Fear Not, Just Obey Series

I was talking to a lady the other day about some Kids reaction to Santa.

Not the Santa who’s going to come down the chimney on Christmas Eve to leave gifts, but the shopping mall Santas. It seems a passage of rite that we take our kids to the Mall to have their pictures taken with Jolly Old Saint Nick.

Maybe it’s just our family, but for us it’s been generational.

It’s been going on forever, here is my sister and me.

And it crosses geography and culture. Here is a picture of our two, one of these people is dressed inappropriately for the climate. If you haven’t guessed, that was our second Christmas in Australia.

And our kids never seemed to have a problem with Santa, but here is a picture of Capri, our Oldest granddaughter with her first encounter with the Jolly old Elf.

And really, when you think about it, for some kids that’s their first introduction to someone who is not a relative.

But it does get better, here are the girls this year, but by now they are pretty used to Old Guys with white beards.

Even the concept of someone knowing if you’ve been naughty or nice, then sneaking into your house and eating your food can be a little sketchy. At least he doesn’t rummage under your pillow like his creepy cousin, the tooth fairy.

This is week three of our fear not series, this Christmas we are looking at the various times the words “Fear Not” or “Do not be afraid”, show up in the Christmas story.

In week one, it was when the Angel Gabriel appeared to Zechariah while he was preparing the incense in the temple and told him in Luke 1:13 But the angel said, “Don’t be afraid, Zechariah! God has heard your prayer. Your wife, Elizabeth, will give you a son, and you are to name him John.

And my message that week was “Fear not, just believe”, And I spoke about all the moving parts that are involved in answered prayer. They wanted a son, probably hadn’t considered the dirty diapers and sleepless nights that would go along with their answer to prayer. Didn’t realize that he would become an itinerant preacher who would introduce his cousin Jesus as the Messiah and who would be executed for his preaching.

Last week, after an awesome presentation by our Children we looked into Luke 1:30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favour with God! And my theme was “Fear not, just trust.” And we looked at how Mary had to trust God for all that would happen in her life as a result of her saying, Luke 1:38-39 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.

This week we’re going to Joseph’s story.

He’s always the forgotten one at Christmas. Oh we remember the Christ child, how could we forget him, even in the shopping malls they sing about the birth of Christ and his name is even included in the very word Christmas. Without Christ there would be no Christmas and so he’s remembered. And his mother, you remember “Round yon Virgin.” After all the virgin birth was pretty spectacular, wasn’t an everyday occurrence. And we are still talking about it. And to give Mary her due it took a lot of faith to trust God for the miracle that he had promised.

We even remember the bit players in the drama, we talk about the shepherds and the Wiseman, we cast them in the Christmas pageants and talk about how lucky they were to be a part of the first advent. The innkeeper even gets a speaking role and he’s basically the villain of the piece. Who’s forgotten? Joseph, you know Mary’s husband, the man who would raise Jesus the Son of God as Jesus the Son of Joseph.

We don’t know a whole lot about Joseph, we know that he was a carpenter, that he lived in Nazareth and that his family was originally from Bethlehem. We know that his father’s name was Jacob, that he was a descendant of David.

We know that it was Joseph that the Angels came to in a dream to warn about King Herod looking for Jesus, and how he took his family to Egypt.

We know that when Jesus was 12 years old that Joseph took him to Jerusalem for the Passover feast and we know that Joseph taught Jesus his trade. But then we don’t hear anymore from or about Joseph after that.

We presume that because at his crucifixion Jesus asked John to care for his mother that Joseph died before Christ was crucified.

In Mark 6:3 Jesus is identified as Mary’s son and his brothers are named but there is no mention of Joseph so it’s not that much of a stretch to presume that Joseph died before Christ began his ministry. And we know that Joseph was considered to be the Father of Christ by the people of Nazareth.