Matthew 1:18
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.
Matthew 1:18 KNOWING HOPE
Springford Baptist Church: November 27, 2022.
Some of you may enjoy putting together puzzles. There are different techniques that people follow to fit together all the pieces. Whatever technique you follow, the puzzle is not finished until you put every piece in place. I have heard of people working away on a puzzle for an extended time only to come to the end and have a piece missing.
There is the story told of a father who was trying to get a task completed and his young son kept coming and asking him questions and looking for something to do. The father looked around and saw a magazine and in it he found a picture of the world. An idea came to him. He took the picture and a pair of scissors and cut the picture of the world into several pieces. Then he presented these to his son and told him to take his time and to put the pieces together.
Of course, the expectation was that this would take a significant amount of time. Imagine the surprise of the father, when just a short time later his son returned and had meticulously fit all of the pieces together. In amazement the father said to his son, “How did you do that”? His son replied, “Well, I found that on the other side of the picture of the world there was a picture of a man. When I put the man back together the whole world fit together too.”
Isn’t that something? The words of that young boy remind us this morning that it is only as individuals are put back together that our broken world can fit together too.
This is the HOPE of our faith. God knew that our world was broken. He knew that the lives of men, women, and children were broken. It is only Jesus that can fit the pieces of broken lives together. When people are put together through the HOPE that Jesus brings, then our world can begin to fit together too.
At Christmas we celebrate the way that God chose to fit the puzzle pieces of our broken world back together.
We will be following the record of this miraculous event as told in Matthew’s gospel. Today we look at a single verse from Matthew 1:18: “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.”
Clearly, this is completely unexpected and a miraculous event that never occurred before or since. This was God deciding that the best way to fix our broken world was to send His own Son Jesus. Mary was chosen to be the mother of this child that was conceived through the Holy Spirit.
There are people who will not believe what is at the foundation of our Christian faith that Jesus is the Son of God. People who were alive when Jesus was born found the thought that He was the Son of God unbelievable. People today find this unbelievable.
The only way to believe this is to accept that it is a miraculous act that God deliberately brought about out of His deep love for our world and each of us.
When we do choose to believe what is revealed in this verse there is a huge infusion of HOPE that comes to us.
If God could do what He did here in bringing about the miraculous birth of His Son Jesus, then God can do anything!
This introduces miraculous HOPE to our lives.
What we looked on as hopeless is no longer without HOPE when Jesus comes on the scene.
Our desire to know God and to find HOPE in Him is renewed when we see the ways that Jesus does put broken lives back together.
You know when you break something at home, you have to decide if you will take the time to fit the pieces together and to repair it. This process does take time and determination. We know that when things are repaired there can still be evidence that it had been broken.
Think of a china figurine that is glued back together. When you look closely, you will still see the small cracks. Isn’t it the same with us? The broken pieces of our lives that have been mended give evidence that God has been at work. This is profoundly hopeful!
Sometimes when we look at someone else’s life or our own all we can see is the brokenness. We are especially aware of our own brokenness because we are intimately familiar with the thoughts and worries and struggles that we carry.
It is only as we consider what Jesus can do with our brokenness, that HOPE appears on the horizon.
There are those who will shake their heads that there are still people like us who believe in miracles that God can bring about. When we witness broken lives that God has mended and healed, this is evidence of God and His persistent HOPE available.
There are those who celebrate Christmas but never take seriously the miracle that is at the center of it all -the birth of Jesus.
When you think about it, How is there any hope in Christmas if you do not believe that God sent His own Son Jesus into our world?
Hear again the words of this missing piece that fits the puzzle of our broken world together, “This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:18)
When we do choose to believe that what we read here is true, then we can know HOPE by knowing God.
Wherever we look in the world around us and in our own lives and conclude that things are hopeless, we can pause and pray, “But God You can do what no one thinks possible. You are not yet finished with this situation. It seems hopeless to me, but I know that You can repair what is broken. You can bring healing and wholeness. I know God that You can lift up the broken hearted and those in mental and emotional anguish. I know God that You can restore HOPE to my life. God where there are cases of unresolved conflict both close to home and worldwide, You God can act in ways that will bring reason to HOPE. Thank You God for this gift of faith that we have been given. Thank You that we discover in the birth of Your Son Jesus the HOPE for which we long.
Without our faith in God there is no HOPE. Absence of HOPE is a desperate place to reside. Today we thank God that He chose to send Jesus Christ into our world as the One Who fits our broken pieces back together.
Today, because we know God, we can also KNOW HOPE!