Sermon-07-12-2-Meet the Parents
Christmas Pop Quiz
1– True of False-As long as Christmas has been celebrated, it has been on Dec. 25th. (False, not until about the 4th century was the Dec. 25 date settled on)
2-True or False-Mary and Joseph were married when Mary became pregnant. (False, betrothed not married)
3-Who told Mary and Joseph to go to Bethlehem? (Ceasar Agustus)
4-How did Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem? (most likely walked, only the rich, upper middle class had donkeys and we they were most likely poor based on the offering that they presented at the temple after Jesus birth)
5-What did the innkeeper tell Mary and Joseph?
A-there is no room at the inn
B-I have a stable you can use
C-come back after the xmas rush.
D-None of the above.
(D-no record fo the "innkeeper" saying anything to them)
5-What animals does the Bible say were present at Jesus birth? (Bible doesn’t say)
6-Where do we find the true story of Christmas?
(Matthew & luke)
De-Santa-tizing Christmas-to much of what we associate with the birth of Jesus comes from years of tradition, Christmas pagents, Christmas carols, but ends up having little to do with the true biblical account of what happened that first Christmas morning in Bethlehem over 2,000 years ago. That first Christmas was not the clean sanitized story that we are used to hearing, it was a dirty, messy, scandalous event and much of what happened then can be lost if we do not understand the world that Jesus was born into.
Over these next 4 weeks want to cut through the commercialism, take away the trappings of tradition in the hopes that we might see the Christmas story with new eyes, adding new depth and meaning to a story that we have all heard countless times.
This morning-meet the parents
Look at Mary and Joseph the young couple that God chose to be the earthly parents for His Son.
To understand them have to understand the marriage customs of the day.
People married much younger than they do today.
Young man-learn a trade so as to support his future spouse, then his family would choose a wife for him.
Joseph-most likely 14-18
Women-12-13-married as soon as they were considered old enough to have children.
The two families would meet-the marriage was usually arranged by the fathers-they would meet and negotiate the bride price-a price that the family of the groom would pay to the family of the bride-it acknowledged that the bride would be a precious loss to her family.
Once this price was agreed upon the agreement was sealed with a drink of wine. Then the groom would make his proposal to the bride by taking the cup of wine that his father had brought, drinking from it and offering it to the woman, symbolically saying that he wanted to make a covenant with her and that he would be willing to give his life for her. If the woman accepted the proposal she would seal the agreement by drinking from the same glass. The moment that happened the two of them were considered to be “betrothed”. This was viewed as a legal contract between the two families.
The time that a couple would be betrothed would usually be in the region of Galilee, where Mary and Joseph were from, a period of about 1-2 years. This was to be a time of preparation for the couple as they each prepared for their future life together.
In that region of Israel families lived in clusters of buildings called insula. (picture)
These clusters of buildings were built around a central courtyard. Grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunts all lived together in the insula-each having their own living quarters.
So as son’s married, they added to the insula. After asking the Mary to be his wife, Joseph would have gone back to his parents home and began building new rooms onto it. Then when Josephs father came to him and said that it was complete, then he could finally go and take Mary to be his wife and bring her to their new home.
During this time, Mary would have been expected remain true to Joseph and to be preparing herself to be the best wife that she could be for him. She would have been learning everything she could from her mother, grandmother, and aunts that she would have needed to know to be a good wife and mother, so that on the day that Joseph came she could be the best bride that she could be. This was also to be a period of time for her to prove her faithfulness to Joseph.
Now with that setting in mind lets read Luke 1:26-38. Events took place during this betrothal period.
12 year old girl-preparing for marriage-demonstrating her faithfulness to her future husband. Now she has to tell Joseph that she is pregnant with the Son of God.
Joseph thought of course-she has been unfaithful to me, committed adultery. Had the legal right to not only have Mary put to death, but also her father because it appeared the betrothal contract had been broken.
He had that right, but the Bible tells us that Joseph was a righteous man-didn’t want to hurt Mary, didn’t want revenge, he was willing to resolve the matter quietly without publicly disgracing Mary. Then he to receives a visit from an angel
Matt. 1:18-25.
Joseph responds to the angel by taking Mary as his wife, what we miss here looking at this from outside the culture is that by taking Mary as his wife, in the eyes of the people of the day, Joseph was admitting that he was the father of Mary’s baby. So not only did he not distance himself, he made himself appear guilty of committing adultery with Mary and that would have resulted in an immediate binding declaration of marriage without any of the usual celebration and brought disgrace to Joseph and his family.
2 kids 12 & 15 publicly disgraced, no wedding celebration, probably shunned by family-why? Because they chose to trust God and follow Him. This was the birth family of Jesus.
Turn to Luke 2-one more aspect to the story of Mary and Joseph. Read Luke 2:1-7
Few things here we miss with out the cultural context.
1-If Joseph was of the house and line of David, so was his father. Since he was not yet married, it would have been expected that his father or grandfather would have gone to register his family in the Roman census. But here we have this 15-16 yr. old boy taking his 9-months pregnant, 13 yr. old bride to be on a dangerous 40+mile walking journey (owning a donkey was a symbol of wealth, Mary and Joseph were not wealthy-look at the offering they bring when the present Jesus at the temple-doves, the offering of the poor). Here they are seemingly alone.
2-why was there no room at the inn? Word used for inn-word commonly used to refer to a guest room, a place that you would put up guests who came, not some type of hotel-place with many rooms for traveling caravans. Probably indicates that there was no room for them with Josephs family in Bethlehem, why, in a culture that values hospitality above almost all other social virtues would there be no room for Joseph and his bride to be who is about to give birth-once again-by agreeing to take Mary as his wife-even after her pregnancy-Joseph would have been seen as admitting his guilt in her pregnancy and they were probably viewed as social outcasts, that would explain why there would have been no support from either of their extended families during this time and why Mary would have been with Joseph now, and why nobody in Bethlehem would have had room for them.
2 reminders for us today
When we clean up the Christmas story miss just how much Christ allowed himself to be humbled when He came to earth-parents social outcasts.
don’t realize how much Mary and Joseph gave up to follow God and be Jesus’ parents. When we follow God, never a guarantee that everything will be great. But we are called to follow His leading, follow His commands regardless of the cost.
