Joseph accepts Jesus as his son
After spending time in the book of Luke looking at the angel Gabriel appearing to Zechariah and then to Mary and their subsequent songs of joy, we return to the book of Matthew to find out about Joseph’s reaction to the news. It’s weird how Luke only includes an account of Mary receiving the news and Matthew only includes the announcement from Joseph’s perspective. Each account is lacking without the other. Both partners are important at every stage of a pregnancy. There’s a tendency nowadays to give the pregnant woman loads of attention and forget that this is a life-changing experience for the guy too. He’s becoming a dad. That’s a huge thing. Something weird and wonderful is happening to the woman he loves. That’s a massive thing to deal with too.
In Joseph’s case, the whole thing is made all the more weird because this child is not his child. He’s pledged (engaged is the closest we have to that in our culture) to be married to a virgin and has behaved in an honourable way towards her. She then comes to him to say that she has become pregnant ‘through the Holy Spirit’.
As if. Now I’ve heard it all.
Surely that’s what Joseph must be thinking. There’s not a lot of detail in Matthew’s account and because of that, I think we can lose the full impact of what a massive deal this is for Joseph, as it would be for any young man. He must have assumed that she had been unfaithful to him and that’s got to hurt. He must have suffered a huge amount of pain, disappointment, disbelief, betrayal, humiliation, rejection, resentment. There’s no way that he could stay with her now. That was not an option under Jewish law. He could have publicly humiliated her, as she had seemingly humiliated him, but he proves to be a good man, a loving and compassionate man.
Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. Matthew 1:19
That’s the best she could hope for, surely. That’s what we would advise any young man in Joseph’s position. That’s what we would say to our son or friend or colleague – ‘Get out while you’ve got the chance. Walk away. Don’t look back. Stay away from her. She’s bad news. You don’t owe her anything.’
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. 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.’
All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel’ (which means ‘God with us’).
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus. Matthew 1:20-25
Either that angel (it doesn’t appear to be Gabriel this time) must have been mighty convincing or Joseph must have been easy to convince (or maybe a mixture of both), but it doesn’t seem to have taken much to get Joseph on board with God’s (crazy!) plan. Unless this is just a very brief summary of a much longer process of wrestling and doubt before finally accepting this truth. Even if Joseph believed the angel, how did it not totally freak him out to imagine that his now wife had become pregnant by the Holy Spirit with God’s son? That kind of thing didn’t happen to people like him. In fact, that particular thing – God made flesh – had never happened before in the whole of human history!
How was he to accept and bring up this child as his own when he was not his own in any human way? He’d been entrusted to care for and protect the saviour of God’s people, the Messiah, the one the Jewish people had been waiting for. Anyone who has adopted a child as we have may have some sense of this: that huge responsibility of being entrusted with someone else’s child. You come to love them as your own, of course you do, but you never forget that you are not their birth parents.
And then there’s the fact that this birth is the fulfilment of the ancient prophecy delivered by the prophet Isaiah centuries before.
Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: the virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14
It’s incredible, right? Completely mind-blowing! How have we let this most amazing story become so trivialised? How have we let the wonder of it all get buried under the tinsel and nativity plays and inane songs of the festive season?
Immanuel means ‘God with us’. God with us.
Pause for a minute and let that sink in.
The God of the whole universe residing among human beings as one of them.
God with us. Let’s not ever forget that.
Joseph may often get overlooked in the events of the Christmas story, but he actually displays as much trust and obedience as Mary does. It must have taken an incredible act of will to do what the angel of the Lord commanded him. We can imagine that his sense of pride and his instinct as a man would be to reject Mary, reject what is being asked of him here. He kept Mary safe. He did not take advantage of her compromised state. He was faithful and honourable and obedient.
We have so much to learn from both Mary and Joseph, don’t we? Has anyone ever been asked more than this pair? They respond with trust and obedience to the ultimate challenge: to bring the God of the universe into the world as a defenceless human baby, with no real idea of what lay before them.
Who (or what) has God entrusted to your care, I wonder?
Who (or what) is God wanting to entrust to your care?
Trust and obey.
It’s what we were born to do.
