Advent 4A: A meditation on Matthew 1.18-25

18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.
19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.
20 But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’
22 All this took place to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
23 ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel’, which means, ‘God is with us.’
24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife,
25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus. 

Her deepest longing connects with God’s deepest longing, and she becomes pregnant with divine potential. 

Her deepest desire connects with God’s deepest desire and there is a union of divine infinite love with finite flesh. 

Her experience is that she is so filled with the spirit of God, love, that she becomes a source for God in the world. She experiences first hand that God is with her.

When she first experiences God’s Word inside her, she knows that she carries God, but that God also carries her. 

At first the experience of the Divine moving within her is angelic, holy, and inspiring. She feels God’s Word live and move and breathe within her – it is breath taking. She feels God’s hopes and dreams to share love and presence take solid form within her. There is no denying it – she is blissful. 

But soon her flesh body begins to revolt. She is nauseous and tired. What she once enjoyed she now avoids – it makes her gag. And the distaste that she sometimes feels at the burden of divinity within her is echoed in the judging faces of the community around her. Fingers are pointed. Eyebrows are raised. Questions are asked. When she enters a room, conversations are muffled. 

How is it that the burden of divinity, the burden of restless transcendence can be so light yet so heavy at the same time? She truly desires nothing more than the fullness of God’s presence to saturate her. The answer to her prayers is both her greatest freedom yet the source of scandal and offence. The divinity within her comforts her as much as it confronts and offends others. God’s messengers bless her, but the gossip and judgement of the most religious, and the rumours of others degrade her.  

To console herself she chooses as spiritual ancestors Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba, and Ruth. These women leaders are the ancestors of her son Jeshua, the new Moses, who will lead her people into a new freedom. She identifies with these women. These women are also shrouded in a cloud of scandal. These four women are also outsiders, always at the edge of things, excluded, but they are women through whom God works, through whom the divine love story takes shape, women through whom salvation is carried out for God’s people. She looks to the strength of these women as heroes and whispers a prayer to the divinity with her that he would be brave as they were brave, that he would continue the song-line of God’s love story carried so faithfully through Ruth, Bathsheba, Tamar, and Rahab. 

She writes their names down with other ancestors, dividing their names into 7 groups of 6. Seven is the number of wholeness, fullness, and healing and when fingers are pointed, eyebrows raised and when her own body revolts against her, she reminds herself that the new life in her is a new beginning, a genesis, a creation of God that she has co-created. 

Why is it that people feel so threatened by her potential to bring the divine into being? Even a righteous man, her best friend, quietly tries to remove his embarrassment and scandal: her. A just man is one who is well versed in the law. By rights he could have her stoned, this would be “just”. This would be true righteousness - applying the letter of the law. 

Being just is also about being open to the Infinite, open to Mystery, open to being surprised by God. This just man responds by providing a safe haven for the God bearer and sanctuary for the Word she bears, the fruit of her womb. In this act of trust and openness, in this tender and compassionate and gentle response, the righteous one experiences “God with us.”

Whose story is this?

Her story is a universal story. It is her story. It is our story. It is my story. It is your story. For when we are empty, empty of ego, empty of our own self-righteousness, empty of ourselves, empty of our own plans, then finally we can offer space for the fullness of God. When we are free of our own exhausting ambitions and control, when we are truly virgin, then God’s infinity joins hands with our finite reality – heaven and earth join hands – grace and mercy kiss. And when we long of God, really thirst and desire nothing but all of God: all of God’s love, all of God’s presence, all of God’s life: then our deepest longing connects with God deepest longing and the union of those two desires will birth God into this world. We are pregnant with the presence of God. As we wait on God, as we learn to say yes to God’s Word in us, God’s presence in us and with us, we will know ourselves as called and gifted to give this Word to the world that God loves.