When I first proposed doing this, I know that it struck a lot of you … well, probably all of you … as something odd … out of the ordinary. When it came time, you weren’t sure what to do. Do we put up our traditional Christmas decorations? And, again, I’m sure that you found my answer a bit odd … no. We don’t put up a Christmas tree because the Christmas tree is a secular addition to this sacred celebration of the birth of Christ. If you look in the Bible and read about the incarnation of God, there is no Christmas tree, no holly, no mistletoe, no sleigh, no snow … no decorations of any kind actually. Just the opposite, in fact. His coming into this world was as plain and simple and as humble as you can get … a stable in Bethlehem.
Now, we do have the creche or nativity set up here … isn’t that a “decoration”? No. According to the good old Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a “decoration” is “something that is added to something else to make it more attractive … the act of decorating something (such as a room)” (Decoration | Definition of Decoration by Merriam-Webster) … so Christmas trees and holly and wreaths and snowmen would fit the bill, amen. The nativity scene, however … like the one we have here … is an “icon.” Again, the definition of an “icon” according to Merriam-Webster is “a representation (as in a mural, a mosaic, or a painting on wood) of sacred events or especially of a sacred individual (such as Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary, or a saint) used as an object of veneration or a tool for instruction” (Icon | Definition of Icon by Merriam-Webster). According to this definition, this nativity scene is very much a representation of a sacred event … the most sacred event in the history of the world … and it contains representations of three very sacred individuals … Baby Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.
During our “Advent in July,” we looked at the birth of Jesus through the eyes of the world and from Heaven’s point of view. Today we are going to look at Christmas through the eyes of Joseph and Mary.
How well do we really know Joseph and Mary?
Let’s start with Mary. When Mary was born, the golden age of Israel’s proud history was past. No one from David’s family had ruled in Jerusalem for over 500 years … but the Jewish people were still hoping and waiting for a messiah, trusting in the promises of a ruler from the line of David who would come and unite the people of people of Israel and make them a great nation again. They had God’s word on it in the Scriptures that the descendants of David would rule Israel forever and God repeated His promise through the words of His prophets.
Mary had a humble, Godly Jewish upbringing and no doubt knew about the expected hope of the Jewish people. Some scholars believe that Jesus’ family tree in Luke 3:23-38 comes from Mary’s side of the family … which would make Mary a descendant of King David through David’s son, Nathan (Who are the parents of Mary, the mother of Jesus? (ebible.com)). Given what we know of Mary in the Bible, she was raised to be a devout, God-fearing Jewish woman.
So how did this good Jewish girl meet a good Jewish man from Bethlehem? We don’t know but scholars believe that Mary’s parents … Joachim and Anne … didn’t actually live in Nazareth but in the nearby city of Sepphoris (who were mary's parents - Bing). At the time that Joseph met Mary, one of Herod’s sons, Antipas, was in the process of rebuilding what the historian Josephus called “The Jewel of Galilee.” Antipas eventually made Sepphoris his provincial capital or administrative center for his government in Galilee. The fact that Sepphoris was located at the junction between the so-call Via Maris or “Sea Road” and the highway that connected the cites of Acre and Tiberias … along with Antipas’ rebuilding project … meant that Sepphoris was a very busy boom town that employed lots of people in Jesus’ day. Excavations have revealed that Sepphoris was a cosmopolitan city of great affluence. It had a Roman theater built into the eastern side of the hill that held over 4,000 people. Today the magnificent ruins of Sepphoris include such highlights one of Herod’s palaces, an upper city and a lower city, a fortified city wall for protection, multiple synagogues, bathhouses, churches, aqueducts, a massive reservoir, a marketplace, and residential areas alongside a colonnaded stone-paved street (Sepphoris – The Forgotten City | Land of the Bible (land-of-the-bible.com). Sepphoris was only an hour’s walk … about five miles … from Nazareth, which made Nazareth an ideal place for “tektons” like Joseph who couldn’t afford to live in a city like Sepphoris.
Nazareth, where Jesus grew up, was nothing like Sepphoris. It is estimated that the population of Nazareth in Jesus’ day was around 400 people … so everyone knew everyone else. The people of Nazareth were essentially farmers, so every bit of space was used to raise livestock and crops.
It was a conservative town, clinging to traditional Jewish culture in a world that had been radically affected by Greek thought and culture … such as the city of Sepphoris just five miles away. The people were physically robust, strong-minded, practical, extremely respectful of Jewish tradition, and loyal to family. The peasant families who lived in Nazareth eked out a living, paid their taxes, and tried to live in peace. They were observant Jews who faithfully celebrated Passover, did not work on the Sabbath, travelled as pilgrims to Jerusalem, and valued the traditions of Moses and the prophets (ANCIENT NAZARETH, HOME TOWN OF JESUS, with Bible study questions (jesus-story.net).
Young Jewish men were expected to be literate. The Jewish queen Salome Alexandra had made reading and writing compulsory for all Jewish boys … which is why Jesus was able to read and recite scripture from Torah and the prophets later on during His ministry. Growing up in a rural town like Nazareth and possibly working in a cosmopolitan political center like Sepphoris would have prepared Jesus for His ministry later on, don’t you think?
When Mary first appears in the Scriptures, she is in the presence of an angel. Knowing the kind of environment that Mary was raised in shines a light on her response to the angel Gabriel. Turn with me to Luke 1:26-38 in your “Owner’s Manuel”:
READ LUKE 1:26-38
In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name Him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to Him the throne of His ancestor, David. He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of His kingdom there will be no end.” Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; He will be called Son of God.”
Some are under the impression that God chose Mary because of something righteous in her. Gabriel makes it clear that she was chosen by God as an act of grace. He says to her, “Greetings, you who are highly favored!” The Greek word that Gabriel uses for “favored” means “to receive grace” … so another way to read verse 28 would be: “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you about to receive the grace of God” or “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have been chosen by the grace of God.”
I’m sure that what the angel tells Mary may have sounded like anything but the “grace” of God to Mary, amen? We can only imagine the thoughts that must have raced through her mind at that time: “How am I going to explain this to my family? What will Joseph say? What about the townspeople? What will they think of me? Am I headed for a life of being a single parent?” Mary was probably filled with terror at the thought that her life was about to change … from bride and wife-to-be to possibly living the rest of her life under a cloud of suspicion and public and private shame.
Given what she may be facing, Mary’s answer is pretty astounding, don’t you think? “I am the Lord’s servant. May it be to me as you have said.” (Luke 1:38). Within Mary’s decision to fully submit to the call of God was her willingness, if need be, to suffer ridicule and contempt and loneliness. God certainly didn’t force this choice on Mary; she willingly agreed to what God had planned for her … but the decision was made with no assurance that anyone except God would ever fully understand.
[Play song: “Mary, Did You Know?”]
Mary now had to face the man she loved and tell him that she was pregnant. She had no guarantee that her beloved Joseph would understand or even believe her story about seeing an angel and his prophesy of her immaculate conception. If I were Joseph, my mind would zero in on two facts … that Mary was pregnant and I wasn’t the father. That had to be a crushing and bewildering moment, amen?
Now, there is some debate among scholars as to whether Joseph was a carpenter or a stone mason. The Bible says that Joseph was a “tekton,” which is a generic word for “handyman” or a “builder who works with his hands” (Sepphoris – The Forgotten City | Land of the Bible (land-of-the-bible.com). That could mean someone who works with wood or stone … but the assumption on the part of some scholars is that wood was scarce and stone was very prevalent in Israel so Joseph would probably find more work and earn a better living as a stonemason.
Whether he was a carpenter or stonemason, Matthew describes Joseph as a “righteous man” (Matthew 1:19) … meaning that he was a careful observer of the Law of Moses. As I mentioned earlier, young Jewish men were expected to be literate, so Joseph knew how to read and probably faithfully attended the synagogue where he became familiar with the Law and the teachings in the Jewish Bible.
If Joseph shared the beliefs of his pious, hard-working Jewish colleagues, which he probably did, he would not have considered getting married until he was at least 25 years old. We can only speculate but Joseph’s engagement to Mary probably went like this …
He probably told of his interest in that sweet village girl named Mary to his parents first. They would have discussed it amongst themselves, taking into account Mary’s parentage, her ancestry, and her resources …which most likely wasn’t a prime consideration given the fact that almost everyone in Nazareth was poor. They could hardly fault Mary’s background since it was the same as their own … both families were distant descendants of the royal family of Israel, proudly being able to trace their family trees back to King David. They probably enthusiastically approved of Joseph’s choice of Mary to be his wife.
The next step would be for Joseph’s father to visit Mary’s parents. The two fathers would exchange formalities and then get down to the business of negotiating the terms of the marriage. Sounds rather cold and business-like to us, but marriage was considered to be more than a bond between a man and a woman. It was considered to be a legal and religious covenant between the two families.
Once the fathers agreed to a marriage contract between their children, an “engagement ceremony” was performed to seal the covenant. Joseph would have been brought before Mary … both Joseph and Mary’s parents would have uttered a formal benediction over them, and then they would have shared a cup of wine together. At that point, they would be legally betrothed. Both Joseph and Mary would continue to live with their own parents until the wedding, at which time the two would move into their own house.
If either Joseph or Mary had been unfaithful to each other during their engagement … let me say that again … if EITHER JOSEPH or Mary had been unfaithful to each other during their engagement, it would have been considered adultery … which is punishable by death (Deuteronomy 22:23-24). If Joseph had died during their engagement, Mary would have been considered Joseph’s legal widow.
When Mary tells Joseph that she is pregnant with God’s child, they had already been engaged for a number of months. I don’t think that we could possibly begin to imagine the effect that Mary’s story of her encounter with the angel Gabriel and her wild notion that she might be carrying God’s son had on Joseph. He had to be crushed. How was he supposed to respond to that? What was he supposed to do? Even in his grief and anger, Joseph was a righteous man and so he resolved to divorce her in order to save her life … or maybe he did it to save his own reputation in the tiny farm town of Nazareth … maybe it was a gut-reaction, a snap decision made in the heat of the moment … or maybe it was a combination of all three … we don’t know.
We can try to put ourselves in Joseph’s shoes for a moment. His fiancée returns from visiting her cousin, Elizabeth. When she gets back, she tells Joseph to sit down. He can tell from her tone and body language that she’s got something difficult to say to him. “Is she leaving me?” he wonders. “Has she gotten cold feet and wants to call the wedding off?” What she’s about to tell him will rock his world and change his life forever. “Joseph … I’m pregnant.” “What?” he gasps … his heart freezes. “Pregnant? How? I mean, I know how … but with whom?” One thing was for certain … he knew that the baby wasn’t his, that’s for sure! He had never violated the purity of the engagement period. Even if he had wanted to, how could he? His relationship with Mary had been carried out in full view of their parents and the close-knit community surrounding them. Maybe Mary was not the person Joseph thought she was.
As he listens to Mary explain what had happened to her, he can’t wrap his mind around what she is telling him. An angel … not any angel but THE angel Gabriel … told her that the Holy Spirit would come over her and that she would become pregnant with God’s child. Okay! Is she crazy? Has she lost her mind? And yet, this was Mary. She seemed sane enough. He knew her well enough to know that she would never make up such a sacrilegious or blasphemous story like that. Without saying a word, Joseph runs away from the situation.
Alone, he tries to sort it all out … to figure out what he should do. The way he sees it, he only has three options:
1. Publicly divorce Mary as an adultress, in which case she would be stoned to death.
2. Marry her quickly even though the baby wasn’t his.
3. Have the marriage contract quietly annulled while Mary sneaks off and has her baby with someone like her cousin Elizabeth.
But Joseph was a righteous man. As he turned these options over in his mind, one fact emerged with such power that it overshadowed all of his pain and sense of betrayal. Joseph realized that he loved Mary more than any person he had ever known. Even though he could no longer trust her, he couldn’t bear the thought of her being publicly shamed and stoned to death. The best thing to do, he thought, would be to go to Mary’s parents in the morning and privately dissolve the marriage contract. Having made up his mind, Joseph settled down for a fitful night of sleep. As he was tossing and turning, God spoke to Joseph and presented him with a fourth option … one that he never would have considered in his wildest dreams … that Mary was telling him the truth.
READ MATTHEW 1:18-25
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When His mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do 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 as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name Him Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
And they shall name Him Emmanuel.”
which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named Him Jesus.
Mary and Joseph had to travel to Bethlehem to register for the Roman census. Mary goes into labor when they reach Bethlehem … and gives birth to the Savior of the World in a stable … and right there by her side is Joseph. As he holds the tiny Baby Jesus in his arms for the first time, what kinds of thoughts do you imagine went through his mind?
[Play “Joseph’s Song”]
This is a story about trust. Mary had to trust God’s promise … Joseph had to trust Mary … Mary had to trust Joseph … and they both had to trust God. Both had to say to God: “I am your servant. Whatever it costs, wherever it takes me, I will do it.”
God continues to look for women and men like Mary and Joseph. People who will pursue obedience, whatever the cost. People who will trust God – even though the outcome seems unsure. God continues to raise up people for His purposes … and God is looking for people humble enough to give Him all the glory.
Like Christmas, the Lord’s Table is a celebration of the fact that God has come into this world … it is a celebration of God’s sacrifice and atonement on the cross … and it is a celebration of the promise that He will come again.
