“Righteousness Based on Love, Not Law”
Matthew 1:18-25
What is the first image that pops into your mind when you hear the word “righteous”?
Do you think of some fire and brimstone preacher with beady eyes who points his finger at sinners and declares them guilty in the eyes of an angry god?
Or do you think of angels and harps and clouds?
Perhaps you think of righteous indignation—anger at injustice.
Maybe the first image to pop into your head is someone who comes off as self-righteous, thinking they are better than others as far as morals and character are concerned.
Or perhaps, you think of a good and virtuous person—someone like Mother Teresa or St. Francis.
Maybe you think of something mean, something cruel, something inflexible and unmoveable.
We don’t tend to use the word “righteous” very much these days.
At least, I don’t hear it in every day conversations.
It may be a kind of strange word to our ears.
In any event, Matthew says that Joseph was a “righteous man.”
There's a rich history behind this idea.
The Hebrew word for a righteous man would normally mean that Joseph was known for his uncompromising obedience to the Torah, the law of Moses.
This would mean that Joseph didn't eat unclean food.
He didn't mix with the wrong kinds of people.
He didn't keep his carpentry shop open on the Sabbath to make a few extra bucks.
He was a righteous man; that was his identity.
Everybody knew this about him.
Nobody invited Joseph over to have ham sandwiches with tax collectors and prostitutes.
He was what other people wanted to be.
Like a businessperson in our day wants to be a CEO, or like an athlete wants to be a pro, an Israelite wanted to be righteous.
Becoming righteous meant you were admired and looked up to.
You were somebody.
And that was Joseph.
But now Joseph is a righteous man with a problem.
The girl he has promised to marry is going to have a baby, and whoever the father is, Joseph knows it's not him.
Nazareth is a small town, and as a general rule, word gets around in a small town.
Everybody knows everybody else’s business in a small town.
The Torah has some clear instructions about what to do to somebody in Mary's condition.
According to Deuteronomy Chapter 22: If a woman pledged to be married is unfaithful "She shall be brought to the door of her father's house, and there the men of her town shall stone her to death.”
That’s pretty clear.
Joseph's reputation as a righteous man was on the line.
The other righteous men in his town would have told him this sin must be publicly exposed and punished.
But Joseph couldn't bring himself to do this.
And it’s because Joseph was a “righteous man.”
Wow.
I thought being “righteous” meant that you followed all the Old Testament Laws to the T!!!
I thought it meant you were perfect in that sense, inflexible in that sense…
…uncompromising.
Could it be that being righteous means something more than following the “letter of the Law.”
We read that “an angel of the Lord” is the one who told Joseph about Mary becoming pregnant through the Holy Spirit…
…but before this, Joseph already knew Mary was pregnant.
How do you suppose he knew?
Mary told him, of course!
Can you imagine what he must of thought when she said, “Joseph I am pregnant by the Holy Spirit”?
What would you think if your girlfriend or wife or friend told you the same thing?
Would you believe her?
Of course not!
Obviously, Joseph didn’t believe Mary either.
Joseph had to think Mary had been unfaithful to him.
And this must have broken his heart.
He must have felt utterly betrayed and humiliated.
He very easily, in his anger and in his being a “righteous man”--according the law-- could have had her put to death.
This would have saved him a lot of trouble.
And most of all, it would have saved his reputation.
But instead, Joseph, being a “righteous man”…did not want Mary publicly disgraced nor publicly stoned to death, so he planned instead to end the marriage quietly.
And at first, people would just think they had a falling out.
But as soon as people started to notice that Mary was pregnant, they would come to believe that before their actual wedding ceremony Joseph and Mary had been intimate and then Joseph had dumped her.
And Joseph would take most all the blame.
Her dignity would remain intact.
No one would be put to death.
This implies that the real meaning of righteousness, in God’s eyes, is to be merciful, forgiving, loving and to show others grace.
Despite all his pain.
Despite all the betrayal that Joseph must have felt, he still had compassion for Mary.
I think that is remarkable.
It’s a miracle in and of itself.
People don’t often treat one another this way.
A long time ago, I had a roommate who had endured a terribly painful divorce.
At one point in our friendship, his former wife and he were kind of on the mends—or trying to get back together again, which is what he wanted more than anything in the world.
I remember how she bragged to me that when they divorced—she took my friend for everything she could get.
She was proud of this.
He nearly took his own life with a shot gun one night because of it.
To me, it seemed ruthless, mean, horrible beyond belief.
It caused me to lose all respect for this woman.
There was no grace.
No compassion.
No love.
I couldn’t imagine why he wanted to be back together with her again.
We can be so mean, so unforgiving.
So, the angel says, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife."
Why would Joseph be afraid to wed Mary?
Of course, Joseph would be afraid of offending God and violating the Torah, but it's not just that.
Joseph would be afraid of losing his reputation.
He would be afraid of what everybody would think about him.
Joseph knew about his own doubts when Mary told him about how she got pregnant.
There's no way people in his town were going to believe God came to a poor couple in an obscure village and caused the conception of a child in the body of a virgin teenage girl.
He knew that if he married her, his friends would never accept his account of what happened.
He would not be invited to their homes, he would not be given their business, and he would never again be admired and respected as a lover of the Torah.
If he committed himself to this baby he would do so at enormous cost.
His whole reputation, the work of a lifetime, would be trashed.
He would become an outcaste himself.
Since that time, millions of people have made sacrifices for the sake of Jesus.
Many have given up status, possessions, convenience, freedoms, even their lives.
But Joseph, who gave up his identity and reputation for Jesus, had not even seen him yet.
When Joseph looked into people's eyes after he obeyed God, things were never the same.
They never looked at him with the same respect and adoration.
But when he looked into the eyes of that child, Jesus, he knew he had done the right thing.
Later, when Joseph was long dead and Jesus was a grown man, he taught in Matthew 5:20, "Unless your righteousness passes that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law"—the old system—"you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven."
Jesus must have been thinking inside, “I've seen the better kind of righteousness firsthand; Joseph was such a man.”
Righteousness is not about following rigid Laws.
Righteousness is about loving God and loving neighbor.
It is about dying to self—self-righteousness--and living a life of mercy, grace and forgiveness.
It’s about being real in our humanness, accepting our brokenness and giving everything to God; it’s about loving others who are just as broken as we are.
Joseph was willing to give up his earthly reputation of being a righteous man in order to live a life that was truly righteous—truly real.
In doing so, he found LIFE.
The people from Jesus’ own hometown never really accepted Jesus.
What a shame.
When He tried to teach them, they sneered and jeered: “Isn’t this Joseph’s son?” they asked.
If they only knew what worldly prestige Joseph gave up in order to follow the will of God.
We are told that Jesus was driven out of His own home town.
They took Him to the edge of a cliff and tried to kill Him, “But he walked through the crowd and went on his way.”
What a tragedy when we don’t recognize the Lord in our midst.
What a horrible tragedy when we replace love, mercy, grace, forgiveness—the things that are truly great for judgmentalism, legalism, prejudice, pride and worldliness.
How sad when the LOVE of God is right in front of us and we miss it—we let it walk right by.
Father’s play an enormous role in shaping our lives.
For some of us, that role is powerful, positive and beautiful; for others, it may have been difficult and painful.
Many of us mirror what we have seen and learned from our dads.
Just think of the godliness, the righteousness Joseph lived out even as he must have been dealing with the pain of what he believed was Mary’s betrayal.
How many more times, as Jesus was growing up, did He see these same attributes in Joseph?
How often did Jesus watch His earthly father show mercy to those who wronged him?
How often was Joseph gracious to those who hurt him?
How often did he forgive others?
Is it any surprise that God chose Joseph to raise God’s Son?
It is any surprise that Jesus grew to be a man Who showed mercy to sinners, Who taught His disciples to forgive, Who called them to love their enemies, and Who hung on a Cross and cried out: “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing”?
God is Jesus’ biological father.
Joseph was Jesus’ stepdad.
If we see reflections of Joseph in Jesus, how much more do we see the very refection of GOD Himself in the One Who died so that we may live?
God is Righteous.
Want proof?
The proof that God is Righteous is that Jesus is merciful, gracious and forgiving.
In a world that has often grown so cold.
In a world where Christianity has often become so twisted and messed up by broken, lost and even devilish people and politicians--a thing very similar to what the Pharisees were teaching and doing in Jesus’ day—the fact that God is nothing like that is really, really, really GOOD NEWS!!!!
Praise God!!!
Amen.
