Matthew 1:18-25
Matthew 1:18-25
On
the eve of Christmas Eve we come to the story of Joseph. Now usually I am all
about the women in Bible stories. But that is because most of the time they are
the forgotten heroes of the Bible and they get such little press. When it comes
to Christmas, as with most stories dealing with birth, the man takes the back
seat. He is by nature not the center of the story. Even though we know that
husbands and fathers are (literally) vital to the situation, the woman does get
all the attention because she does all the work. She is the one who
labors.
So
on this eve of the eve of Christmas, let us spend some time thinking about
Joseph. Only Matthew and Luke tell us anything about Jesus prior to this
baptism. And whereas Luke tells us Mary’s story, Matthew tells us Joseph’s. In
this story Joseph finds out about Mary’s pregnancy from afar. For Mary, turning
up pregnant would have been fairly surprising, as she very well would have
known exactly what she had and had not been up to. But luckily before she began
to wonder if she really did know where babies come from, an angel came to her
and explained things to her. Joseph on the other hand, not having the luxury of
knowing and not knowing what it was Mary had, or had not been up to, is also surprised
but in a completely different way. So there are only three courses of action
for him. He can make a big deal her being unfaithful which would get her stoned
to death, because in those days the betrothal contract was just as binding as
the marriage contract. Turning up pregnant justified a divorce, and the Law of Moses
justified the stoning of an unfaithful wife. He could instead choose to divorce
her quietly and hope that the baby’s father would step in, marry her and save
her from utter destruction. And then there was always just goint ahead and
marrying her. Marrying her would be him essentially in claiming the child was his
own and be an admission that as a couple they were less than chaste in the months
prior to their marriage. They would not have been the first couple to do this and
far from the last. So he is contemplating how to go about this. What will he
do? Will he call Mary out and have her punished to the full extent of the law? Will
he basically admit to some amount of moral laxity? Or will he do this quietly
and hope the baby’s father will do the right thing? And while he is trying to
figure out what the right thing to do is and contemplating down which of these
paths he will travel. The baby’s father does step in and sends an angelic
messenger to Joseph and explain things to him.
Both
Mary and Joseph have to have faith and trust God in this situation, but in the
end, I have to say, I think Joseph has to trust a little more than Mary does.
Mary knows what is going on and has gone one with her body, it being hers and
all. But Joseph does not know what is going on with Mary; all he knows is that
God has told him to marry Mary. God has told him to accept the child Mary is
bearing as his own. This is not the first time a man of God has been asked to
raise a child he knew was most definitely not his own. God asked Hosea to do
the same thing after his wife cheated on him, but at least Hosea was a prophet
and already had a relationship with God that involved divine revelation and a
certain amount of built up trust. This is a cold call, to trust God in an
extreme circumstance with a little more than sketchy story to go with it. Since
Joseph is not a prophet of God, who expects God to give him odd messages with strange
and difficult to believe prophetic messages in actual happenings in his life, this
is the first time God has come to him asking him to trust that miraculous
events are at play in the goings on in his betrothal and the womb of his soon
to be wife. God is asking him to be in the middle of some circumstances that
are pretty hard to believe and trust God through. But God does come to him and say,
“Things look weird, this is not what you expected but trust me, this is ok. I
am at work here.”
When
it comes to trusting God, I think most of us can relate to Joseph a little
better than we can relate to Mary. Mary is in the middle of it all she knows
exactly what it going on. She knows herself and her actions. It is easy to
trust that something is a miracle when the miracle is growing inside of you.
Joseph on the other hand has to trust God when God tells him that he can trust
Mary. The waters are murky; the way looks muddy and hard to travel. But God says
trust me, you will not sink; trust me I know the path down which I am leading.
When it comes to trusting God, the circumstances are always clear, things are
not always cut and dry. Trusting God in all circumstances is hard and sometimes
it would be easier to find our own way; to think things through and find the
best way ourselves. That is not to say that God does not ask us to trust the
logical or even most convenient way, but the hard part is that sometimes God
asks us to trust that the least convenient way, or the path that is a little
less than logical is the one down which we should go.
Joseph
worked things out. He thought things through. He figured out what was best, but
then he had an encounter with God and God tells him a story that is a little more
than hard to believe. But then he wakes up and, “He did as the angel of the
Lord commanded him.”
Now
I don’t know about you but most of the time, I am a little more like Mary in
this situation. When the angel of the Lord came to her she has questions, ‘But
how can this be?” I usually have questions, I need answers, I need to know
more, I need to be able to understand. But God tells Joseph what’s what in a
dream, no conversation, not back and forth, and he wakes up and simply trusts
God. If only I had that much faith even half the time!
Trusting
God is hard. Trusting God without question, without discussion, without needing
time to think it through is even harder. Luckily the Biblical account, between
Luke’s accounting of the angel coming to Mary and Matthew’s telling of the
angel coming to Joseph, gives an example of both instantaneous trust, and
questioning faith so that we know, that faithful followers can do both. The
point is, in the end we trust, at the end of the day (or night, in Joseph’s
case) we have faith and move forward going where it is God is leading us, even
if it does not make sense or just little
bit hard to believe.
The
story of Joseph is a call to faith. It is a call to trust. It is an example of
what it looks like to go where God is leading us. Joseph is a model of what it
looks like to encounter the mysterious will of God and to trust God that
wherever it is God is leading is a journey worth taking.
In
our own lives God asks us to trust, to go where it is God is leading. Only once
did God ask someone to trust that his fiancé pregnancy was a miracle and not
proof of unfaithful actions, but sometimes the things God is asking us to do,
the places God asks us to God, the trust God asks of us seems to be of that
magnitude. When it comes to our lives even the smallest leaps of faith seem to
be uncrossable chasms. When God say jump, don’t worry I will be sure you will
land on the other side, rarely do we look at the way ahead of us and see
nothing but a small stream over which we can easily hop, instead more often
than we feel like we are standing on the edge of the Grand Canyon being asked
to take a leap of faith, no matter how big the leap may actually be. But whether God is in fact asking us to hop a
small stream or jump over the largest precipice, our final response is to be
one of faith, one of trust, one in which we wake up and do exactly what God is
calling us to do no matter what it is God is asking, not matter where it is God
is leading. We trust, we have faith, even when God is asking us to believe the
impossible.
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