“A QUESTION OF COST”

Preached by Rev. Ed Brouwer at The Gathering Place, Osoyoos

Pulpit Series Volume 21, Issue 23     December 11, 2011

This morning, I have a question for you…

Have you ever considered what Christmas cost the two other major characters in the story of our Lord’s birth?  I am talking about Mary and Joseph.

For Mary, the cost of saying “Yes” to God's plan of bringing His Son into the world meant that she, a good girl from a good family, became pregnant before she was married and faced the cost associated with out-of-wedlock pregnancy in that very strict culture.

1. How would she explain it to her family?
2. What would the neighbours think?
3. Worse yet, how would she face Joseph?

Joseph would be expected to demand that she be executed by stoning or at the very least publicly humiliated.

Her family would have been super humiliated at her obvious condition in a small town like Nazareth - much like Osoyoos a place where everybody knows everybody's business.

And Mary, if she survived all of that, would one day have the horrible pain of seeing her son, God's Son, go to His death.

Joseph, described in Matthew's gospel as “a righteous man”, experienced the shock and humiliation of discovering that the girl he was engaged to was pregnant by someone else.

Because he loved both God and Mary, he really struggled with the decision of what to do.  That he was truly a “good man” is seen in his decision to “divorce her quietly” rather than humiliate her publicly.

Then imagine the leap of faith required for him to believe the message he received in a dream…..

• that he should accept the baby in Mary's womb as the Son of God
• that he should share with her the humiliation
• that he should endure with her the small town gossip
• that he should take her into his home, protect her, care for her and her baby
• that he should raise “God's Son” as his own child.

Think also of the fact that Mary's baby, God's Son, was born in an animal shelter for “there was no room for them in the inn”.

Why should having no room in the inn have been an issue?

After all, Bethlehem was Joseph's home town.

• Why wouldn't they have been staying with family or friends?
• What had made them outcasts from the family and unwelcome in their homes?
• Was it because the scandal of Mary's pregnancy?
• Was it the foolishness of Joseph to continue to care for her?

And then they had to flee for their lives to Egypt leaving behind their home and business - everything they had.  Think of them, living for a time in a foreign country where they didn't understand know the language or the culture.

This peasant couple from a small town in Galilee, willingly paid the price of bringing Jesus into their world and into our world.

The price paid to bring Jesus into the world

is not just a one-time cost paid by Mary and Joseph.

It is a price to be paid in every generation

by every believer in order to bring Jesus

into the world we live in.

The price Mary and Joseph paid really relates to each of us as individual Christian believers.

• Mary gave her life to bring God's Son, into her world.
• Mary was not focussed on fulfilling her own desires, plans or ambitions, but on God's purpose for her.
• Mary gave her body to the process of bringing a baby full term.
• Mary gave her life and energy to love, care, nurture and develop Him.
• Mary of Nazareth became Mary the mother of Jesus.
• Mary lost her identity to the new life God planted within her.

What about us?

When I let the life of Jesus grow in me:

• I can't always do what I want to do.
• I sometimes feel helpless and vulnerable.
• I am to let the world see Jesus and not me.

Jesus born in me, however inconvenient and painful, so that the life I live is Jesus' life and not my own.

We see:

• Joseph caring for pregnant Mary while Christ was being formed in her.
• Joseph had to set aside his ambitions and desires to the task of training and developing this child of God.

Like Joseph, we have been chosen not to do our own thing, but rather to develop the Jesus-life in others.

• Joseph accepted the responsibility to care for, protect and nurture the life of God's Son.

We too, must accept as our primary focus the task of developing, discipling, influencing, training, protecting, nurturing and equipping those for whom we have been given responsibility.

Our most important task is developing the Jesus-life in those with whose lives and futures we’ve been entrusted.

The Cost of Christmas...

• What will it cost you to bring Jesus into your world?
• What will it cost you to bring Jesus into your family, your workplace, your circle of friends and acquaintances?

For each of us, there is a price to pay….

It may not involve public humiliation or relocating to another country, but then again it might!

It may involve some misunderstanding, some discomfort, some sacrifice, some changes in your life.

Certainly it will involve less of you and more of Him.

It may involve less of what you can do and achieve, and more of what you can develop and nurture in others.

Make no mistake, this is the “fullness of time”.

Once again God is looking for:
Marys to take the life of His Son within them, to allow that life to be formed in their own bodies and personalities, and to deliver the Life of Jesus to their own world.

Once again God is looking for:
Josephs to accept the responsbility for nurturing and developing the life of Jesus in others, even if it means taking a much less prominent role for themselves.

I encourage you to say as Mary did, “May it be to me as you have said.”  Luke 1:38

I encourage you to do as Joseph did and give yourself to developing the Jesus life in others.