Year A, Advent 4, 2019 – Joseph’s Dream

Greetings and welcome! We are running very late this week due to a number of factors, so we decided to concentrate on only the Gospel passage for this Sunday. Matthew starts the story of Jesus’ nativity with the experience of his father, Joseph. We were struck by the ways that Matthew explicitly points to Jesus as Messiah by not only referring to him as Messiah, but by identifying Joseph as Son of David. What other gems are hidden in this well-told story? If you were really hoping for some illustrations and special effects for Isaiah and Romans, check out our post from three years ago at this link, or just listen to this week’s hybrid episode that includes our new ideas and the show from 2016. We have confirmation biases, a suggestion for using a crib, and finding ways to “embody” God from the Isaiah passage. For Romans, we suggest Mad Libs, John Lennon’s Imagine, and a template for introducing yourself as a servant of Jesus Christ. Check ’em out! Matthew 1:18-25 – [01:18] Matthew 1:18-25 worksheet Download We have used the suggestion to find the meaning of names for WORD smart in the past and think it would be fun to do it again. Look up the names of the people in the passage and the people in your congregation. Let folks spend some time thinking about what their names mean for and about them for some SELF smart time. David thinks that the choice Joseph makes after meeting Gabriel in a dream is a lot like a probability exercise in MATH smart. Check out the links below. For BODY smart, invite people to physically feel Joseph’s shock and dismay at Mary’s news. For MUSIC smart, find songs about Emmanuel. There are many! Do you have the time to make a mashup of them? Or, simply set up a play list and have that running during your fellowship time. Finally, for PEOPLE smart encourage your folks to talk about times when they either talked someone out of a course of action or had someone talk them out of a decision. WORD smart – [03:41]Behind the NameMATH smart – [04:40]The Monty Hall ProblemAnd here’s a video about it.BODY smart – [09:47] MUSIC smart – [11:20]PEOPLE smart – [12:08] Encore Presentation of Year A, Advent 4, 2016 – [16:18] Photo: The Dream of St. Joseph by Anton Raphael Mengs [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons