This Advent Season, we’ll be preaching from Matthew 1 and 2. Compared to the nostalgic romanticism of the Luke’s Christmas story, Matthew offers a shocking realism to these events. Matthew 1:18 – Matthew 2:23 offers us a distinct pattern. What ties these verses together is the fulfillment of five key Old Testament prophecies. Two from Isaiah and one apiece from Micah, Hosea, and Jeremiah. Add to that, every other passage includes one of Joseph’s three dreams.
As Matthew writes his Gospel to a Jewish audience, it is important for Matthew to ground his Gospel into Jewish history. They were all the more likely to accept Matthew’s Gospel as true. And what better way than to tie Jesus’ birth to the fulfillment of God’s Old Testament prophecies. Beyond these Christmas stories and their five associated prophecies, Matthew includes seven more fulfillments for a total of twelve.
Today, we’ll begin with Isaiah’s prophecy from 7:14 written roughly 750 years before the events of Matthew 1.
This prophecy was given as a prophecy of hope to wicked King Ahaz, Judah’s king, as they face doom. At that time, King Rezin of Damascus and King Pekah of Israel had Jerusalem under siege. God told King Ahaz to ask for a sign of proof they would fail. But King Ahaz is angry and refuses to ask God. The Lord sends Isaiah with this message – So you will not ask the Lord as commanded for a sign, the Lord himself will give you a sign. The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel which means God with us. As they are ready to give up all hope of survival, this child to come would be a visible, physical assurance that God is present in Israel. Yet King Ahaz refuses God’s encouragement – a final straw so to speak. Just three verses later, Isaiah prophecies that the king of Assyria will conquer Judah. For King Ahaz and his people, it was tragically evident how essential faith is: No faith, No future.
Now let’s jump ahead 750 years: Tying Jesus’ conception and birth to an Old Testament prophecy reveals just how shockingly unique this baby would be. With this prophecy on the ears of Matthew’s Jewish audience – there was a spark of hope beginning with Jesus’ birth. A new light was dawning in Israel. God’s presence was being restored. The 400 years of God’s silence from Malachi was coming to an abrupt end. For Luke it was marked by the angel appearance to Zechariah = John the Baptist’s soon to be father. But for Matthew it was marked through dreams. Twelve such dreams are documented just in Genesis. Unlike our dreams, these dreams came to be understood as supernatural communications from God.
Please turn to Matthew:1:18-25 .
As we said earlier, Matthew’s take on these stories offers us the shocking realism behind Christ’s conception and birth. Verse 18 is the insider’s secret as the narrator clues us in. Unlike Luke, there is mention of the angel Gabriel’s appearance to Mary. Mary’s glorious response of being the Lord’s servant is nowhere to be found. Nor is Mary’s song. Reading this as a Jew would have been both shocking and confusing. Shocking because a pregnancy outside of marriage would have warranted a death sentence. Confusing because the pregnancy came by the Holy Spirit. This was not good news as far as Joseph was concerned. This came to him as a huge surprise and not a good one at that! So Joseph plans to divorce her:
But wait a minute, why didn’t Joseph just cancel the engagement? They weren’t married! Why was a divorce necessary? Today’s engagements were very different from today. Today’s engagements are stories of romance. The guy dropping down to his knees – proposes to the love of his life and places a ring on her finger.
But in Joseph’s day, engagements were legal affairs with the force of law. They were legal arrangements so love had little to do with it – at least at first. Love would hopefully come later as a result of the marriage. The engagement was far more a social contract. Joseph would pay a brides price to Mary’s parents for the privilege of marrying her.. During the engagement Mary would stay living in her own home with her parents. But socially, she was committed and unavailable to consideration by anyone else. Engagements could only be broken by a divorce – often times a humiliating process.
So the Bible doesn’t tell us whether Mary tried telling Joseph the story about Gabriel’s appearance. We don’t even know anything about what Joseph was feeling. Instead, the Bible reveals two things about Joseph.
First, he was a righteous man – righteous in the ways of the law and obedience to the laws of God. That didn’t mean Joseph was perfect as Jesus would be, but it did mean Joseph was attentive to obeying God. He knew what the severe consequences would be for Mary’s pregnancy to become public.
Second, he was a merciful man. After a great deal of wrestling with his thoughts, he decided to divorce Mary quietly to spare her from disgrace. Notice how Joseph is a man after God’s own heart. God as a God of justice requiring that sins be accounted for – but God also being a God of mercy.
Otherwise, Joseph could have demanded a public divorce held in the city square. Everyone would have come to know the details of the whole matter – that would include the public punishment. But a quiet divorce kept that humiliation to a minimum. This way, both Mary’s life and the baby’s life would be spared as would both of their reputations. This was a life saving action.
But God interrupts Joseph’s plan. Verse 20
The message is shocking for three reasons! Not at all what a Jewish person would expect or us for that matter.
First, Joseph is ready to divorce Mary for violating the marriage and engagement covenant. But by the angel revealing to Joseph, that Mary’s pregnancy is caused by the Holy Spirit, the shock of the pregnancy still remains, but the scandal of it is relieved. For us today = The Greek verb gennaw is also of great importance here – our English translation uses the word conceived – but gennaw is always used in the Bible in its 99 occurances as an indicator of life – one more further connection with Jesus is alive in the womb. He is not a thing or a bunch of cells. Mary is carrying a living human being.
Second, Joseph is addressed by the angel in terms of his family line – Joseph, Son of David. Rarely if ever before would there have been reason for Joseph to be addressed in this matter. But the angel’s doing so reminds him of his connections to not only a royal line, but the royal promises. The Jews after all were waiting for the return of the king – the Messiah to bring hope to the nation. This son would indeed be the son of David with royal heritage.
Third, the Messiah the Israelites were waiting for was an earthly Messiah. They wanted one who would restore Israel to its former greatness the likes of King David or King Solomon’s reigns. For their timing, a Messiah in their lifetimes would regain them their independence and free them from Roman domination. But to their shock if they were paying careful attention to the angel’s words, this is not the Messiah they expected. Joseph – you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins! Not from the Romans, not from other human oppressors, but sin! How could that be? As far as the Israelites were concerned, the people’s sins were atoned for annually by means of a sacrifice. So how does a man do that? It makes no sense from their perspective. It was just as crazy as having a positive outlook when Jerusalem was under siege and certain doom.
The shocking news of this birth announcement is tied to this prophecy from nearly 750 years earlier.
Suddenly Joseph awakes. He awakes convicted that this message in the dream originates from none other than God. He no longer follows through on his plan to divorce Mary. Joseph instead does what most couples do when an unexpected baby is revealed in their story. He moves up the wedding date.
Simply put – shockingly, Joseph – a simple carpenter and righteous man obeyed without question. As the male connection in that culture was recognized as primary, Joseph from the line of David gave Jesus his connection to King David. In that obedience, Joseph from the line of David, became subject to a census that drew him and Mary to a little town called Bethlehem.
To think God had this all planned out far in advance before the prophecy was ever spoken. It comes down to just this moment. Just this time. Just this place. Just the right person.
God has a plan for each of our lives too. Each of us has lived a life of events – some hard – some painful – some joyous. All of those blended together forms our story. It comes to be a uniquely unfolded grace map of how God draws us to himself to a life of reliance and hope on this Christ child. Our king. Our Savior too who redeems us from our sins. Nothing is going to detail God’s plans for your life. For we have the comfort of knowing Immanuel God with us was not limited to Matthew’s readers. We have the comfort in knowing that God is with us – here – now – and every day with us.
