Son of David

A Sermon on Isaiah 7:10-17 and Matthew 1:18-25 for the Fourth Sunday of Advent, Series A

Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. King Ahaz stood on the city wall, looking out at the gathered armies of Syria and Ephraim. It was war, and Ahaz didn’t like his chances. Their armies were bigger, their generals smarter, their soldiers stronger. If Ahaz didn’t do something, the house of David would fall, and Judah would be lost forever. 

The prophet Isaiah went up onto that wall with Ahaz and through him, the Lord made the king a promise. It’s not as though Ahaz deserved the promise. He had sacrificed one of his own children on the altar of a pagan god at one point. He had done a great deal of evil in the sight of the Lord. And yet, this son of David was still a son of David. The Christ would be coming through this family. And the Lord was going to reassure Ahaz that even though he had forgotten the Lord, the Lord had not forgotten him. “Ask a sign of the Lord your God,” says Isaiah. “Let it be as deep as Sheol or as high as heaven.” 

But Ahaz will not ask. He has his own way out of this. He’ll sell off all the gold and silver that adorn the Lord’s temple to the Assyrians in payment to have them attack the enemy. He will build a temple for the Assyrian gods. And move the bronze altar from the Lord’s temple into that one. Ahaz will save himself without the Lord. He will make himself great in his own eyes. 

However, the Lord will not let this son of David go without a promise. The enemy that Ahaz fears will fall. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel…. For before the boy knows how to refuse the evil and choose the good, the land whose two kings you dread will be deserted.” 

A lot happened the the seven hundred years between the promise to Ahaz and a man named Joseph pledged to be married to a woman named Mary. The two kings did indeed fall. Ahaz’s son Hezekiah was one of the few good kings who were sons of David. But the line continued on. Even if the kingship did not. And the line was important, because the Lord had make a promise to restore David’s line. And when the kingdom came back, it was important to know whose it was. 

But that’s where things get complicated. Because Matthew’s Gospel and Luke’s Gospel both give us a genealogy for Joseph. Both trace back to David. But only Matthew’s Gospel trace through the line of kings and Solomon. Luke has Jospeh the descendant of another of David’s sons, Nathan, who held no throne at all. And Christians have been trying to figure out what to do with that since. 

One theory attributes one line to Mary, but it takes ignoring the plain reading of the text to pull it off. That may be right. But I think there’s another answer that makes more sense. It works if we assume Joseph was adopted. But again, we don’t have that explicitly. Still, it fits. We know the Bible is God’s Word. The Lord did not make a mistake in delivering it to us. Just because we do not know why does not make it untrue. Joseph has two genealogies. So I’m pretty comfortable with the adoption angle. 

But why would Joseph, Son of David through a non royal line be adopted as Son of David with a royal line? And I don’t think it’s too hard to guess at. A line as important as that must continue. But what if it can’t? What if the last in the line of David were unable to have any children at all? Matthan begot Jacob, but what if Jacob was sterile? How would God’s promise be fulfilled? They’d have to take things into their own hands. And the Bible has a large history of people trying to do just that. Including Ahaz, son of David. 

This would have meant that Joseph had an incredible responsibility. As the legal son, he would need to bear children to keep the line alive until the Lord got around to keeping His promise. That he was betrothed to Mary was not a problem, it was welcomed. Get married. Have children. Make your family proud. Both families. Because there was no law against adopting adults whose parents were alive as your children. The Roman Caesars did it all time. Why should not the royal line of David?

But when Mary was found to be pregnant, everything would have changed. The pressure to be rid of her mounted. Would that royal line have permitted their family to bear such disgrace? Or would they want to distance their new son from the shame? Whether that was the actual case or not, “Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.” What choice did he have?

Aren’t we too like Ahaz? Aren’t we too like this picture of Joseph’s adopted family? Do we too not decide that God needs help keeping His promises? Don’t we too decide that we need to take care of these things alone? That we can live without God? We might not consider that as we’re here on Sunday morning. But how do we live our lives? Does God enter them three times a day? Twice? Once? At all? Or do we make each decision, interact with each neighbor, and go about our day without even considering what the Lord would have us do at all? We live in a famine of the Word of our own making. We justify our evil. We excuse our ungodliness. We embrace the world. All out of habit. All because that’s just what we do, everyday.

We hold up Ahaz and the line of David as the bad guys in our lessons. But they’re us. And we need to repent of that. Oh, if we only had a dream like Jospeh, then we would get the message. The message is delivered to you in person this very day! We heard it in our Old Testament lesson. We heard it in our Gospel lesson. Even the Epistle tells us that He “…was descended from David according to the flesh.” “[D]o not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” 

The promise made to Ahaz, even as he refused to hear has come to pass. The reason why the royal line of David had continued to that day was right in front of Jospeh. “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel.” God is with us, even when we’re too busy saving ourselves to be with Him. He came anyways. He saves us anyways. Just as He saved Ahaz. Just as he saved the line of David. “She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Jospeh will give Jesus His name. Because Joseph may or may not have been adopted into the line of David, but Jesus definitely was. Adopted by Joseph. And in this way, God kept His promise to David, to Israel, and to all. A Savior, who is Christ the Lord.

His name is Jesus. And He has indeed saved His people from their sins. The Son of David had a coronation to attend. He would be crowned king. Only His crown would not be of gold, but of thorns. His throne would not be embedded with jewels, but but be a cross of wood. His iron scepter was nails through his hands. His royal decree was posted above His head. Iesu Nazaret Rex Iudaium, Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews. And on that cross, His first act as king was to die. And He died for you.

And in that death, Jesus lived up to His name. By dying, He saves us all from our sins, by paying their price in full with His life. The promise has been kept. But there’s one more name that Jesus has. One that dying alone does not fulfill. They shall call his name Immanuel, which means God with us. And He is indeed with us. Because even though Jesus died. Even though Jesus was buried, He did not stay dead. The grave did not hold Him. On the third day Jesus rose. Jesus lives. And the two kings we dread, death and the devil, have been defeated forever. 

“When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.” Thanks be to God.