Fourth Sunday of Advent

Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

On October 26th, 2018, Bethel Church in The Hague in the Netherlands began a worship service that would last for over three months, non-stop. It began when the Tamrazyan family from Armenia told the church that it looked like their request for asylum might be denied and they might be deported. The family, father, mother, and three children, had already lived in the Netherlands for nine years. Being uprooted after such a long time would be hard, and on top of that they feared retributions should they return to Armenia.

The church wanted to help. They discovered a law on the books that forbade police from entering a church during religious services to make arrests. Well, they thought, we’ll just have to keep worshiping non-stop until the Tamrazyan family’s case is settled.

As this forever worship service stretched on, more and more pastors volunteered to participate. They took shifts in order to keep the service going. In the end, over 1,000 pastors and priests from the Netherlands, Germany, Belgium, and France participated in leading the service, and countless volunteers attended.

"The Protestant Church of The Hague respects court orders," the community center wrote in a statement, "But finds itself confronted with a dilemma: the choice between respecting the government and protecting the rights of a child."

I had to think of this story as I pondered today’s gospel reading.

Joseph, too, faces a dilemma. He is engaged to Mary, who turns out to be pregnant, and Joseph isn’t the father. What is he to do? The law allows him to divorce her. However, were he to publicly divorce Mary, she would be shamed, would never find another husband, and might even be punished by stoning. He is a kind man and doesn’t want to do that to her. In the end, he thinks dismissing her privately would be the best solution for all involved. (I wonder just how quietly this could be done in a village where everyone knows everyone’s business; folks are sure to find out.)

Another option would be to just keep going with the engagement and marriage and accept the child as his own. The law allows this, too, but it doesn’t seem to have crossed Joseph’s mind.

Until, that is, he gets a visit from the angel of the Lord. This angel assures Joseph that the whole situation is of God. He should go ahead and take Mary as his wife and act like the baby’s father, naming him with the name provided by the angel: Jesus.

The encounter with the angel opens up this whole new possibility for Joseph, a solution that hadn’t occurred to him. The law allows divorce, but doesn’t demand it. Yet even this kind, righteous man Joseph never thought of staying together with a supposedly unfaithful bride. Until the angel encourages him to do just that.

At first this appeared to me to be a conflict between law and gospel. The law says divorce, and the gospel says protect Mary by marrying her.

Likewise, the church in The Hague faced that conflict: The law says the Armenian refugees should be deported, and the gospel says take care of the least of God’s children.

Yet looking a little closer, I am not sure law versus gospel is the issue here. The church in The Hague followed the law; what they did was legal. Joseph’s decision to keep Mary as his bride was just as lawful as a divorce would have been.

It seems to me that the question Joseph and Bethel Church were facing was: Among the options the law offers, which one should we take? How should we decide between the stricter application and the gentler one?

Judges have to make decisions like this all the time. The law stipulates sentencing guidelines that give a range of sentence options. 10 to 15 years. 25 years to life. Time served to 2 years. Quite some ranges. The judge gets to decide which end of the scale to choose.

What flows into his or her decision? I imagine things like prior records of the defendant, mitigating circumstances, level of remorse, and the judge’s own sense of justice.

What flowed into Joseph’s original decision? His understanding of God’s law and God’s will. He assumed that God would want him to sever his relationship to an unfaithful woman. He interpreted the law on the basis of that assumption, and probably his injured pride, as well.

The angel changed this assumption. The angel informed Joseph that God was active in this situation and that God wanted the relationship to continue. The Holy Spirit is at work here. God is sending his son to save people from their sins. God is using Mary and Joseph to show how close God is coming to the people. This is about love and hope and redemption and salvation.

Once Joseph looks at the situation from this perspective, he makes a totally different decision. Now he is informed by grace and love and faith in God. With that as his guide, he knows what to do: Accept Mary and her child and live as a committed family.

The church in The Hague looked at the law from the perspective of God’s will. All through the Bible, God is calling the faithful to care for the widow, the orphan, and the stranger; to care for the least of God’s children. It was fall when this dilemma was brought to them; Advent and Christmas were around the corner, the season when we remember how there was no room at the inn for our savior, how the holy family had to escape to Egypt and live there as refugees. From God’s word in the Bible, the congregation perceived the call to interpret the law through the lens of faith.

This point of view helped them discover the law about police not being allowed to make arrests during worship. They used this law to be both law-abiding and faithful to God’s calling.

We are in the season of Advent. This is known as the season of hope. We await the celebration of Jesus’ birth, as well as Jesus’ second coming. We are filled with joyful expectation of the breaking in of the kingdom of God.

While we wait, we are called to already act according to the kingdom. Christ started the realization if that kingdom on earth in his birth and ministry. When Christ returns, he will establish that kingdom over the whole earth. Until then, we live in this in-between stage. The kingdom has begun, but is not enveloping the whole world yet. We see powerful signs of Christ’s reign among us, but we also see signs that evil is still all around us, as well.

In this in-between time, Jesus calls us to look at the dilemmas we face and the decisions we make from the perspective of faith. When we are torn between two options, our Savior asks us to let faith and grace and hope influence what we do.

Most of us will never face monumental decisions, like a judge sentencing someone to jail. However, in our everyday lives, we are constantly making smaller decisions. Here are examples that came to mind:

A colleague tells us a juicy bit of gossip about a co-worker. We can pass it on, reveling in the feeling of being in the know, being part of the in-group, being better than that co-worker. Or we can keep the tidbit to ourselves, stopping the spread of it as much as we are able. Both options are allowed. Which one follows God’s call to let grace influence our actions?

A friend lets us down, apologizing profusely. How do we react? We can be mad; in our head we spin a tale of them being a fake friend, never having liked us, just being out to get us; this friendship is over! Or we can listen to the friend’s apology and explanation, forgive them, and work hard to mend the relationship. Both options are on the table. Which one is driven by faith?

A couple of years ago, Rev. Jimmie Schwartz was on his way to work as chaplain at Carroll Lutheran Village when a young woman ran a red light and hit his car. Jimmy almost died. He is now in a wheelchair. He was close to retirement and had all kinds of plans for how to enjoy it with his wife; all those plans were shattered.

When the young woman was sentenced to a long prison term, Pastor Jimmie was given the opportunity to address her. Jimmie did so with words of forgiveness. He expressed his hope that something good would come out of this situation and that this accident might be the wake-up call she needed to turn her life around. Everyone in that courtroom was moved.

They were moved by this faithful man who could have yelled at this woman who changed his life forever, but instead chose words of forgiveness, grace, and hope. He followed God’s call. By doing that, he gave wonderful testimony to the love of God.

Something similar happened at Bethel Church in The Hague. It became something of a pilgrimage site. People came from all over to participate in this act of grace. At Christmas time, donations for the family and the church poured in. Everyone was moved by what the people of God were doing.

Theo Hettema, a church official, said in a statement. "For months we have held up hope and now that hope is taking shape." This hopefulness inspired all the pastors, volunteers, and helpers, and countless people who read about it in the papers.

In the end, their hope was rewarded. After 96 days, after 2,300 hours of continuous worship, the Netherlands changed their policy. The Tamrazyan family was safe from deportation and could negotiate their residency without fear.

One of the daughters of the Tamrazyan family published poems on a blog throughout their stay at Bethel Church. That December, she posted this poem:

"Around-the-clock 7 days a week
We praise and worship God
It makes the flowers in my heart grow
It makes me thankful
In a way I've never been before."

When we follow God’s call and Joseph’s example and let our decisions be shaped by faith and grace, we can bring about such joy and hope and gratitude and healing in others and in ourselves: It makes the flowers in our hearts grow. What a moving way of expressing what Advent is all about. Amen.