Stanley Hauerwas of Duke University once observed that the greatest enemy of the Gospel is not atheism, but sentimentality. Perhaps there's no time when we're more susceptible to this danger than at Christmas with the stories about the birth of Jesus. What parent hasn't gushed with pride watching their child play a shepherd in a bathrobe or an angel with a coat hanger halo? It's difficult to read words like "they wrapped him in swaddling clothes" and not melt into a puddle of

That a messenger of God, a bearer of “good news,” should be so fearsome may surprise us. Yet throughout Scripture, whenever humans encounter the realm of God, the natural response of ordinary people is not joy but fear.

It's easy to overlook Joseph. The Bible doesn’t say much about him. In fact in all four gospels, he never speaks, not one syllable. He just stands there silently in the background of Christmas cards and pageants, nearly always overshadowed by Mary, Jesus’ mother. Even the shepherds and the wise-men get more press. Joseph just takes his place in the story without any songs or speeches, trudging slowly but stably along that road from Galilee to Bethlehem.

John the Baptist is a burr in your saddle, the car alarm you can’t turn off, that boorish uncle or ill-natured aunt at your holiday dinner—unpleasant, embarrassing and unwelcome, something you’d just as soon not be part your holiday celebrations. There’s a reason you don’t see ole ‘wild-eyed John’ on Christmas cards or as an inflatable character on peoples’ front lawns. He just doesn’t fit in next to Santa, Frosty and Rudolph. He doesn’t jibe with the Christmas spirit. 

Time is a major concern in our lessons this morning from Paul and Matthew. “You know what time it is,” Paul writes to the church in Rome. The day is dawning, he tells them in so many words, salvation is near, each day only bringing us closer to Jesus’ return.