Sunday, December 21, 2025: "Hope in a Fearful World: Hold My Hand"
The First United Presbyterian Church
“Hope in a Fearful World: Hold My Hand”
Rev. Amy Morgan
December 21, 2025
Isaiah 41:5-10
The coastlands have seen and are afraid;
the ends of the earth tremble;
they have drawn near and come.
Each one helps the other,
saying to one another, “Take courage!”
The artisan encourages the goldsmith,
and the one who smooths with the hammer encourages the one who strikes the anvil,
saying of the soldering, “It is good,”
and they fasten it with nails so that it cannot be moved.
But you, Israel, my servant,
Jacob, whom I have chosen,
the offspring of Abraham, my friend;
you whom I took from the ends of the earth
and called from its farthest corners,
saying to you, “You are my servant;
I have chosen you and not cast you off”;
do not fear, for I am with you;
do not be afraid, for I am your God;
I will strengthen you; I will help you;
I will uphold you with my victorious right hand.
Matthew 1:18-25
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
“Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.
There wasn’t much he could do. He could make it quiet. Try not to make it a big scandal or cause more pain than was necessary. But he couldn’t make it go away. He couldn’t fix things. He couldn’t have the nice, simple, sweet life they’d planned together.
When Joseph learned his wife-to-be was pregnant, even if he believed the crazy story about angel visitations and being overcome by the Holy Spirit instead of suspecting what everyone else would, he didn’t have many options. Even if he wanted to help, which he did, what was he supposed to do? It wasn’t his baby. If he took Mary as his wife now, he would be the one in trouble. People could count, you know. Or worse, he’d look like a fool, taking some other man’s child as his own to try to cover Mary’s shame. But he didn’t want Mary punished, either. The law allowed for her to be stoned to death, and he loved her. He couldn’t bear the thought of that horror.
So maybe he could just keep it quiet, let her move away to some other town, pretend she’d been widowed. It would be sad and hard, but they’d be able to move on without too much fuss.
We are all too familiar with this feeling of helplessness. We feel like there isn’t much we can do when loved ones suffer, when tragedy strikes, when injustice reigns. There isn’t much we can do for the family member struggling with mental illness. There isn’t much we can do for the victims of mass shootings. There isn’t much we can do for the refugees being deported. In the face of addiction, isolation, and oppression, what can we do? We want to help. We can’t bear to watch all this suffering and do nothing. But we can’t fix it. We can’t mess up our own lives trying to change intractable systems or unmanageable situations. We can’t jump into the spotlight of judgment that shines on so many of these people and plights.
But we do what we can. Quietly, maybe. We give money or send a card. Maybe pray and hope for the best.
God might have taken this approach to Israel. They had ignored God’s commandments and disregarded the warnings of the prophets. They’d been defeated and carted off into exile. What was God supposed to do if the people wouldn’t listen? God had tried to help, to guide and direct them, to teach and admonish them. But they did what they wanted. They got themselves into this situation.
The prophet Isaiah spends 40 chapters decrying the Israelites’ faithlessness, depicting God’s vengeance, and defending God’s justice. But then, there’s this sudden turn in God’s tone and message. Scholars believe that this is actually a different prophet writing in the tradition of Isaiah, at a different point in Israel’s story. They have been in exile for some time, and God now promises comfort, peace, hope, and a return to their homeland. God sees the pain and suffering of this people, and instead of quietly walking away, God says, “I have chosen you and not cast you off. Do not fear; I am with you.”
God claims this frightened and hurting people, with their complicated lives and messy situations. Now, in the ancient near east, this would have been scandalous. Any god of consequence would have a people worthy of representing them. The Israelites were defeated captives. They had this great Cinderella story of being liberated from slavery in Egypt and coming to the Promised Land; a history of great judges and kings and prophets; an admirable military and economic force in the region. But they lost it all. Because they didn’t listen to their God through their prophets. Because they oppressed their poor and worshiped other gods.
For God to say, “hey, look, these are my chosen people,” would make the God of Israel look pretty weak. God didn’t force the people to be faithful. God didn’t fix them, clean up their situation, make them better than everyone else. In that context, gods did that. Sometimes through terrifying means, but just so. Powerful, important deities kept their people in order. Or they abandoned their people and went to find better ones.
But not Israel’s God. The God of Israel chose instead to be with their people, to help and strengthen them, to uphold them. God said, “you are mine and I am yours. Things are a mess. Take my hand.”
And this is what God encourages Joseph to do as well. Instead of doing the “right” thing, literally the “righteous” thing according to the Law, an angel of God instructs Joseph to be with Mary, to help and strengthen her, to say, “you are mine and I am yours. Things are a mess. Take my hand.”
And Joseph does it. He risks bringing shame on himself, risks being cast out by his community, risks side-tracking his own life, not so he can fix this situation and make it all better, but so he can help and strengthen someone who’s life is a disaster; so that he can be in solidarity with someone who has no other community support; so that he can simply offer the comfort of his presence to one who is courageously facing an impossible situation.
Many of us may not realize how powerful that is. We do everything in our power to shield ourselves from vulnerability, and so not all of us have had that experience of feeling alone and afraid and fragile. Many of us have the great blessing of having supportive, loving families and communities. Many of us have privileges some of our neighbors do not, living in a society whose power structures favor us. This was true for Joseph, in some ways. This was and is true for God, of course.
But God chose to set aside the power and privilege and invincibility of divinity to, if nothing else, simply offer the comfort of their presence to those facing impossible situations. God did this really bizarre and maybe even shameful thing, not so that everything on earth would immediately be perfect and utopian all the time, but so that God could help and strengthen our sometimes disastrous lives; so that God could be in solidarity with those who have no other community support; so that God could say, “you are mine and I am yours. Things are a mess. Take my hand.”
And if God could do that, if Joseph could do that, maybe we can, too. Maybe we can set aside, or even leverage, whatever power and privilege we have to be present with those who are struggling and suffering. Not just with cards and prayers. But with our whole selves. Maybe we could risk shame and judgment to be in solidarity with our Jewish neighbors experiencing antisemitism and our Afghan neighbors being scape-goated. Maybe we could risk side-tracking our own lives to be present with a neighbor experiencing abuse or a family member in declining health. Maybe we could even risk being cast out by our friendship group or political party to stand with those who have suffered losses and endured injustice and don’t fit into any neat and logical paradigm that we can confidently cure. Maybe, we can claim each and every one of our neighbors as belonging to the family of God, because God does claim them. Maybe we can say, “you are mine and I am yours. Things are a mess. Take my hand.”
When I was in Ireland earlier this month, we visited St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Dublin. They have on display there a door with a large hole cut in the middle of it. In the 15th century, two families, the Butlers and the Fitzgeralds, were feuding. The Butlers, realizing they were losing the battle, fled to the Cathedral’s Chapter House and took refuge there. The Fitzgeralds pursued them, but then made an offer of peace, allowing the family safe passage out of the city. But the Butlers suspected this was a trick and refused to leave the Chapter House. To prove the sincerity of the offer, the head of the Fitzgerald family had a hole cut in the Chapter House door. He then thrust his arm through it to shake hands on the truce. The Butlers were convinced to take his hand, and the Irish now have a saying, “To chance your arm,” which means to take a risk for something good.
God invites us “to chance your arm,” to take risks for the good of relationships, for the peace of our neighbors and communities. Joseph “chanced his arm” so that God could be with us, so that Mary and Jesus could have strength and support in an impossible situation. It may feel like there’s not much we can do sometimes. We can’t fix everything and make it all right. But we can “chance our arms,” risk reaching out in a frightening and dangerous world, to offer comfort and peace and hope.
To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.
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