Sermon on Matthew 1:12-25, Christmas Eve, "The Gift of Two Names"
Who is Jesus? That’s the most important question that we can ever ask, and should be asking this Christmas. We’ll find the answer in reflecting on God’s Christmas gift to us tonight: the Gift of Two Names—Jesus and Immanuel. Those two names will help tell us Who is Jesus? Matthew 1 is Jesus’ genealogy. His earthly family tree. A genealogy has a rather monotonous rhythm: “so and so the father of so and so the father of so and so…” and so on, down through all the names. But there are a couple of key places where the cadence is broken, like this one: “ Jacob, the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. The cadence doesn’t end with the predictable “Joseph, the father of Jesus”—because J esus is not the son of Joseph, but as the angel told them, He would be the Son of God. The Virgin birth! Jesus the Son of God, the Son of Mary. Joseph, her betrothed (legal) husband is only Jesus’ adoptive father , not his natural father; the relatio...