This is how Jesus Christ came to be born.
His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
But before they came to live together,
She was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
Her husband Joseph,
Being a man of honour and wanting to spare her publicity,
Decided to divorce her informally.
He had made up his mind to do this when the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
Joseph,
Son of David,
Do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife,
Because she has conceived what is in her by the Holy Spirit.
She will give birth to a son,
And you must name him Jesus,
Because he is the one who is to save his people from their sins.
Now all this took place to fulfil the word spoken by the Lord through the Prophet.
The Virgin will conceive and give birth to a son,
And they will call him Immanuel,
A name which means God is with us.
When Joseph woke up,
He did what the angel of the Lord told him to do.
He took his wife to his home,
And though he had not had intercourse with her,
She gave birth to a son,
And he named him Jesus.
The Gospel of the Lord.
The day we start to break the societal rules,
An unwed woman having a child,
Scandalous,
And Joseph then wanting to do the right thing by her.
Isn't that beautiful?
Even though according to custom he had the full right to publicly shame Mary.
But we see something of St.
Joseph here that tells us a lot about his own character.
We know that we don't know a lot about him,
Other than that he was a carpenter,
And he took Jesus to the temple,
And he raised Jesus.
But there's not much else that we know.
But in this we can see that Jesus's foster father,
St.
Joseph,
Cared.
And he listened when God's angel came to speak to him,
To tell him that personally Mary wasn't unfaithful to you,
Because what else was he to think?
But this woman that you are to marry is carrying the child of God,
Is carrying God himself.
Can you imagine the trepidation that St.
Joseph had to go through?
And then the angel goes further and he tells him you must name him Jesus,
And they will call him Emmanuel,
God is with us.
That's not just a pretty name for us to see and to read and to experience and use,
But there's a message in that.
In the very name Emmanuel,
God is with us.
Up to then the belief was for many people that God is something,
Some person,
Some angry,
Vengeful being out there,
Up in the heavens or somewhere that we can't see.
And unfortunately that is still a belief of many of us.
But the name of Jesus says God is with us,
Emmanuel.
And when we look further and we look into the ministry of the Christ,
What did Jesus come to do?
Jesus came to break laws,
To change the laws.
Jesus came to say that whereas the Jewish laws focused on the Jewish community,
That those laws are not applicable as much as the two laws,
The two rules that he gave us.
And those two rules are love God and love thy neighbor.
Because God is with us.
And not outside of us.
God doesn't stand next to us.
No,
God is inside of us.
God is with us always.
We can't go into a dark room,
Close the door behind us and say,
God,
Just wait there.
I'll be right back.
I just want to do some things that I don't necessarily want you to see.
God is with us in the times that we do things that we know are not in line with our purpose,
Not in harmony with the universal symphony that we are all part of.
That's a scary thought.
But it's also such a comforting thought.
Because even in that darkness,
I know that I am not alone.
I spoke to one of the people online during the week and I completely,
Completely missed the cry for help.
Because I was focusing on the positives that they were sharing and I didn't see that stark cry.
I can't see God.
I can't feel God.
It's a sad thing to have to admit because we go out there and we try and help as much as possible.
And it had me thinking again about the fact that people feel that God has forsaken them when they go through pain,
When they go through heartache,
When they go through traumatic experiences.
I'm not saying those things are good.
Not at all.
The experiences are not trying to make them small at all.
It's a sacred pain that many people go through.
And it was a very harsh reminder that we can't go out and try and save people.
That's not our job.
But we can try and remind them.
We can try and remind them about a light,
About a candle burning.
We can try and remind them and we can try and remind ourselves about the promise of Christmas.
That light where we find our holy mother ready to give birth,
Knowing that a child is the Son of God,
Knowing that he will bring great light into this world,
But in doing so,
He will disturb a great darkness.
We find Saint Joseph trusting God,
That this child that is to be born is indeed the Son of God,
Is indeed God himself,
Emmanuel,
The one who will break down these illusions that we have about separation,
These illusions that we have that I am standing here and you are wherever you might be and there's space between us,
Yes and no,
Because we are all connected through Christ.
We are all connected through the Holy Spirit that resides in all of us.
And it doesn't matter to me if you experience your spirituality and your religion in a completely different way than I do.
You might not call God God.
You might call God or you might not call Jesus your God.
You might call Lord Ganesha your God.
You might call God nature.
It doesn't take away from the fact that we are all connected through a spirit,
Through the Spirit.
We call it the Holy Spirit.
And I think that is one of the last lessons of the Christ is that we are all part of the same.
Jesus never said,
Go persecute somebody else because of the way that they believe.
Jesus said,
Love God and love each other.
So tonight I hope you share in this feeling of love,
This excitement for the birth of the Christ,
For the birth of the one who came to break down these barriers of separation and to remind us that there is always light.
Even in the greatest of darkness that we might feel we are stuck in,
There is always light.
We just sometimes in our pain and in our ego forget to open our eyes and to see the light of Christ.
