2025.12.21 | When You're Afraid, Give Me Your Hand
“When You’re Afraid, Give Me Your Hand”
A sermon preached at Eden United Church of Christ
in Hayward, California,
on Sunday, December 21, 2025,
by the Rev. Brenda Loreman.
Fourth Sunday of Advent
Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25
Many years ago, church historian and theologian Diana Butler Bass and her husband Richard were having trouble selling their house in Memphis, Tennessee. A Catholic colleague told them about the popular belief that St. Joseph is the patron saint of real estate. On his suggestion, they bought a small statue of St. Joseph and buried it in the front yard. Diana and her husband were faithful Protestants without a tradition of venerating the saints, but they were getting a little desperate. “What’s the harm?” Richard laughed. “We need to sell this place.”
A few weeks later, the house was sold, and the family packed up and headed to Virginia. Many miles later, Diana suddenly remembered that they were supposed to dig up the statue before they left. “Oh no!” Diana blurted out. “We left St. Joseph in the yard! We forgot him!”
“Well,” said Richard ironically, “I bet we’re not the first.” They drove on, leaving Joseph behind in the dirt. As far as they know, he still lies there, neglected and unremembered.
“It almost doesn’t need to be said,” Butler Bass said, “that Christians do much the same with Joseph in the Christmas story. We sing of and extol Mary. But Joseph remains [buried] in the background, like a film extra with only a few lines.” (1)
Even at this time of year, when everyone is retelling the Christmas story and churches all over the world are presenting a children’s Christmas pageant, Joseph doesn’t really get a big part. Maybe he gets to lead the donkey, and knock on the inn door and ask if there’s a room. As one biblical scholar puts it, in most Christmas pageants, Joseph “seems to walk in the shadows as a necessary, if somewhat embarrassing appendage.” (2)
This is because most of the imagery and drama for the traditional pageant comes from Luke’s gospel: the annunciation to Mary, the pilgrimage to Bethlehem for the census, the refusal at the inn, the birth in the stable, the infant in the manger, angels singing to the shepherds—that’s all from Luke. Perhaps because Luke’s telling of the Christmas story is longer and contains more colorful details and characters, most pageants focus on the Lucan narrative, and throw in the fun stuff from Matthew—the wise men, and the star—for a sort of harmonized version of the birth stories.
“Except in Matthew’s birth account, [...] Joseph gets a brief starring role. Mary is [actually] off-stage, an unwed and pregnant teen-age girl. Responsible Joseph, the wronged fiancé, is about to quietly put her aside, hoping that she will endure less ridicule and punishment for pregnancy. But an angel appears to him in a dream, and asks Joseph to name the child and take mother and son to be his family.” (3)
One thing that is interesting about this version of the birth narrative is that the birth itself is hardly mentioned at all. Verse 18 starts telling the story, saying “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way,” but we really don’t get to the birth until verse 25—where “[Joseph] had no marital relations with [Mary] until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.” That’s it. What gets all of Matthew’s attention is the drama that led up to the birth.
And it’s in this drama that the radical message of Matthew’s birth story is communicated. To make sense of why Joseph’s actions are radical and courageous, it helps to have some background knowledge of first-century Jewish marriage customs. The New Revised Standard Version of the Bible says that Mary and Joseph were “engaged.” Different translations will use a different word here, trying to convey a concept that we don’t really have now in modern times. The New International Version says “pledged to be married.” The King James translation uses the word “espoused.” None of these really captures Mary and Joseph’s relationship at this point.
The problem with using the word “engaged” is that in our modern minds, an engagement can be broken off informally, and there’s no need for any legal action. It might be embarrassing and rather messy emotionally, but these days there’s no big legal or social consequence for breaking off an engagement. In fact, most of us would probably think, “Well, better break it off now rather than later.” But Mary and Joseph’s situation was more complicated than our modern notions of engagement and marriage. In first century Jewish custom, there were two stages to the marriage process.
First, there was the betrothal or engagement, which was considered a legally binding marriage contract, typically arranged by the parents of the couple. Even though the marriage wasn’t yet “final,” this engagement could only be broken by a divorce.
The second stage of the betrothal process would happen considerably later—perhaps a year later, which would often include a marriage feast, after which the groom would take his wife to his home and the marriage would become official and final. The drama of this story in Matthew happens in the in-between time in the marriage process—between steps one and two.
When Joseph hears that Mary is pregnant, he probably suspected her of adultery, which was grounds for divorce under Jewish law; he decides to, as the text has it, “dismiss her quietly.” To our modern ears, this sounds rather harsh, but as a person of the first century, Joseph really had no other choice. He is called “righteous,” because he decides to follow the letter of the law as a good observant Jew would, but wants to do this in a quiet way to avoid shaming Mary publically. (4)
Matthew’s account of the birth narrative emphasizes the extraordinary action that Joseph took, accepting Mary and the child she bears. Joseph totally defied the certain path that law and cultural custom dictated in order to respond to God’s call. He is named a righteous man in the text, yet he challenges the conventional notions of what righteousness is in order to take a much more uncertain path that God opens for him—a path that is for him and for Mary full of fear. (5)
As biblical scholar Boyung Lee notes, “Joseph’s fear is easy to overlook, perhaps because the narrative highlights his dream, [his] obedience, and [his] place in Jesus’ lineage. But his fear is not abstract—it is rooted in a web of social and political risk. To take Mary in would expose him to public disgrace and religious judgment. In a world where women could be stoned for suspected adultery, [...] Mary’s pregnancy was more than scandalous—it was dangerous.” (6)
In doing this, Joseph offers the first example in this gospel of what Jesus will preach and teach and live throughout his ministry. He offers us an example of what love looks like, and how love can overcome fear.
In first-century Jewish practice, love looked like following the law and cultural customs. Loving God, in particular, meant following God’s law to the letter. To do that, Joseph would have had to divorce Mary and leave her to a life of poverty—or worse, a death by stoning for an act of adultery she didn’t commit. But, guided by the Holy Spirit in his dream, Joseph defied convention and took Mary as his wife and took the infant Jesus into his family and raised him as his own.
As scholar Lee suggests:
Joseph’s response becomes about more than personal integrity; it becomes an act of courageous solidarity. Joseph could have stepped back. But instead, he steps in. He does not fix everything. He does not erase the risk. But he chooses to share it. He says, in effect: “You don’t have to go through this alone. Give me your hand.” This is not the language of saviorism but of accompaniment. It’s what we might call a theology of proximity—where faithfulness means drawing near to the vulnerable and aligning ourselves with those at risk, even when we are afraid ourselves. (7)
The gospels tell us so little about Jesus’s early life with his family. But I like to imagine that, just as we ordinary folks learn about human life from our parents, it is in part the examples of his earthly parents that give Jesus the models for his conduct. As Jesus’s earthly father, Joseph sets the precedent for the behavior Jesus will have throughout his own life and ministry. In Matthew’s version of the gospel, Jesus will tell us that love looks like loving our neighbors as ourselves, and even more, that love looks like loving our enemies and praying for those who persecute us. He will show us that love looks like healing those whom convention and custom said were untouchable. Love looks like eating with the outcasts of society—with sinners, women, and tax collectors. Love looks like defying the law to heal the sick on the Sabbath. Love looks like feeding the multitudes, over and over again. Love looks like a simple meal of bread and wine shared with friends. Love looks like the willingness to confront the fear imposed by an oppressive empire and suffer the shattering consequences.
In a world defined by empire, by patriarchy and masculinity and by honor-shame boundaries, Joseph’s posture of partnership with Mary and his quiet act of resistance is strikingly radical. In choosing to protect Mary and the unborn child, and to welcome them into his family, Joseph becomes a quiet but vital part of God’s liberating plan, and the earthly guide for Jesus, who will fulfill it. (8)
This is the invitation of Advent: not simply to “be not afraid,” but to act with love in the midst of our fear. We are invited not to fix everything, but to show up with courage, to reach out and say, “Give me your hand.”
Joseph’s story reminds us that God’s work in the world unfolds not through lone heroes, but through the joined hands of those who choose relationship over self-protection, accompaniment over certainty, and presence over perfection.
How might our love—fragile, imperfect, but real—become the ground where God’s promise takes root? This week, as we remember the promise of love that comes with the birth of the Christ Child, we’re not asked to fix the world, however much we want to do so. We’re asked to take each other’s hands and walk forward into it—together. (9)
Diana Butler Bass, “Sunday Musings: Advent 4,” The Cottage, December 20, 2025. https://dianabutlerbass.substack.com/p/sunday-musings-advent-4
James Boyce, “Commentary on Matthew 1:18-25” Working Preacher, December 23, 2007, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=15
Butler Bass, ibid.
Arland J. Hultgren, “Commentary on Matthew 1:18-25” Working Preacher, December 22, 2013, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1936.
David Lose, “Matthew’s Version of the Incarnation,” Working Preacher, December 17, 2013, http://www.workingpreacher.org/craft.aspx?post=2961
Boyung Lee, “Commentary on Matthew 1:18-25,” Sermon Planning Guide for “What Do You Fear?”Advent Worship Series, A Sanctified Art, 2025.
Ibid.
Ibid.
Ibid.