11--2:14. Indeed, at 1:15-16 he uses some of the same terminology as here: "set apart," "called me through his grace," "so that I might proclaim him among the Gentiles."
Having accomplished his three purposes in those first six verses, Paul now addresses his letter: "To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints" (v. 7). Essentially, Paul had identified both himself and Jesus Christ. Now he defines the Christians in Rome in two ways: "God's beloved" and "saints." The former expression is striking because usually Paul refers to his readers as "my beloved" (See Romans 12:19; 16:5, 8, 9; 1 Corinthians 4:14, 17; 10:14; 15:58, etc.) Yet here the readers are "God's beloved" as are the people of Israel at 11:28. More significant is the use of the same word in the singular, of course, and in combination with "Son" to address Jesus both at his baptism (Mark 1:11 and parallels) and at the transfiguration (Mark 9:7 and parallels). Thanks to their baptism as God's children, the Christians in Rome can be called by the same word used of Jesus: "God's beloved."
As for their "call to be saints," Paul takes a term out of his Judaism, particularly out of Jewish apocalyptic where it applied to those who were faithful, even martyrs, in the name of persecution (see Daniel 7:18, 21, 25, 27), and gives it freely to those adopted to be God's children. If Paul's calling is to be an apostle (v. 1), theirs is to be saints, living out their faith while residents of the seat of the Roman Empire.
Matthew 1:18-25
Whereas the Gospel of Luke begins with a lively drama about the birth of Jesus and the announcement of Jesus' birth to shepherds, Matthew begins his gospel with a long genealogical list. The literary method is about as exciting as the genealogical lists in Genesis and Numbers. Apparently the ancient writers did not consider that people in our day, who make New Year's resolutions to read the Bible from beginning to end, inevitably drop out when they encounter the genealogies. As in those family trees in the Old Testament, however, the list here serves a purpose. Matthew lists fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen generations from David to the deportation to Babylon, and fourteen generations from the deportation to the birth of Jesus the Messiah. Why fourteen? In all probability there is a message conveyed by the number that is confirmed by the content. In Hebrew each letter of the alphabet carries a numeric value. The value for the letters of the name of David (DVD = 4+6+4) adds up to fourteen. The symbolic use of fourteen three times virtually amounts to a "liturgical act," a way of indicating that Jesus is none other than a descendant of David. That Jesus derives from Jesse's family tree is a crucial issue for Matthew: Jesus is the expected Davidic Messiah in spite of all appearances. Jesus was not born in royal surroundings. Jesus did not receive a royal education fitting princes. Jesus was rejected by his own people. Jesus was crucified like a common criminal and buried in a borrowed tomb. At least he had to possess the right genes. How else could anyone accept the claim that he was the expected Messiah?
Yet the Davidic genes only heighten the confusion about Jesus' origin, because the baby "conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit" (v. 20). That was the explanation given by an angel to Joseph. He needed some assurance. Mary is pregnant but she has not lived with Joseph. The child that is coming due comes to her from the Holy Spirit. Joseph has trouble with this -- as any man would -- but an angel of the Lord appears to him in a dream and tells Joseph that this is okay. The theological point of the story, as in Luke's narrative about the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary (Luke 1:35), is that the initiative for the birth of Jesus Christ did not come from human beings but from God. No matter what an interpreter does about the biology of Jesus' conception, the theology of his origin focuses on the fulfillment of God's promise to establish the kingdom with a messiah at its head.
It is important to note that as Matthew focuses on the promise behind this event, namely the prophecy of Isaiah 7:10-17, he connects the pregnancy of Mary to the prophecy by using the Greek word parthenos, meaning virgin. Because of the creative work of the Holy Spirit in causing Mary to conceive, Matthew changes from the Hebrew word meaning "young woman of marriageable age" to "virgin" in an attempt to highlight the mystery that surrounds the birth of Jesus. Jesus, though born miraculously, comes into Joseph's family and so is of Davidic descent. Jesus is born according to Spirit and flesh. (Compare the identity of Jesus in our second lesson at Romans 1:1-7.)
Take Mary as your wife, the angel says, and name the son Jesus because he will save his people from their sins. Even the name Jesus is no accident. It did not jump off a page from a book of baby's names. It came directly from the Holy Spirit, and it was the name that in Hebrew means "Joshua," or "Yahweh saves." The name was not merely a matter of identification. It was the identity of Jesus, and it announced what God was about to do.
Now a dream comes to Joseph, and God offers Joseph his fifteen minutes of fame. Without this little story about Joseph, the man is about as useful as a refrigerator in an igloo. While the family tree provided the necessary genealogy for Jesus, Joseph himself plays virtually no role in the Gospels. Here, however, he rises to the occasion. Joseph does as the angel commands him. The presence of the Spirit in his life allows Joseph to obey the command of the angel to marry Mary, even though the conception defies human reason. The act of obedience here serves as the first of a pair of bookends in Matthew's Gospel. At the end we will encounter this same response in the women who early in the morning, as the first day of the week was dawning, went to the tomb. What happened at the tomb is also contrary to all human reason, but the women followed the one simple instruction given to them by the angel: Go quickly and tell his disciples, "He has been raised from the dead." And the women went, just as "Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him."
The last two verses of the pericope -- as important as they are not only for Joseph's example but for the continuance of the story -- do not provide the punch line for preaching on the text. On the contrary, the emphasis here and throughout the lessons is the activity of God. God promised to continue the Davidic dynasty in the time of Ahaz by delivering the king from the threat of deposition, and God provided the sign that this deliverance would occur, even soon. God fulfilled that promise of bringing a Davidic king to rule over the kingdom of heaven by impregnating Mary through the Holy Spirit and connecting the young teenager to the house of David by engagement to Joseph. The relationship of the two stories is not a matter of prediction and fulfillment, even though we can easily get that impression from Matthew's use of Isaiah 7. In fact, the story of Isaiah and Ahaz addresses such an immediate crisis with such an equally immediate response that the passage originally had nothing to do with the birth of a Jesus 730-some years later.
Yet the two pericopes fit like a hand in a glove. The Isaiah prophecy deals with the question about the trustworthiness of the Lord. How could God be trusted if these puny kings of Ephraim and Syria could prevail in removing the Davidic king from the throne? After all, Israel had sung a psalm every time a new Davidic king was crowned in Jerusalem. On every such occasion neighboring kings would conspire "against the Lord's anointed," that is, Messiah, testing the proverbial waters to see how strong he might be. Their plotting was so futile that the Lord laughed at them (Psalm 2:1-4). How could any mere human plot remove the king that God had placed on the throne? Now in the conception and birth of Jesus, God proves faithful to the promise made to David himself 1,000 years earlier (2 Samuel 7). A Davidic king will rule over God's kingdom.
The apostle Paul stressed the faithfulness of God in his salutation to the Romans. The gospel that he preached was promised beforehand through the prophets (Romans 1:2). As for the reign of the Davidic Messiah, Paul announces that Christ's exalted position as Lord occurred because of his resurrection from the dead.
Whether we focus on Matthew or on Paul, God's faithfulness is affirmed by miracle -- either the miracle of a virgin birth or the miracle of resurrection from the dead. While neither one makes sense from a rational or logical point of view, they both excite our thankfulness for God's faithfulness through the miracle of faith.
FIRST LESSON FOCUS
By Elizabeth Achtemeier
Isaiah 7:10-16
"O that thou wouldst rend the heavens and come down" (Isaiah 64:1). When we contemplate the evil and violence in our world, that is often our plea -- for God to come down and to set things right. We need the power of God that can put down tyrants, the love of God that can replace hatred with mercy, the forgiveness of God that can wipe out all the guilty past and restore our hearts and the hearts of all human beings to peace and goodness. And the message at this Christmastime is that God has answered our plea; he has sent us a Savior to cleanse and restore his creation to goodness.
But what are we given for a Savior? A baby! The tiny infant of a lowly peasant woman and her carpenter husband, born in a stable and laid in a feed trough for cattle. A baby! Helpless, dependent, unable to speak or walk or feed himself. Is this the mighty Savior of the world? Is this the one whom God sends as the answer to our plea for rescue?
That also could have been the question that King Ahaz of Judah asked in our Old Testament text for the morning. For Ahaz is threatened by the armies of northern Israel and of Syria. The time is 734 B.C. in our text, during what is known as the Syro-
Ephraimitic war. A century earlier, the small states along the Eastern coast of the Mediterranean had banned together and turned back the threatening armies of the Assyrian Empire. But now Assyria is threatening again, and Syria and Ephraim (northern Israel) want to form that alliance again, with Judah as a partner in it. King Ahaz of Judah, however, wants no part of such an attempt, and he refuses to join his neighbors. As a result, Pekah of Israel and Rezin of Syria assemble their armies to march against Judah, to depose Ahaz, and to put a puppet on the Judean throne who will join their cause.
The word that is given to Ahaz by the prophet Isaiah is that if Ahaz will trust in the Lord, the Lord will preserve Ahaz's Davidic kingdom and destroy the rulers of Israel and Syria. But what Ahaz needs is to believe that promise. However, proclaims Isaiah, "If you will not believe, you shall not be established" (Isaiah 7:9). Indeed, to prove to Ahaz that God will protect Judah, Isaiah offers a "sign" to Ahaz, and Ahaz can choose whatever sign he wishes (vv. 10-11).
Ahaz, who has already summoned Assyria to his aid, piously and hypocritically replies, "I will not put the Lord to the test" (cf. Deuteronomy 6:16). And that, says Isaiah, wearies the Lord God (v. 13), who cannot stomach such hypocrisy -- piety apart from our heart's devotion is pain and weariness to the Lord (cf. Isaiah 1:14).
Nevertheless, continues Isaiah, God will give Ahaz a sign. A young woman of marriageable age will conceive and bear a son and call his name Immanuel (v. 14). As we know from our gospel lesson, the New Testament understood that as a prediction of the birth of Jesus Christ, reading "young woman" ('almah) from the Septuagint version as "virgin" (parthenos). But originally, that was not the meaning. Rather, the young woman was simply the wife of the prophet or, more probably, the wife of the king himself. And "Immanuel" was very likely a name that lots of women gave to their infants. But that common occurrence was to be the "sign" to Ahaz that God would keep his promise to him to defend him. God had much earlier promised that there would never be lacking a Davidic heir to sit upon the throne (2 Samuel 7). You can trust that promise, Isaiah was assuring Ahaz. One thing, however, was required of that Davidic king -- faith. "If you will not believe, you shall not be established."
But, continues our text, because Ahaz has not believed and instead has summoned Assyria's armies to his aid, before the child Immanuel is able to have adult discernment between good and evil, Syria and Ephraim will be defeated, but Judah too will be devastated by Assyria, and the only food available will be not agricultural products, but curds from the herds and wild honey from the forests (vv. 15-16).
Certainly the prophecy by Isaiah proved true. In 721 B.C., the Assyrian Empire under Sargon II defeated Syria and northern Israel, and the inhabitants of the northern kingdom were taken into exile and disappeared from history, never to be heard from again. Under King Ahaz and then King Hezekiah, Judah became a faithful vassal of Assyria until 701 B.C., when Hezekiah, against the advice of Isaiah, entered into an alliance with Philistia and revolted against Assyria, counting on the help of Egypt. Assyria, under the rule of Sennacherib, therefore attacked Judah. Forty-
six of her cities were crushed, and her complete destruction was prevented only by the payment of a heavy tribute. Judah did not believe in the Lord. Therefore she was not established, and she remained a vassal under the Assyrian yoke through most of the following seventh century B.C.
Ahaz was given a sign, a sign of a baby named Immanuel. And we too are given the same sign in the birth of Jesus at Bethlehem. "This shall be a sign for you," proclaimed the angel of the Lord in Luke's Christmas story. "You will find a babe wrapped in swaddling cloths and lying in a manger." And Joseph in Matthew's account is told by an angel in a dream to name that child Emmanuel (Matthew 1:23-24). Thus, Jesus Christ comes to us, not as a helpless infant, powerless to save, but as the mighty sign and Son of the God who will establish and save our lives if we trust in him. "If you do believe, you shall be established."
The Lord, you see, chooses strange ways to reassure us of his salvation, not by rending the heavens and coming down in some cataclysmic display of power, not by overwhelming us with terrifying visions, but by sending a prophet to speak words -- words that are then fulfilled in the birth of a tiny child. And in that child lies our deliverance from evil, our forgiveness for sin, our death's defeat and our sure hope of eternal life. If we believe that, we shall indeed be saved.
