Jesus’ Birth in Matthew: A New Beginning

Jeff Garrison
Bluemont and Mayberry Churches  
Matthew 1:18-25
December 21, 2025

At the beginning of worship:

The holiday stands in contrast to the birth of the Prince of Peace, as we used to witness in the chaos of shopping. Today, it’s a little less hectic today as we do most of our shopping online… We’ve just pushed the chaos off onto postal and delivery workers.

Several years ago, a woman shopped in one of those big city department stores. A multi-floored building, with escalators and elevators to whisk you from floor to floor. One floor was devoted just to toys. Her four and six-year-old kids considered it heaven. The mother thought it another place. 

Her kids sang the “I want this” song repeatedly. Not the exactly the same as the “repeat the sounding joy,” we hear in “Joy to the World.” On every aisle they discovered a new “I gotta have” toy. 

Frazzled and about to come unglued, the lady finally paid for her purchases. She dragged the bags and her two kids to the elevator. The door opened. She and the kids and the presents squeezed in among everyone else. As the door closed, she let out a sigh of relief. Then she blurted, “Whoever started this whole Christmas thing should be strung up!” 

From the back of the elevator, a calm but a bit sarcastic voice responded, “Don’t worry, madam, we already crucified him.”^[1]  

The Christmas story is all a part of a larger drama of God’s directing. Christmas celebrates God coming to us in a way we can understand. It’s a genesis, a new beginning. In that child born of Mary, a peaceful joy enters to the world. We can now experience forgiveness and to be reunited with God. There’s a link between Christmas, Good Friday and Easter. 

Before reading the Scripture:  

Surprises fill the Gospel of Matthew. It begins with a genealogy of Jesus. That seems innocent enough, but within the names, we find scandals. Four women appear, none of whom met the Jewish holiness standards. Two are foreigners, and there’s a prostitute, an adulterer, and one involved with her father-in-law…^[2] Matthew drives home the point. God works in mysterious ways and can use anyone to further the kingdom. 

Following the genealogy, we learn of Jesus’ birth. While he’s given the name “Jesus,” he’s also given another name, Emmanuel, which means “God’s with us.” That’s the whole story of Jesus in a capsule. Let’s listen to the text. 

Read Matthew 1:18-25.

Christmas often doesn’t seem peaceful. Pressure builds as we strive to find the right gifts for our loved ones, or fix the perfect meal, or attend all the events and concerts and plays. 

Birth is always an exciting time, for when a child is born there is no telling what might come from his or her life. But for this child, the child Mary carries, there’s something even more special about him. He’s the Messiah. But not the Messiah folks expect. He’s not going to be a great military leader wiping our enemies. He’s not going to be a pretentious king sending decrees out from his throne in Jerusalem. A carpenter who later in his life, becomes teacher and a healer. Instead of providing earthly rewards, he erases the gap between us, citizens of earth, and God. He comes to save us from ourselves, from our sins, and from our failures at trying to be our own gods.  

God certainly chose a unique way to bring the Messiah into the world. Our text begins simply: “the birth of Jesus took place in this way.” Interestingly, the word for birth used here literally means “the genesis.”^[3] With Jesus, there comes a genesis, a new beginning. If you look at the opening chapter of John’s gospel, you’ll see John drawing upon the images of creation as recorded in the first chapter of Genesis. Likewise, Matthew reminds us that this isn’t just an ordinary birth. God is starting anew. 

This is a new beginning, a genesis. In Romans 5, Paul makes this analogy, comparing the works of Adam, who brought death into the world, with the works of Christ, who brings new life.^[4] With Christ, our history with the Almighty, with our Creator, a history marred since Adam, starts over.

This new beginning starts with a young woman, not yet married, yet pregnant. Her fiancé, we’re told, is a righteous man. It’s not easy to be an unwed mother today, but an unwed mother in the first century was in a real pickle. She didn’t have the social services we enjoy today to help such individuals and in a harsh religion which frowned on moral failure, such a woman had few options. She and her child would always be a social outcast. But Mary wasn’t just any woman with an out-of-wedlock pregnancy. She was carrying the Messiah… Yet, her situation is precarious considering the pivotal role she plays in salvation history.

As expecedt, this shocks her fiancé We’re told he planned to quickly dismiss Mary which may sound harsh, but not in the culture of that era. He could have gone public and humiliated Mary and, at the same time, made himself look righteous. Because Joseph would have been wronged yet so righteous, his sad eyes would have drawn women. They’d fall at his feet. But instead of boosting himself at Mary’s disgrace, he decides to quietly dismiss her. Joseph would now have to take the heat. It was an honorable thing to do, for he would protect Mary from crowds (after all, there might have been those willing to stone her).

From this story, we learn something about the true nature of righteousness. It’s not just doing what is right according to the laws or customs. It means taking on, at the expense of oneself, the guilt of another. Christ does this for the world. To a lesser but still significant manner, Joseph’s does this for Mary. It’s no longer Mary against the world, but Mary and Joseph and, of course, God. 

The glue holding this passage together is the Holy Spirit. A divine matchmaker, the Spirit impregnates Mary, bringing life into her womb and setting off this genesis, this new beginning. The Spirit also works on the other side of the equation, with Joseph, getting him to buy into the plan. Through a dream, an angel informs Joseph of Mary’s righteousness and God’s plan for the child she carries. When Joseph awakes, he decides not to dismiss Mary, but to go ahead with the wedding. They’ll marry and together raise this child and participate in God’s plan for reconciling himself to a fallen world. Joseph listened to God message in this dream. 

As I’ve shared before, when I was considering seminary, I had several dreams affirming my decision. I’m not sure I would have been as willing and ready to quit a job, sell a house, and move four states away had it not been for those dreams. In one, I found myself asking if it was worth it as I didn’t really think I was cut out for all this. But in this dream, I heard a very distinct voice saying, “Go ahead and go, and when you’re done, you’ll know what you’re to do.” Notice that I did not know where I was going or what it was that I’d be doing. I had to step out in faith, just as Joseph’s decision still required faith. But these dreams gave me the confidence I needed to pack up and head to seminary.  

Joseph’s dream shows us the importance of listening to God and when we listen to God and follow his path, we find peace. Let me clarify. I don’t think listening to God means trying to understand all our dreams. Often our dreams are a way our minds sort out stuff. Instead of investing large amounts of time trying to understand what our dreams tell us, we need prepare ourselves to hear God’s voice by studying Scripture, praying, and being open to hear God by whatever means the divine comes to us. 

God’s word can come many ways: in our sleep, through a thought we have while walking or driving, or in a conversation. It may be spoken through a sarcastic voice in the back of an elevator in a crowded department store. What’s important is that we know God’s word enough to make sure what we hear is from God. Notice in our account today how the angel of the dream reminds Joseph of the prophecies in Scripture. For him, that formed the assurance he needed to know God was behind this.

A second clarification needs to be made is about the meaning of peace. Obviously, if you read beyond the first chapter of Matthew, which we’ll do on the Sundays after Christmas Day, you’ll see that peace eludes Mary and Joseph. They flee as refugees to Egypt to escape Herod. The peace they had, in that little bundle of joy they protect, comes from knowing they’re doing God’s will. God’s Spirit guided them, providing the strength they desperately need. God’s peace doesn’t mean the absence of conflict, but the assurance of God’s presence. As the Psalmist reminds us, it’s the peace that overwhelms us even in the “shadows of death.”^[5]   

This passage is about the work of the Holy Spirit, guiding and directing mere mortals, like you and me, to help bring in God’s kingdom. Life is like this. It’s not about us; it’s about God. As for us, today, we, too, need to be open to experiencing that prod from God to take the risk before us. We need to be prodded to step out in faith. God’s Spirit gives us new life. In our prayers, in our Bible Study, in our mediation time, in times of quietness which may only come when we’re asleep, we need to be open to hearing God’s invitation to participate with him in bringing about the kingdom. 

We learn in the first chapter of Matthew that God works through ordinary people. In It’s Up to Us. John Kasich writes, “Leadership comes in all shapes and sizes, but it almost always starts at home and grows from there.”^[6] Well, sometimes, it starts in a manger. And it starts when we respond to God’s call, for God can do great things through us, sometimes frightening things, but almost always things we wouldn’t dreamed of doing on our own. 

When we hear God’s call and we answer, God gives us the peace to know that he’s with us and will guide us so that we might do whatever small part we’re called to do to bring about God’s kingdom. Joseph listened to God. Will we? Amen.  

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^[1] I have told this story several times. I read the story and modified it from one used in a sermon by Dr Clayton Cobb, St Peter’s by the Sea Presbyterian Church, Rancho Palos Verdes, CA.

^[2] Tamar (Genesis 38), Rahab (Joshua 2), Ruth (the Moabite with her own book in the Bible) and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11)

^[3] Dale Brunner, The Christbook, Matthew 1-12 (1992, Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 2004), 23.

^[4] Romans 5:12-21

^[5] Psalm 23.

^[6] John Kasich, It’s Up to US: Ten Little Ways We Can Bring About Big Change (Hanover Square Press, 2019), 108.