Emmanuel: God With Us in the Mess, Mundane, and Magnificent

SermonMatthew

Dec 23

A Christmas (Eve) Sermon: Emmanuel: God With Us from Matthew 1:18-23

Introduction: The Beautiful, Messy Business of Christmas

It’s Christmas Eve, and I’m guessing most of us have been busy. Wrapping gifts, vacuuming the living room, and setting the table just so. Maybe you’ve traveled or you are doing some math in the margin of your bulletin as you’re trying to figure out how much coffee it’s going to take to get through tomorrow morning. And now, here you are, finally sitting down. Maybe it’s the first time all day you’ve been still.

Or maybe you’re not still at all. Maybe your mind is racing—there’s dinner tonight, the kids’ sleep schedule, and you’re wondering if you got the right amount of batteries for all the gifts. It’s okay. Christmas has always been a bit messy.

The very first Christmas wasn’t a polished Broadway Act complete with a nice nativity scene, twinkling lights, and a porcelain baby Jesus smiling faintly. It was a scandal. A teenage girl, unmarried by pregnant. A good man, Joseph, trying to figure out what to do with the news. There’s a long, exhausting journey to Bethlehem, only to find that the whole town is filled up because of the census. They’ll have to make do with whatever they get. There thery were, far from hom, exhausted, and out of options. And it was there, in the middle of all that chaos, God came to be with them and God came to be with us.

Matthew tells us the angel appeared to Joseph with words that changed everything: “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21, NRSV). And then Matthew adds his own commentary: “All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: ‘Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,’ which means, ‘God is with us’” (Matthew 1:22-23, NRSV).

Emmanuel. God with us.

God With Us in the Mess

Let’s start there—in the mess. Because life is messy, isn’t it? It was messy for Mary and Joseph, who faced rumors, whisphers, side-glances, and misunderstanding wherever they went. It was messy in Bethlehem, in a crowded town, in a place made for animals, with no good place to lay their baby boy.

And it’s messy for us, too. Maybe this year brought a diagnosis you didn’t expect, perhaps a relationship crumbled, or a loss sucker-punched you. You are reeling from it and are simply trying to catch up with life and be a human. It’s hard. It’s messy. It’s Bethlehem.

Or maybe this year just brought the everyday kind of mess—the kind of mess that piles us like laundry in the corner or like those thousands of unread emails in your inbox.

Here’s the good news of Christmas which we find written out for us in the four gospels: God doesn’t stay far away from the mess. God enters it. We see this in each gospel – there’s a person who is experiencing life in it’s very complex goodness and messiness and Jesus doesn’t withdraw from them. Jesus goes near to them. Talk with them. Listens to them. On many occasions asks questions so he better understands their needs. Christ the king, the messiah, comes to the masses in their messes. He doesn’t wait for us to clean up our lives or get it all together. He steps into the chaos, into the mess, and says, “I’m here. Do not be afraid. It is I. I’m here with you.”

God With Us in the Mundane

But it’s not just the mess. God is with us in the mundane, too. Think about Jesus’ life. He didn’t spend his whole time on earth performing miracles or preaching sermons. He spent years learning Joseph’s trade, sweeping sawdust off the floor, and shaping rough wood into something useful. Jesus was always the Messiah, but he didn’t start his public ministry until he was 30 years old. He worked and scrapped together money to provide for himself and his mom and brothers.

And when his ministry began, so much of it happened in ordinary moments. A meal with friends. A conversation with others while they walked down the road. Being together as you all fish. Going to a religious festival.

Jesus didn’t shy away from the mundane, everyday stuff of life. He entered, embraced it, and by realizing the presence of God there with him, made it holy.

Most of our lives are spent in the mundane, aren’t they? Grocery runs, school picks, doing the dishes (again), doing the laundry (again), and trying to get through to someone on the phone so we can reschedule our doctor’s appointment.

And yet, Christmas reminds us that even in these ordinary moments, God is with us. There is no moment too small, no task too trivial for his presence.

God With Us in the Magnificent

And then, there’s the magnificent. Christmas is a reminder that God doesn’t just enter the mess and the mundane; he brings with him moments of wonder and glory. A sky filled with angels. A star guiding wise men from the East. A baby born to save the world.

What’s astonishing is that we also have moments that are similar. Who doesn’t get moved by the birth of a child, the beauty of the sunset or stars in the sky. Who doesn’t feel the wonder and afterglow of a conversation where you shared laughter that left you breathless? These too are glimpses of God’s very good kingdom, reminders that God’s goodness and glory are breaking into our world.

But here’s the thing: the magnificent moments don’t stand alone. They’re connected to the mess and the mundane. The angels appeared to shepherds—ordinary men doing an ordinary job on a messy hillside. The baby was born in a manger surrounded by straw and the smell of livestock.

The magnificent comes to us not apart from life’s messiness and ordinariness but right in the middle of it, where God’s love meets us in ways we never expect but always need.