"Never Alone" sermon October 4, 2015

Last Sunday the church had a guest speaker while I attended meetings in San Francisco. 

This Sunday the readings are pretty foundational for insight in the sermon. These readings are  available at the end of this sermon. 

The Greek Testament reading was also the children's talk. For the children s' talk, I had seven people line up in the aisle one at a time, each one representing ten generations in the Luke genealogy, as I read out the names.   "Jesus" started half way up the aisle and the line of people stretched up to the altar.  The youngest girl, representing the ten generations that included Adam, touched the Bible, representing the human connection all the way back to God.

I was wanting to illustrate that we all trace all the way back to the very first peoples---that we all trace straight to God.  That all these people with these strange names were real (or represented real) people. I recommended that when we read the (otherwise strange and monotonous) genealogies, we can think about lines of interconnection with our own ancestors, and imagine just how connected we really are.

“Never Alone”

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Sept 13, 2015

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

2 Kings 6:9-18; Luke 3: 23-38; Heavenly Secrets 2556 

“You are not alone in the universe, for you are surrounded by love.”

One of the folks who supports my health is a registered medical doctor who has switched his entire practice over to craniosacral therapy.  Craniosacral treatments, for those who don’t know, work at the energetic level of the body.  The healer’s hands touch your head or your feet or your back and any movement is gentle and subtle.  If you are the sort of person who believes in the profound interconnectedness of the spirit and body, then you would be comfortable with this sort of practitioner. My right brain is fine with “energy healers.”  My left brain waits in the car.

My left brain is the grounded, evidence-based, scientist part of my personality.  My right brain is the flake, um, I mean, “intuitive artistic genius.”  My scientific side feels intense discomfort whenever I spend money on things like “energy healers.” So I give it a valium lollipop, wrap it in a blanket, and tell it that it will all be over shortly.  My inner flake artist gets to have her batteries recharged in a way that works for her, and my inner scientist keeps his mouth shut. 

That mini sermon on the two halves of my human nature was all brought to you as a lead-up to my main point.

“You are not alone in the universe, for you are surrounded by love.”

When things in my personal life were heading abruptly downhill, last autumn, I found myself on this gifted osteopath’s table.  He often works in silence.  On this occasion he said out of the blue, “You know, you have a huge network of support.” He said it quietly and matter-of-factly.  I immediately felt and “saw” rank upon rank of loving spirits spreading out around me on all sides.  These energies were all rooting for me. They were all standing by, ready to help.  I did a lot of crying on that table—crying that needed to happen, crying that was part of the healing.

He was of course meaning that I had a huge network of spiritual support.

As I was feeling particularly alone at that time, this was a tremendously helpful and healing thing for him to say.  How did he know to say that at that time?  He just knew.  He just did.  That is how intuitive healing works.  It drives some scientists nuts, but it illustrates the truth that there is another level beyond this physical plane that is a key part of our reality. The quantum physicists are only just discovering how this other whole dimension of communication and connection might work. 

How is it that we just know things sometimes?  Is it perhaps because we are not alone in the universe, and we are surrounded by love? 

Being creatures of the body, with our senses tuned into this physical reality, we forget most of the time that there is any other reality but this one.  Our lives actually teem with evidence that our reality extends far beyond what we can see and hear—our experiences crackle with clues that patterns and rhythms and gut feelings are telling us stuff all the time that we have forgotten how to read or hear or understand. Much more wisdom is available to us than we can imagine, and every once in a while we get a glimpse of its magnitude.  But because the idea that immense wisdom and capability is just a thought or wish or spiritual practice away—because that idea scares the living daylights out of us, we get selective amnesia. We simply refuse to see, or we explain away the “unexplainable” things we experience.  Elisha and his servant were protected because the earthly army surrounding them stopped being able to see.  The army was “struck” with their own blindness, and this prevented them doing harm.

We mortals on our journey toward a more spiritual life do this all the time. We do not see things we are not ready to see. It is so much a part of our coping that we “forget” even that we do this.    

I have never seen any spirits.  I have never heard things that aren’t physically present.  But I have many friends who see spirits so often that it is just a matter of course for them.  They have learned to incorporate these experiences into their lives and make sense of them.  They have also learned not to mention them to too many people, because so many in our culture are not comfortable even thinking about such things let alone hearing about them.

In Gaelic culture this ability to see into the other realm is called the "second sight."  Someone with this ability might be called “fey” or a “seer”—literally a “see-er,” or “one who sees.”  Clairvoyant means “to see clearly.” By now I have had so many people tell me spontaneously about their experiences seeing spirits that I have gotten used to it. Maybe it is because I am a cradle Swedenborgian.  Maybe they can sense that I am open to the possibility of these experiences being true despite what science might say.  One friend has to wave away all the spirits who bombard her when she enters a hospital because they want her to pass on messages to their loved ones.  She tells them sternly that she is there for personal reasons and is not a messenger.  She has had to draw boundaries with them for her own survival.  This somehow makes sense to me.  Not all spirits are evolved and angelic and non-anxious.  Not all spirits will have healthy boundaries. The barrier that blinds and deafens us to that side of life protects all of us too.

Regardless of how crazy it might sound, Swedenborg teaches us that we live in two realities at once, and that some of us do experience the spiritual reality as an overlay on this physical one from time to time. Swedenborg had this experience frequently.  This is either a joy or an embarrassment to his readers depending on whether we are more open or more closed to the idea of an intimate connection with the spiritual world.  We all have a need for things to make sense, and if getting our energy healed, or seeing spirits, or believing in acupuncture or Feng Shui doesn’t fit into our idea of how reality operates, we will find a way to disappear these things from our sight and attention. We will discount them and explain them away.  We become blind to things we are not willing to see.  I don’t think that we need to worry about that.  I think it is part of how we cope with our incomprehensible experiences.  We are designed to filter out a huge part of our sensory data so that we can focus and act here and now, so that we can feel free and autonomous, and so that we are not freaked out by a reality we are not ready to handle or process.

Meanwhile, as we stumble along with our filters and ear-plugs and sunglasses, we are not alone in the universe, and we are surrounded by love.

Swedenborg refers to something he calls “the science of correspondences.”  Correspondences are the ways physical reality reflects or manifests spiritual realities.  When it comes to the Bible, “correspondences” are all the ways the words and phrases embody, represent, and bring to mind spiritual dynamics.  Swedenborg says that even if we don’t understand or “see” these spiritual meanings as we read the Bible, the spiritual message is still being communicated and stored up in our spirits.  There is an actual energetic spiritual connection with the words and phrases, and all the spirits connected to us are hearing spiritual truths while we are reading the concrete stories.  Imagine reading a children’s book with a child.  While the child is understanding the story at a child’s level, we might be seeing all sorts of adult meanings or more sophisticated concepts being communicated in the simple storyline.  The child gets what the child gets, and we get what we get because we are present with the child and have the ears to hear something bigger.

This time last week I was in meetings at the Center for Swedenborgian Studies in Berkeley, California.  The meetings were delightful and stimulating, and I am so glad I went, despite the exhausting traveling that was required, and my ridiculous ability to get into absurd situations.

I had been asked to give the closing devotion, and as usual, I had not prepared anything because there had not been time.  A certain phrase from Swedenborg had been pressing forward in my mind during the meetings: “Nothing unconnected ever occurs.”  Because that phrase had been knocking on my brain for a few days, I was looking it up on my iPad during the last session working with the phrasing to turn it into a meditative prayer.  It was during that reworking that I saw the “why” behind the profound declaration that “nothing unconnected ever occurs.”

"Most of humanity has been completely unaware that every single aspect of human feeling, perception, and thought is simply the outward expressions of the Divine energetic force flowing into humankind.  Because of this, every single aspect of human feeling, perception, and thought is actually interconnected with everything else that exists—but nobody knows this. In fact, each person is so energetically connected with those who are in their immediate spiritual community, that they would fall down lifeless if this connection were severed.  Also because of this inflowing of all life from the Divine Source, it is impossible for anything to exist that is not connected to everything else."  (Heavenly Secrets 2556 a portion)

 

There is a direct line from my soul to God, and from your soul to God, and from every piece of matter in this universe to God. This means we are all connected to each other and everything else that exists because we are all connected to God.  God is the only thing that exists, and everything that exists originated in God.  So no matter what the appearance or feeling we may have of being alone, we cannot ever be alone.  Just because we cannot see or hear the deep web of our interconnection with everything that exists does not mean it isn’t there.  Just because I cannot see that this lectern is actually a bunch of spinning molecules, or that you and I in the grand scheme of things are actually minute beings on a tiny ball hurtling through a vast expanse of space, kept safe and alive by an atmosphere thinner than skin doesn’t mean these things aren’t true. 

I don’t think we are meant to be thinking about these things all the time.  I expect we function best when believe our furniture is solid and the earth isn’t spinning and this reality right here is the most important.  Because that is the truth for us right now. We feel independent and alone because it is best for us.

But when Jesus ascended into heaven, one of the final things he said was, “Behold, I am with you always.”

“I am with you always.”  Always. Not, when we are good.  Not when we have prayed the right way. Not, “because you have signed up with the right church, or attended enough worship services, or believe the right things.”  Always.  What part of “always” means not always?

The life in each cell in each part of your body is God’s life.  The life in each part of your consciousness is sourced from God.  That is how God is with you and I even in the darkest moments. 

I could not believe in anything if I did not believe that somehow, in some way, the latest tragedy in Oregon, and every unaddressed injustice that has ever happened is made right in the bigger picture. When asked “where was God?” in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, rescue workers and survivors and volunteers spoke of countless acts of kindness, miraculous small incidents, and innumerable gifts of support from myriads of donors.  However you interpret this data, it seems to say to me that when the tug on our connection is strong enough, we feel it and respond.  God works through us.  We are all interconnected.  And because we are deeply and intimately connected with God, nothing can truly hurt us.

On that healer’s table one day he was working on my back.  He said something about removing knives from my back. I laughed.  Then I got very quiet and asked, “Is the key to surviving gossip having thick armor so that the knives can’t get in, or is it just getting good at pulling them out and healing quickly?”  He was quiet a while and then he said, “I think it lies in understanding that they can’t really hurt us.”

That made sense to me too.

“You are not alone in the universe, for you are surrounded by love.”

The Readings

2 Kings 6:9-18 

And Elisha sent to the king of Israel, saying, “Beware that you do not pass this certain place, for the Arameans are coming down there.”  Then the king of Israel sent someone to the place of which the man of God had told him and confirmed it. Thus Elijah warned the king of Israel again and again about the Arameans’ movements, and the king was protected.

Therefore the heart of the king of Aram was greatly troubled by this thing; and he called his servants and said to them, “Will you not show me which of us is for the king of Israel?”

And one of his servants said, “None, my lord, O king; but Elisha, the prophet who is in Israel, tells the king of Israel the words that you speak in your bedroom.”

So he said, “Go and see where he is, that I may capture him.”

And it was told him, saying, “Surely he is in Dothan.”

Therefore he sent horses and chariots and a great army there, and they came by night and surrounded the city. And when the servant of Elisha arose early and went out, there was an army, surrounding the city with horses and chariots. And his servant said to him, “Alas, my master! What shall we do?”

So he answered, “Do not fear, for those who are with us are more than those who are with them.” And Elisha prayed, and said, “Lord, I pray, open his eyes that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.

As the Aramean army advanced toward him, Elisha prayed, “O Lord, please make them blind.” So the Lord struck them with blindness as Elisha had asked.

Luke 3:23-38

Now Jesus himself was about thirty years old when he began his ministry. 

He was the son, so it was thought, of Joseph,

the son of Heli, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, the son of Melki,

the son of Jannai, the son of Joseph, the son of Mattathias, the son of Amos, the son of Nahum,

who was the son of Esli, the son of Naggai, the son of Maath, the son of Mattathias, the son of Semein, the son of Josek, the son of Joda, the son of Joanan, the son of Rhesa, the son of Zerubbabel, the son of Shealtiel,

who was the son of Neri, who was the son of Melki, the son of Addi, the son of Cosam, the son of Elmadam, the son of Er, the son of Joshua, the son of Eliezer, the son of Jorim, the son of Matthat, the son of Levi, 

who was the son of Simeon, the son of Judah, the son of Joseph, the son of Jonam, the son of Eliakim, the son of Melea, the son of Menna, the son of Mattatha, the son of Nathan, the son of David, the son of Jesse,

who was the son of Obed, the son of Boaz, the son of Salmon, the son of Nahshon, the son of Amminadab, the son of Ram, the son of Hezron, the son of Perez, the son of Judah, the son of Jacob, the son of Isaac,

who was the son of Abraham, the son of Terah, the son of Nahor, the son of Serug, the son of Reu, the son of Peleg, the son of Eber, the son of Shelah, the son of Cainan, the son of Arphaxad, the son of Shem,

who was the son of Noah, the son of Lamech, the son of Methuselah, the son of Enoch, the son of Jared, the son of Mahalalel, the son of Kenan, the son of Enosh, the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God.

Heavenly Secrets 2556 a portion

Most of humanity has been completely unaware that every single aspect of human feeling, perception, and thought is simply the outward expressions of the Divine energetic force flowing into humankind.  Because of this, every single aspect of human feeling, perception, and thought is actually interconnected with everything else that exists---but nobody knows this. In fact, each person is so energetically connected with those who are in their immediate spiritual community, that they would fall down lifeless if this connection were severed.  Also because of this inflowing of all life from the Divine Source, it is impossible for anything to exist that is not connected to everything else. 

Is Love Alive? - a sermon for second Advent

Is Love Alive?

Sermon for the Advent of Love

Rev. Alison Longstaff, Dec 7, 2014

Bath Church of the New Jerusalem

Luke 1: 26-38, Matthew 1:18-25, Selections from Heavenly Secrets 1820:2

There is a bit of dark humor that really appeals to me.  And as it applies to today’s topic I will share it with you now. It goes like this:

“We are born naked, wet, and hungry.  Then things get worse.”

So, today I want to talk about the vulnerability of love, and just how vulnerable God was willing to become to deliver His message of love.  He didn’t show his love by being the mightiest, or having the biggest guns, or the most money, or the best Homeland security, but by being the most vulnerable.  He allowed himself to be tortured and murdered to show us in the most palpable way imaginable that love transcends even unjust arrest, torture, and death.  He chose to be vulnerable.  His strength was illustrated by his “weakness”.

So as we are celebrating His birth, with joy and gifts and lights and hope, can we remember what He chose?  How will it all end?  Will LOVE live?

Raise your hand if you have ever heard of a “Blue” Christmas service.

 

A “Blue” Christmas service is one that makes a space for those whose pain and loss during this “most wonderful time of the year” is too great for them to be able to join in the festivities.  When most of the rest of us are wishing each other “Merry Christmas!” or “Happy Hanu-Solsti-Bodhi-Kwaanza-kkuh!” a Blue Christmas service carves out a safe and sacred space for those who need to be with the truth of their emotional reality—sadness, sorrow, loss, homesickness, pain, separation, or bereavement.  It is a gentle, quiet space, not even pretending that everyone should be joyful.

Somehow, loss, separation, disruption, and bereavement are more sharply outlined during the holidays when all those around us seem to be celebrating.  One woman confessed to me recently, “Why does everyone have to tell me to have a Happy Thanksgiving?  It’s not a happy thanksgiving.  My mother died and we aren't celebrating at all.”  In her pain she heard, “Happy Thanksgiving” as a command, and it sharpened her sense of grief.  It is not uncommon for raw loss to come out as anger or bitterness.  And unless we have been trained to deal with such loss when we encounter it, we are likely to feel uncomfortable or guilty or maybe even judgmental of the one who is voicing such hurt and pain during the holidays.

My hope is that today’s message will open our awareness to include with compassion and comfort all the experiences of this holiday season—the joyful and sorrowful, the bright and the bitter, the sweet and the sharp—believing that somehow they are united by love and remembering that love makes a space for all sides of us. 

Suffering need not diminish the sparkling joy; nor does any delight and pleasure need to invalidate the sorrow.  They can live side by side in this season, but it may take intentionality to learn how to be comfortable with all of it.  Sometimes the joy and pleasure will be contagious and brighten the days of the sorrowful.  At other times the suffering is so acute that the surrounding joy must show respect in quietness, holding those suffering in love and patience.

According to Swedenborg, we are what we love.  Love is what drives us and motivates us and inspires us.  And love is what hurts most acutely when attacked. 

We love, and we love deeply.  Our greatest joy is when people we love are doing well, and when we hear news of new love and new life.  The toughest times are when something we love is threatened, or is suffering, or has been lost. 

Joy and love open us up.  Pain and fear shut us down.  Do you see the relationship?

To guard what is most precious to us, we build defenses around it.  We don’t want the things we treasure most to be hurt or threatened in any way.  Some defenses are reasonable and prudent. But sometimes, if we have been hurt deeply, we build bigger and bigger defenses, hiding from more and more of life, swearing we will not be hurt that way again.  It makes sense that we do this, but building stronger and stronger defenses will not serve us in the long run.  Because defenses, while protecting the things we love, also block love’s movement and expression, like a princess walled up in a tower to keep her safe; or like a light hidden under a bucket.  One’s defense mechanisms themselves can end doing more harm than good.

So let’s look at how today’s scripture selections speak to love and defensiveness and vulnerability.

In our first Scripture reading, we see Mary hearing the news that she would become the mother of God.  This promise was actually inviting Mary into tremendous vulnerability.  A woman when pregnant is far more vulnerable than she is ordinarily.  To be an unmarried pregnant woman in that culture was one of the worst fates Mary could face.  During labor she would be reduced to complete dependency on those around her for her life and the life of her baby.  Yet Mary essentially said, “So be it,” to all of it, even though her pregnancy could mean Joseph’s rejection. Mary said, “Yes,” even though she could be left alone with an infant and no means or support. Granted, she had an angel reassuring her, but still, Mary’s trust here is remarkable.

Then we see Joseph being asked to accept Mary even though she was pregnant. Joseph clearly wasn’t happy with Mary’s news, because he took at least overnight, and possibly longer to decide how to respond.  In fact, we read that Joseph had pretty much decided to cut Mary off “quietly” until the angel intervened. The Joseph side of our nature is like that.  It nearly says “no” to God’s birth into our lives because it is more cautious.  Joseph was afraid, or the angel would not have said, “Do not be afraid to take Mary to wife.”

But with the angel’s promptings, Joseph did eventually say “yes” to the care of Mary and thus to the birth of this Divine child into his life. 

In Swedenborgian theology, there are two sides to each of us, rather like the two hemispheres of our brain.  There is the open, connecting, creative, optimistic, inclusive side of us (or our right-brain side); and there is the protective, analytical, sorting, boxing and prioritizing side, (or our left-brain side).  Mary shows up here as our right-brain response to God’s advent into our lives.  She is the part of us ready to accept and gestate this Divine in-breaking with very few questions. That part of us simply says “yes” right away. 

Joseph is representing our left-brain energy.  His role will be to protect and provide for this child that is not his own.  He is hesitant and skeptical; he takes time to discern the risks and benefits. He nearly says no, before an angel speaks in his dreams and turns him around. 

When I think of these two energies and all the ways they show up in my life, one example that makes me smile is this church’s board, and the lovely mix of dreamers and money-crunchers, optimists and … well, the hesitant and careful.  We need both energies. One isn't better than the other any more than the left hemisphere is better than the right in our brains. To function at our best we need a healthy marriage between them, in our personal inner lives, and in our communities, and on every church board.  In every aspect of life we get onto trouble when the dreamers charge ahead without the consent of the careful, or when the careful stonewall every dream because of risk-aversion.  The two sides must work together as a team, trusting the wisdom inherent in each; and most of all, as in the story of Mary and Joseph, needing to remember that it is God’s direction and guidance that will accomplish the plan not their own dreams or prudence.  Neither Mary nor Joseph alone could have been able to birth, catch, hold, clean, swaddle and nurse this Divine expression of Love at his most wet and squirmy and vulnerable.

Love makes us vulnerable.  And loving someone small and defenseless who is relying on us for safety and survival makes us the most vulnerable of all.  

Our reading from Swedenborg says that evil attacks what we love most. Herod went after every single baby and toddler for miles around.  Our softness, our tenderness, our openness—these things are seen as a threat in a macho culture.  When we are all about our own ability not to get hurt, or to be the strongest, or to be “invulnerable,” anything seen as “weak” is anathema.  Everything is viewed in threat and risk terms, and everything that can make us vulnerable is the thing to be guarded against above all. 

That was not Jesus’ message nor his model. 

While it is a normal human response to react to pain and injury by throwing up defensive walls, defensive walls stop the flow of love.  They leave no room at the inn.  They create a space to hide, and hiding is not what we were brought here to do.

The experiences of sorrow and loss around this holiday are experiences of love too.  They express great love, or we would not hurt so much.  While the pain and loss can make us wonder if we will ever feel joy again, the answer lies in the pain itself.  The love is alive or there would be no pain.  It truly is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.  And where there is love, there is God. And where there is God, all things are possible.

So if you are feeling naked, wet, and hungry, and like things are just going to get worse, remember: Love has a way of accomplishing what it sets out to do.  It holds back nothing from those it loves. True vulnerability is the bravest and strongest part of us, no matter how things look, because it is willing to go into and through the darkness, trusting in the new dawn.

So this Christmas, let us try to say “Yes” to the birth of vulnerability in our own lives however that shows up for us.  When an angel asks us to take a risk for love, will we dare to say “yes” and trust that God has a plan?  Mostly, will we heed the call of love, and be brave enough to face the darkness even with all the feelings of vulnerability and pain?  Because that is the path love takes and the way to new life.  Amen

The following was the interlude:

Winter Song,By Sara Bareilles and Ingrid Michaelson

Bum bum bum bum, bum bum bum bum
Bum bum, bum bum bum bum
Bum bum, bum bum bum bum

This is my winter song to you
The storm is coming soon
It rolls in from the sea

My voice, a beacon in the night
My words will be your light
To carry you to me

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love (pause)

They say that things just cannot grow
Beneath the winter snow
Or so I have been told

They say we're buried far
Just like a distant star
I simply cannot hold

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

This is my winter song
December never felt so wrong
Cause you're not where you belong
Inside my arms

Bum bum bum bum, bum bum bum bum
Bum bum, bum bum bum bum
Bum bum, bum bum bum bum

I still believe in summer days
The seasons always change
And life will find a way

I'll be your harvester of light
And send it out tonight
So we can start again

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

This is my winter song
December never felt so wrong
Cause you're not where you belong
Inside my arms

This is my winter song to you
The storm is coming soon
It rolls in from the sea

My love a beacon in the night
My words will be your light
To carry you to me

Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?
Is love alive?

The Readings

Luke 1: 26-38  Now in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth,  to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  And having come in, the angel said to her, “Rejoice, highly favored one, the Lord is with you; blessed are you among women!”

 But when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and considered what manner of greeting this was.  Then the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God.  And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bring forth a Son, and shall call His name Jesus.  He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Highest; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David.  And He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.”

Then Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I do not know a man?”

And the angel answered and said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Highest will overshadow you; therefore, also, that Holy One who is to be born will be called the Son of God.  Now indeed, Elizabeth your relative has also conceived a son in her old age; and this is now the sixth month for her who was called barren.  For with God nothing will be impossible.”

Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.

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 with child from the Holy Spirit.  Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss 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: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear 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 borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

Heavenly Secrets 1820:2, 5 portions

Since few people know what temptations really are, let a brief explanation of them be given here. Evil spirits only attack what someone loves, and the more intensely we love, the more fiercely do those spirits attack us. By attacking what we love most deeply, they attack every single thing about us, since each person’s very life consists in what we love. Nothing gives evil spirits more delight than to destroy someone; and they would attack what we love relentlessly if the Lord did not drive them away.