We’ve
been looking at the different witnesses to Jesus birth this Advent season. The
first week we looked at the Magi, their trek across the desert seeking the
Lord, and compared their quest to Herod who was under the impression that He was
the king and Lord, all that he ever needed. Some think they are all the god
they will ever need, but wise men and women seek the real God, not a reflection
of their ego. Last week we looked at the shepherds, and marveled that the
angels singing to announce Jesus birth would sing to people as ordinary,
really, people as looked down upon as the shepherds. I have been impressed that
Jesus did not come to the powerful and the perfect, but He came for the
shepherds, He came for everyone, He came for you and I. We can witness to His
birth as well in our own lives.
So we come today to those closest to Jesus birth, Mary and
Joseph. Mary would have been a young woman, no more than 16. It’s likely that
Joseph was significantly older. While Mary is alive and well during Jesus
ministry, Joseph is never mentioned which leads people to believe he had passed
before Jesus began His ministry. But these two were visited by angels, had
significant dreams guiding them to carefully care for the baby Jesus, and of
all people, they are the best witnesses to what really happened when God became
a man, the Word of God became flesh and dwelt among us. They were the ones who
made the journey to Bethlehem, they were the ones chosen to have care of our
Lord as He grew. Of all the witnesses, they are the best. Our reading today is
from Matthew chapter 1, starting in verse 18.
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was
pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found
to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did
not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her
quietly.
20 But
after he had considered 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 home as your wife,
because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and
you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their
sins.”
22 All
this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: 23 “The virgin will be with child and
will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God
with us.”
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the
Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until
she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. [1]
Let’s pray.
Let’s start out
quickly by remembering that Matthew is the Good News, the gospel written
specifically focused on the Jews. Matthew wants the Jews to accept Jesus as
their Messiah; but more than that, also their Lord and Savior. Matthew, like
all the gospel writers, writes with a purpose. To begin the story of Jesus,
Matthew begins with a genealogy of Joseph, the husband of Mary, to whom Christ
was born. There are some very interesting people, I’ve learned recently, in
that list. What is very interesting is that there are 5 women in there; some
Jewish, some not; the Jewish women were both good and bad, the Gentiles women
were also split, one good and one bad. It is odd in Jesus humanly father’s line
that all people are represented; Jewish and not, good and bad, that Christ is
born for all of them, and for all of us. But them Matthew goes into the story
of Jesus birth, and the few verses that describe the trouble of Mary and
Joseph, what they endured to be faithful and obedient to God mostly has to be
read into the story. So let’s start that process.
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was
pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found
to be with child through the Holy Spirit. 19 Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did
not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her
quietly.
Back then a young
woman pledged to be married, Mary would have been less than 16, remained apart
from her husband for a year while they were pledged to each other to make sure
the young woman wasn’t pregnant. Her purity was important to making sure that
the new husband wasn’t raising someone else’s child; for Mary to become
pregnant was a disgrace to her parents, it was disgraceful to her siblings, to
her extended family and would have brought shame upon her whole village. There
would have been a lot of finger pointing, and the truth is that her life was in
danger. You might remember that the penalty for adultery, which this would have
appeared to be, was death by stoning. You may know that in certain places in
the Middle East still there are honor killings; male family members killing
their pregnant sister or daughter to retain the family’s honor. It is rare, but
still done. That was how serious this was.
Joseph wanted to
quietly end their relationship, their potential marriage. Because they were
pledged to be married, even though they weren’t, the dissolution of that
relationship would have been a divorce, not simply a break up. But we learn
something about silent Joseph; he is a righteous man. He is merciful, and instead
of insisting on his rights that she be killed, he sought to divorce her
quietly, and if the family desired, they could send Mary away to have the baby
and protect her life. It is interesting that Joseph is described as
“righteous”. He is technically breaking
the Law handed down by Moses that says that adulterers should be put to death.
In fact, one of the women in the list in Matthew 1:1-17 is Tamar. Her husband
had died, and his family was not living up to their duties to provide her with
children; the youngest unmarried brother was supposed to marry her, but the
family delayed. She then posed as a prostitute, and her father in law got her
pregnant. Before her father in law, Judah, knew that in fact he was the baby’s
father, he was going to have Tamar killed for adultery. It’s odd that many
years later, the righteous father spared Mary, and sought to divorce her
quietly when something similar happened. You can see though, that this was a
potentially deadly situation for Mary.
But after he had considered 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 home as
your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and
you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their
sins.”
One of my favorite
commentators, Dr. Bailey, feels strongly that this word “considered” is not the
most accurate meaning of the word in the text. He feels that there is a real
level of anger that is not reflected in our English translations that people
would have read and understood in Jesus day. So really, he feels that something
like, after Joseph was really angry, and angel of the Lord appeared to him…
Which frankly, makes more sense. Joseph’s plans for their life together had
been squashed because Mary had gotten pregnant, or at least, that’s what he
thought. Joseph had plans for his life, as we all do. But God’s plans for
Joseph’s life were different than his plans. So Joseph comes to a cross
road-what to do? How does Joseph remain faithful to God, how does he follow God
when the plans change? How do we do that as well? Joseph had an angel come to
visit him in a dream; that rarely happens to me, I’d guess that rarely happens
to any of us.
We remain faithful to
what we know God has told us. God may not tell us how long we have to wait for
something to happen; but He has told us to trust Him and remain faithful to Him
and not to sin in the process. God may tell us specifically how to deal with a
situation, but we are told to love others, to encourage them, to reflect God’s
nature in our lives. I think God entrusts us with a lot of freedom as His
followers; sometimes we get it wrong because we’re angry, sometimes we get it
right because we are focused on worshipping God even in our hard decisions.
Even though God may not come to us in dreams, He has come to us in Christ, and
we seek to live up to the honor and love that we have taken on as being
disciples of Jesus. We won’t get angelic visitations very often, if ever. But
we have the Holy Spirit to guide us and teach us, we have God’s Word, and we
have the community of saints, our Christian brothers and sisters to help us
make wise, godly, and often hard, decisions to follow Christ in how we live.
Joseph makes the hard
decision; he does not toss Mary out, but will raise up this child who is not
His, but who will be for all the people. Joseph listens, and obeys. He doesn’t
talk back, doesn’t complain how unfair all this is, he simply listens and
obeys. I tell you, that would make us all better disciples of Christ, if we
simply followed Joseph’s example.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the
prophet: 23 “The virgin will
be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him
Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”
24 When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the
Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. 25 But he had no union with her until
she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. [2]
Joseph simply obeys.
He takes Mary home, in fact, he takes her to Bethlehem with him. You know, it
would have been a lot easier for Joseph to make the journey by himself, rather
than leading a pregnant lady across a good long section of Israel in order to
register for the census that the Roman government was taking. Mary didn’t have
to go with him. His paperwork would have been just fine if it was just Joseph.
Heck, he legally wasn’t even married to her. So why does he take Mary on that
trek? He has to protect her, he has to fulfill what God has asked him to do, to
care for and protect the baby that was growing in Mary’s womb. Mary would have
not had Joseph’s protection if she stayed behind in the village. So to stay
safe, Mary has to make the trip, pregnant as she is, to Bethlehem. The baby has
to be born in Bethlehem, so that works too, the prophesy needed to be fulfilled
so we could be sure Jesus is the Messiah. But Mary couldn’t have stayed away
from Joseph. She might have been killed. She had to make the trek to Bethlehem,
pregnant as she was.
Joseph was a witness
to the angel, to Mary’s condition, and must have heard her explanation of her
condition, what the angel said to her as well. Mary and Joseph both received
messages from angels, and they humbly obeyed the divine summons to be a part of
the coming of the Messiah. They witnessed the miracles surrounding Jesus birth;
Elizabeth’s wonderful and strange comments as Mary met her at the house;
imagine having your cousin greet you with the words “Blessed are you among
women and blessed is the child you bear! But why am I so favored that the
mother of my Lord should come to me?” Without saying anything, Elizabeth knows
Mary’s condition, and all about the special baby growing under her heart. They
witnessed the shepherds coming in the middle of the night, eyes wide and
stuttering that they too had seen angels, but not just one. One talked to them,
but the whole night sky lit up with angels blessing the Lord because of the
baby, because of Mary’s baby, the baby given to Joseph to protect in and beyond
the womb.
Mary and Joseph
witnessed, much later, the strange dignitaries from across the desert come into
their home, and kneel down, worshipping God. Worshipping the baby Mary had
borne. They worshipped, bringing with them all sorts of expensive gifts of
incense and gold. Mary and Joseph witnessed another angel, coming in another
dream, telling them to get up and flee to safety down in Egypt.
Mary lived long enough
to see Jesus ministry, although she didn’t understand all of it. There was a
time when she made Jesus make some wine for a party, there was a time when she
and her other kids were trying to get Jesus attention, and Jesus said those who
do the will of the Father are his mother and brothers. Mary lived long enough
to see Jesus flogged, beaten and bloody, hanging on a cross on the hill of the
skull outside Jerusalem. She knew who He was; what a contradiction that must
have been. To see this special child, this wonderful healer and teacher, up on
the cross, slowly dying. She was a witness to that as well. I wonder how much
she understood about how important it was for Jesus to die up on the cross. I
wonder if she thought back over Jesus’ life and all that she had seen Him do,
all the miracles, signs and wonders that she witnessed.
I wonder about all the
things we witness Christ doing, but out of ignorance or hard headedness we
assign it to coincidence, or someone being nice, anything but God moving in our
lives. I wonder about the lives we see changed, the people come to faith in
Christ, and if we shrug our shoulders and say “well isn’t that nice” when we
are really seeing God in action, and we should be amazed. All these people
we’ve look at this Advent witnessed something amazing. They saw God. They saw a
little baby, but they also saw God at the same time. They passed the knowledge
of that miracle down to us. Now it is our turn, to either proclaim that
miracle, or ignore it. To focus on Christ, or to lose Him during the chaos that
is Christmas time. Witness this year. Witness God at work in your life, and say
thank you. Witness God at work in the lives of your family and friends, and be
grateful. Witness God moving in the church, and see where you can pitch in.
Witness the miracle again, of God coming to us, in flesh, one of us, out of
sheer love. Witness.
Let’s pray.