Sermon preached at the Sung Eucharist on the Fourth Sunday of Advent 2025

Eleven days ago, The Abbey was filled with Icons, Choirs, clerics and candles as Christians from across the world came together to pray for all those who are persecuted for proclaiming the faith of Christ. It was an Advent service, praying for the coming of God’s Kingdom of Justice and Peace, in a world that is increasingly fractured and divided, and where many do not enjoy comfort or security as they come together to worship God. As a part of that service, A woman from Pakistan spoke extremely movingly of her experience of isolation as the only Christian at her University. Of burning churches as a mob attacked the Christian part of her city. Of the violence meted out to women and girls to force them to marry and convert. It was painful to listen to, as it should be. For Ribqa and thousands like her, being a Christian has consequences.

Being a Christian has consequences. God willing, they will not be as life-threatening for us as they are for many, but consistently throughout his ministry Jesus shows us and tells us that he comes to bring something new. The people he calls have their lives changed. He tells them that they must give up everything to follow him, that they will be hated because of his name. Peter is given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, and Jesus says that anyone who has left things behind for his sake will inherit eternal life. This is only Jesus’s words and actions with the disciples; All those whom he healed, whom he challenged, whom he set free, found that meeting Jesus demanded change, and bravery to meet that change and to answer ‘be it unto me according to thy word.’ That great new thing is what the Angel proclaims in today’s Gospel: Emmanuel, God with us.

But this all seems too Christmassy, too soon! We still have another four days to go before the Angels sing, the presents are unwrapped, and we sing the final verse of “O Come all ye Faithful.” Another four days before we are confronted with the enormity of the great little one, God made man. Surely it is too soon to be talking about the consequences of the Incarnation?

And yet, in our Gospel reading this morning, Joseph is faced with all kinds of consequences in his preparation with Mary for the birth of Christ. Joseph never actually speaks in the Gospels; all we know of his righteousness lies in his actions. What he actually does to not only react to, but join in with the extraordinary events unfolding around him. We are possibly used to thinking of Joseph as an older, staid, silent figure, but he is quietly radical in his response to the promise of a child that will change the world.

Joseph and Mary are betrothed. At the time in which they lived, this was more than an engagement ring and the promise of a conversation to set a date. A betrothal was a legal thing, accompanied by a dowry, and to break it required legal proceedings. When Joseph found that his betrothed was pregnant, and not by him, he would have been perfectly within his rights (and would have been expected to) publicly denounce and divorce Mary. This would have been catastrophic for her, considering the penalties for adultery, and so unwilling to expose her, he planned to dismiss her quietly. This is before angels, before any promise of change or a sense that this pregnancy was anything other than unexpected. In order to do the right thing by Mary, who, by anyone’s calculation except God’s, has wronged him, he gives up his opportunity to have his dowry back – a potentially significant economic consequence – and his opportunity to have his dignity restored by punishing the woman who had “wronged him.” And then the angel appears, with an extraordinary annunciation all of Joseph’s own. Mary has not wronged him; this child is conceived by the Holy Spirit and will be that Emmanuel, God with us. So he takes Mary as his wife (again, probably not healing the consequences to his dignity as people then could do pregnancy maths as well as people now) but does not have martial relations with her. As today, non-consummation of the marriage was grounds for divorce: Joseph has sacrificed stability, money, his dignity, and all his expectations for his life with Mary for this implausible child. He faces the consequences, and does all that the angel of the Lord commanded him.

All this takes place before Jesus is even born. In the midst of our Advent busyness, spare a thought for Joseph for whom this must have been a time of extraordinary turmoil and stress, especially if you draw in Luke and the journey to Bethlehem. Joseph’s Advent was one in which he had to grapple with the consequences of preparing for the birth of the Christ Child, preparing for something promised and yet completely unknown. For Joseph, Advent, that period of preparation, was not a time to sit around and passively wait for God to show up. Even before the Angel gave him the news, he was busy trying to do the right thing, and when the news does come, he acts to ensure that God’s will for him, and for the whole of creation, is fulfilled.

For those anxiously waiting for a pre-Christmas payday, or who are hoping that they will find the presents they still need in the shops today or tomorrow, the idea that preparing for Christmas has consequences might seem laughably obvious. But Jospeh reminds us that our preparations must be preparations of mind and heart. In a time of traditions and appearances, are we ready to sacrifice our settled assumptions, ready to do the right thing even when we don’t understand, ready to perhaps even let go some of our worldly dignity to prepare for the birth of him who confounds all expectations?

Being a Christian has consequences, for some, those consequences are physical and terrifying: having to flee to hide in the fields overnight as Ribqa did as people ransack your home, and finding Jesus there with them. For others, those consequences may seem more trivial, but are no less life-changing and sometimes terrifying: Changing the Sunday routine, not falling in with other people’s plans so that you can go to church, Praying when you receive the terrible diagnosis, The relationship breakdown, finding Jesus there in all of these. When faced with our Lord in his Word and at this Altar, in the best and worst and most everyday moments of our lives, we are called to be transformed, to change in response to his call upon us as all who met him in the Gospels were changed. But we must also take seriously our preparation to meet him; the slow, often brave work of making room for him to be born in us today. With Joseph, we must make ourselves ready for our Lord and Saviour, No matter the consequences. So that we too can do all that the Lord commands of us, and know him, Emmanuel, God with us, and the dawn of his redeeming grace: The greatest consequence of all.

Amen.