Righteous Joseph

A Sermon for the Second Sunday after Christmas Day (Year A)
January 4, 2026

Text: Matthew 2: 13-15, 19-23

Now, O Lord, take my lips, and speak through them. Take our minds, and think through them. Take our hearts, and set them on fire. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

One of the quiet gifts of the Christmas season is the story of Joseph. He doesn’t say very much. He never gives a speech. He doesn’t ask questions out loud.

And yet, without Joseph’s faithfulness—without his willingness to listen and respond to God’s call—the story of Jesus’ birth unfolds very differently.

The author of Matthew calls Joseph righteous.

But his righteousness isn’t the same as certainty or control. It doesn’t mean having all the answers or knowing how everything will turn out.

It looks like paying attention. Like someone who listens carefully for God’s voice and is willing to act—even when it disrupts his plans and changes the life he thought he was going to have.

Joseph’s righteousness is quiet and steady.

But it’s also costly.

From the very beginning, Joseph is asked to set aside what he wants in order to care for Mary and the child entrusted to him.

Think back to the Gospel we heard a couple weeks ago on the Fourth Sunday of Advent.

At the beginning of Matthew’s version of the Christmas story, Joseph has learned that Mary is pregnant, and he knows the child is not his.

But Matthew also tells us that he’s righteous—and unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace.

He considers dismissing her quietly—a path that seems reasonable given the circumstances and the expectations of his community.

It would’ve been a way for him to step back and find his way out of a difficult and confusing situation—a plan that would allow him to protect Mary and preserve his own reputation at the same time.

But before Joseph acts on what seems reasonable, God steps in.

In a dream, an angel says to him, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Joseph is asked to trust in something he doesn’t understand and to place his life at the service of what God is doing.

That moment sets the pattern for everything that follows.

Joseph wakes up from the dream, and he does what the angel of the Lord commanded him.

He doesn’t fully understand.

But he responds.

That’s what righteousness looks like in Matthew’s Gospel—not perfection or certainty, but listening and responding to God.

In today’s Gospel, we see the same pattern—but the tone shifts in a dramatic way.

The wise men—who we’ll hear about in a couple of days on the Feast of the Epiphany—have just left the Holy Family.

Their visit, which was meant to honor a newborn king, has also stirred up fear and violence.

Word has reached Herod that a child has been born who is called King. 

And Herod, whose power is built on fear and force, responds the only way a tyrant knows how—with cruelty.

So Joseph receives another dream.

Matthew tells us that an angel appears and warns him to take the child and his mother and flee to the land of Egypt.

As one author wrote, this dream may not have been comforting or reassuring.

It may have been closer to a nightmare.

Perhaps Joseph was shown what was about to happen in Bethlehem.

Perhaps he sensed that staying would place Mary and the child in terrible danger.

Perhaps the dream carried not peace, but urgency—the kind that wakes you from sleep and leaves your heart racing.

Get up. Take the child and his mother, and leave as fast as you can.

Joseph isn’t told how long the danger will last.

He isn’t told what life in Egypt will look like.

He isn’t promised comfort or certainty.

Once again, Joseph is asked to leave behind what he knows and to trust that God is speaking even when the message is frightening and unclear.

And once again, Joseph listens.

Matthew tells us that he gets up in the middle of the night, takes the child and his mother, and leaves Bethlehem.

He does what the angel of the Lord commands him. He moves before questions can settle in. He moves because it’s what God asks him to do.

And because Joseph listens, the child lives.

Not long after, the Church remembers what happens next.

Every year, on December 28, we commemorate the Holy Innocents—the children of Bethlehem who didn’t escape Herod’s cruelty, whose lives were taken by violence beyond their parents’ control.

Their story is one we’d rather skip past, especially during the season of Christmas. And yet Matthew refuses to let us look away.

Matthew’s version of the Christmas story brings into focus a hard truth: even in the midst of Christmas joy, Jesus is born into a dark world. A world where fear still drives evil and cruelty. A world where the innocent still suffer and those who cling to power will sometimes do unspeakable things to protect it.

The story of the Holy Innocents reminds us that the brokenness of the world is not confined to the past.

The names and faces may change, but evil still exists.

And so does God’s response—not through revenge or violence, but through presence and faithfulness and the quiet, courageous protection of life whenever it’s threatened.

Joseph’s obedience doesn’t erase the tragedy of the Holy Innocents.

But it becomes part of God’s response to the darkness.

God doesn’t overcome Herod with force.

God saves a child through the faithfulness of one man.

And that matters—even for us today.

Christmas is the season when the True Light is revealed to the world.

“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness does not overcome it.”

But Matthew reminds us that the Light doesn’t erase the darkness all at once. Instead, the Light enters it. The Light moves through it. The Light is carried forward—often quietly and at great cost.

Joseph doesn’t just bear witness to the Light.

He responds to it and shapes his life around it.

And for those of us who’ve been baptized, that same Light burns deep within us. It calls us to live differently in the world, to order our lives around love, trust, and faithfulness, even when that faithfulness leads us to places we don’t fully understand.

That call feels timely as we stand at the beginning of a new year.

2025 has come and gone. And as our Bishop recently reminded us in his Christmas Eve message, “What’s been done has been done. Let it be.”

The beginning of a new year is a time when many of us naturally reflect on where we’ve been and where we’re going.

We look back on joys and losses, on things that went as planned and things that didn’t.

And we look ahead to the new year—thinking about what we want to change, what we want to do better, and what we hope the next year will hold.

Many of us make New Year’s resolutions. We set goals. We imagine a better version of ourselves.

And those can be good and meaningful practices.

But perhaps the deeper question for us this year is not simply, “What do I want to accomplish?”

Perhaps the deeper question is, “How is God calling me to live more faithfully?”

What is God asking me to listen to right now, in this chapter of my life?

What is God asking me to protect?

What has God placed before me that I didn’t choose, but can’t ignore?

Like Joseph, we may not be given the whole picture. We may not know exactly where faithfulness will lead. We may not be promised comfort or clarity.

But we can trust that responding in love is never wasted.

Joseph didn’t know everything.

But he listened.

And time and again—when the angel spoke and the path ahead was unclear—Joseph did what God asked him to do.

That’s what righteousness looks like.

As we move into this new year, may we learn from Joseph’s quiet courage. May we listen for God’s voice—not only when it comforts us, but also when it‘s the loving thing to do. And may we have the faith to respond, shaping our lives around the True Light that’s been revealed to us in the babe lying in the manger.

Amen.