“God With Us”
Pastor Russ Norris
Fourth Sunday in Advent 2025

Life is what happens when you’ve made other plans. You’ve heard me say
it before. It’s a quote from John Lennon. “Life is what happens when you’ve
made other plans.”

Which pretty much describes my experience here at St. Mary’s. In the fall
of 2019, I got a call from Peter Hebert, the pastor at First Lutheran Church,
inviting me to lunch with the priest from St. Mary’s, whom I had never met. I
really didn’t know what to expect. I had just finished the last of three interim
appointments for the New England Lutheran Synod, and I was kind of looking
forward to enjoying my fourth retirement.

But Peter and Libby had an interesting proposition. They had been
exploring ways to encourage St. Mary’s and First Lutheran to do more things
together. And they came up with this cockamamy idea of jointly hiring a new staff
person who would do ministry in both churches. But the more I thought about it,
the more the idea sounded kind of intriguing. After all, Episcopalians and
Lutherans were in full communion. Our two denominations had signed an
agreement: “Called to Common Mission”. And then, Libby added an additional
incentive: She was leading a trip to Iona in March, and invited me to come along
and maybe even teach a class on Celtic spirituality. Well, I was hooked.

So I started the first week of December six years ago this very month – with
high hopes and expectations! Three months later, the bottom dropped out. In the
face of COVID, both churches cancelled their services and most of their activities.
The Lutherans, with fewer resources, withdrew from the plan for a shared staff
person. The trip to Iona was cancelled. And I ended up doing ministry by
telephone and by Zoom. It was like waking up one morning to find your entire
world turned upside down.

So, yeah, life is what happens when you’ve made other plans. The question,
I guess, is how you handle that – how you handle it when your plans are changed –
whether you rise to the occasion … or not. Which is exactly the challenge faced
by the characters in the Christmas story. Mary had no idea what she was getting
into when the angel paid her that visit. She had no clue how it would turn her life
upside down, and bring both her greatest joy and her deepest sorrow.

The same might be said for Joseph. Here he was ready to divorce his
pregnant fiancée when that same angel appeared to him. Which is where the
appointed gospel for this Sunday begins – not with Mary, not with Elizabeth, not
with John the Baptist – but with Joseph. Joseph! Every three years, the lectionary
for this 4 th Sunday in Advent turns the spotlight away from Mary and focuses on
her betrothed husband, a quiet, decent man – a carpenter – from Nazareth.

As Matthew tells the story, this small-town carpenter wakes up one morning
to find his world turned upside down. His fiancée is pregnant. And he knows he’s
not the father. Suddenly he finds himself facing a crisis with no good options. If
he calls attention to Mary’s situation, she might well be stoned to death, as
proscribed by the Law. If he divorces her quietly, she could be reduced to begging
or even prostitution to support herself and her baby. Life was hard back then.

On the other hand, if he married her, the baby would become Joseph’s heir,
alongside any of his own children. And he would forever be associated with her
scandalous claim that the baby’s father was somehow God. The fact is, I don’t
think Joseph believed a word of it. Who would believe a story like that? He didn’t
know what to do – until confronted by that angel.

See, we’ve heard the Christmas story so many times over the years, it’s hard
for us to grasp how difficult it must have been for Joseph. All his hopes and
dreams for a son who would learn his trade, follow in his father’s footsteps, give
him children and grandchildren – all of it gone in an instant. John Lennon had it
right. Life is what happens when we’ve made other plans.

Joseph was dealing with a lot of change – unexpected change; unwelcome,
uncomfortable change. And he was angry, hurt, confused. I think he really cared
about Mary. And he was a decent man. He wanted to do the right thing. So, he
decides to send her off to some backwater village where she could have her baby

without anyone ever finding out. And she’d be away from the neighbors, so as not
to encourage gossip. Oh, he had it all worked out. It was all so neat and clean.
Until that night, as he slept, he was visited by a messenger from God.
“Joseph”, said the angel, “son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife,
for the child conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you
will name him Jesus [the Greek form of the Hebrew Joshua, which means ‘God
saves’] for he will save his people from their sins.”

It took a lot – an angel from God, no less – for Joseph to get the message.
“Your plans have been changed. And the child in Mary’s womb will change your
life, too … and your world. But be not afraid. For whatever tomorrow holds in
store, God will be there. Trust God. Care for your wife. Be a good father. And
God will be with you.”

Changing our plans is seldom easy. It certainly wasn’t for Joseph. It wasn’t
for me., either. Nor for any of us. And yet, change is something we all have to
deal with, isn’t it? The only thing permanent in life is change. What do you do
when everything you’ve counted on, everything you’ve hoped for, suddenly gets
turned upside-down?

When the phone rings in the middle of the night: “There’s been an accident.
You’d better come quick.” And your heart stops. I’ve been there. Have you? Or
when the doctor says, “I’m sorry. There’s nothing more we can do.” And our

world collapses around us. Or when the kids leave the nest, and we look around
the house – the empty house – and we wonder, “What do I do now?”
No, change is seldom easy. So what do we do when our world collapses?
What do we do when our plans are changed? All we can do is what the angel told
Mary and Joseph: Be not afraid. Trust God. And God will be with you.

That’s what the Christmas story is all about, isn’t it? That when things seem
darkest and bleakest – when everything we’ve hoped for and planned for goes
awry – when life changes and we have no idea what happens next: Be not afraid.
God says, “I will be with you.” Just as God was with Mary and with Joseph.
Whatever tomorrow holds in store, God says to all of us, “Be not afraid. You can
do this. For I will be with you.”

Amen.