If you were told as a child not to turn around in church, for just a moment, be rebellious and break that rule of ecclesiastical etiquette. Turn around to look at the stained-glass window on the far back wall of the church. It’s on the same side as the pulpit. If you can’t see it, then look at it after Mass. I’ll describe it for you. It’s one of the most interesting windows in this church, and there are many spectacular windows here. But this window is particularly special not because of its style or inherent beauty, but because of what it says.
The scene is Joseph’s carpenter shop in Nazareth. Try, if you can, to ignore the unrealistic portrayal of Joseph, Jesus, and Mary as white, blond-headed individuals. As I said, this window is striking not in its realism or beauty but in its theological impact. Joseph is holding a wooden cross that is in the process of being constructed. It’s not yet finished. There’s wood everywhere: blocks of wood lying around and shavings on the floor. The cross leans against a wooden worktable, and Joseph holds a hammer.
Jesus himself uses one knee to hold down another piece of wood. He holds a saw in the other hand. The piece of wood that he saws is resting on a tree stump. There’s so much wood here! Is that stump an allusion to the root of Jesse? In a move that would give most parents a real scare, Jesus saws the piece of wood with one hand while not looking at it! Jesus is, instead, gazing upon the cross. He is also wearing a red tunic. That seems symbolic, too.
The Blessed Mother watches this whole scene. She is robed in blue, her standard color, as is Joseph. But Joseph looks at the cross. And Jesus seems to be staring at the cross, too, with a sense of awe and trepidation. Joseph’s much older face appears to take in the cross with a sense of poignancy and sadness.
To one who reads the Bible as if in a straight line, this window is preposterous. To one who writes scripts for Christmas pageants, the scene is an uncomfortable distraction from Hallmark card renderings of sheep, oxen, and a family cuddling in a stable. No one wants the cross in Jesus’s childhood. But this window is theologically real and true. It doesn’t sugarcoat theology, and it expresses something true that we have lost in our obsession with historical-critical readings of the Bible and in our imposition of human time onto God’s time. This window tells us that from the earliest stages of Jesus’s life, the cross was already there.
If we can begin to accept that Scripture is not only to be read forwards but also backwards, we might begin to understand what this window is telling us. And we might begin to comprehend something of St. Matthew’s birth narrative. If we are reading Matthew’s Gospel linearly, then we might be rather cynical of the way Matthew uses Scripture from the Old Testament. Matthew tells us that Jesus’s conception by the power of the Holy Spirit and without normal marital relations is the fulfillment of the words of the prophet Isaiah, who once said that a virgin would conceive and bear a son, who would be named Emmanuel.
“Of course he would say that,” the skeptic would say, rolling their eyes. Matthew is simply misusing words from Isaiah, who had no idea that Jesus would be the Messiah and be born of a virgin. But is it that simple? Are we really able to understand the mind of God that easily? And if the story doesn’t simply go from beginning to end as we are wont to read it, could it be that Matthew’s understanding of Isaiah’s words wasn’t a retroactive imposition of a foreign meaning onto Isaiah’s words? Maybe Matthew’s interpretation of Isaiah’s prophecy could be exactly true. Maybe, in God’s mysterious providence, Isaiah, without knowing about Jesus, was able to give voice to something that God would make possible many centuries later. Why is that so difficult to believe?
And while we’re at it, what about all those other wonderful but easily overlooked details in Matthew’s birth narrative? If we’re talking about a God who gives possibility where we only see impossibility, then anything is possible! The details of this story matter. That may very well be Matthew’s interpretation, but what if Matthew’s interpretation, guided by the Holy Spirit, is precisely what is real and true?
Matthew’s emphasis on Joseph in his birth narrative is telling, as opposed to Luke’s emphasis on Mary. Matthew shows that Jesus is from the lineage of David, and that’s important because David was Israel’s king who was promised an unconditional covenant with God. He was also a deeply flawed man, and that’s significant, too, although it’s a story for another day. And Joseph, of all things, is not so stubborn and skeptical as to wake up from a dream and truly believe that God had spoken to him through an angel. Joseph is so unconditionally open and trusting that he changes the whole course of his actions based on that one dream.
And the details keep on coming. Jesus’s name is given by God, but it requires Joseph’s obedience to name him. Jesus’s name recalls Joshua, who led God’s people into the Promised Land after their exile in Egypt and wilderness wanderings. Jesus’s name means “he saves.” “Of course,” the skeptic would say with a sarcastic tone. “We know that Jesus saves, so of course, that’s his name.” Another eye roll ensues. But what if God really intended that, as Matthew suggests? What if that crucial detail of Jesus’s name is necessary to connect Jesus’s story with the entirety of Israel’s story of salvation?
And what about the virgin birth? Think of all the women before Mary who gave birth as a surprise gift from God. Think of what this idea of a miraculous birth signals about God. With God, anything is possible! But for the many skeptics who continue to scoff at Jesus’s virgin birth, Jesus’s conception is just another rejection of modern science. Or is it?
And what about that name Emmanuel, which Isaiah foretold whose very meaning expresses the ultimate hope of the Christmas story? God is with us. Yes, God has always been with us. God has always been with his people, and so why wouldn’t God choose to save humanity in the most intimate and human way possible, by taking on human flesh?
It seems that the real issue here is understanding God’s providence in tandem with our own freedom. We struggle enough with the two natures of Christ, his full divinity and full humanity, mainly because we imagine divinity as being in competition with humanity. But this is not the way it works. If divinity is something surprising and mysterious and beyond our comprehension, then indeed with God, anything is possible, and that possibility comes to fruition in human time with our cooperation.
The rational skeptic dismisses the lovely details of Matthew’s birth narrative, the fulfillments of prophecy, the specially crafted names, the surprising virgin birth, and the whole connection to the lineage of David. If these are true, the rationalist says, then God has forced the divine story upon humanity’s story. But au contraire! we might say. If God has offered all the possibilities in this birth narrative that Matthew shows have come true, it doesn’t mean that God has stifled our freedom. It means that the characters in this story are so open to God’s will that they understand how God wishes things to be. God isn’t forcing his will on people. God is offering possibilities, and it’s up to the different characters to discern those possibilities. With God, anything is possible!
What if the virgin birth is necessary for us to preserve a sense of God’s possibilities in a world of impossibilities? Sinning is so ordinary for us fallible humans that something extraordinary is necessary to save us from them. Jesus is necessary, born of a virgin, of the lineage of David, and connected intrinsically to the hope of Israel as foretold by Isaiah. And that’s why Matthew’s birth narrative seems to make so much sense while also keeping us humble in our assessment of God’s limitless possibilities.
If we were to write a Christmas pageant script in this age of demystification, we would have to write one that could never be acted out. This script would be all about the surprising details that show God’s possibilities in an age of impossibilities. This script wouldn’t be afraid to show that our God is not too ashamed to come among us in the womb of an unwed mother. This script would acknowledge that our God could make use of perfectly chosen names that convey the perfection of hope for us. This script could be equally comfortable with a stained-glass window showing a cross in Joseph’s carpenter shop, as well as believing that maybe Isaiah was inadvertently onto something that would take place centuries later. Above all, this Christmas pageant script would show us that, in a world of logic and banal malaise, God’s possibilities always exceed what we think is impossible. But the ending of this Christmas story is left in our hands: we can take a leap of faith in believing in God’s possibility, or we can choose the path of cold reason. May we, like Joseph, be so open to the unpredictability of God that even a dream can reveal the astounding possibilities of God.
Sermon by Father Kyle Babin
The Fourth Sunday of Advent
December 21, 2025