Advent 4
Matthew 1:18-25
I have a confession to make. What I am about to tell you is not something that I’m proud of, but it is true, and I feel you should know about it. The fact of the matter is: I’ve watched the Jerry Springer Show a few times. There, I said it. It feels good to get that off my chest, though now I know you will never look at me the same way again. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not a Jerry Springer junkie, I haven’t watched it in years, but the few times I have seen the show has given me a pretty good idea of how that program operates. You bring people onto the show with really messed up lives. They’ve made a lot of mistakes. And often times there is a person, a family member, who is innocent, and they have no idea what their spouse has been doing behind their back. And they get onto Jerry Springer’s show, and this innocent person gets this bomb dropped on them. We are left glued to our television sets asking ourselves, “what are they going to do about this shocking revelation?” And as we sit as we watch them squirm or break down in tears, I guess that must be quality American television.
We have the same thing happen right here in our Bible this morning. A man is about to be married. And as most grooms-to-be are, we imagine Joseph must have been pretty excited about his upcoming wedding. But then he gets the bomb dropped onto him: his fiancée is pregnant. And we are left staring at Joseph as if we are in the audience of the Jerry Springer show asking ourselves, “what is Joseph going to do about this?” You know those little WWJD bracelets that used to be very popular? This morning we are going to ask ourselves not “What Would Jesus Do?” but we will talk about Jesus’ stepfather and ask, “What Would Joseph Do?”
Part I
For a person given such an important task as being the guardian of the Savior, we know very little about Joseph. Much of what we know about this man is taken from the words of our text for this morning. So what does it say? In the first paragraph near the end, Joseph is called a “righteous man.” In other words, he was a believer. If Joseph was a member of Crown of Glory, he would be one of the leaders of our church. He would be faithful in worship. It would be obvious to all of us that Joseph was a person who studied the Word regularly. Joseph didn’t just talk about being a good faithful believer, but he lived like one. That’s why the Bible calls him a “righteous man.”
He was also a “son of David” (second paragraph). He could trace his ancestry 1,000 years all the way back to the great leader of the Israelites, King David. But Joseph was a son of David in another sense: he was David’s spiritual descendent as well. David is held up in the Bible as the greatest king Israel ever had. He was not without his sins and flaws. But what separated David from the wicked kings is that whenever David is confronted by his sins, he always repented of them. We never see David like King Saul, trying to explain away and justify his sins. We never see David like many of his wicked decedents, who simply ignored the prophets and even put God’s messengers to death. And while we don’t know a lot of Joseph’s personality, he was a “son of David” in that he shared the same faith as his ancestor.
While we don’t know his exact age, we do know that he was about to be married. And what happens between him and his pregnant fiancée really gives us the best insight into what Joseph was like. Engagement was a stronger thing in their culture than it is in ours. We get clues about that from our text. Near the end of the first paragraph, Joseph is called “her husband.” And when faced with this problem of a pregnant Mary, he doesn’t simply consider breaking off the engagement, but the text says that “he had in mind to divorce her.”
And this is where Joseph’s righteous heart really shines through. I don’t think we could fault Joseph for jumping to the wrong conclusion regarding Mary’s pregnancy. I mean, in every other pregnancy in human history, there is always a man involved. And Joseph knew that it wasn’t him…so the only possible conclusion was that Mary had been unfaithful to him. Put yourself in his shoes for a second, and imagine how hurt, how disappointed he was. Many would have sought some sort of revenge for being wounded so deeply. And by Jewish law, Joseph would have had the right to really run Mary’s name through the mud. Mary could have been branded as a loose woman with no morals. And had Joseph really wanted to push the issue, she could have been put to death for her alleged adultery. You might recall the story of the woman caught in adultery a few years later who was brought to Jesus, and many in the crowd wanted to stone her for his sin. But here we see in Joseph’s heart FORGIVENESS…KINDNESS to someone who really didn’t appear to deserve any. Joseph wanted to make things as easy as possible for the wife he was divorcing. He wasn’t going to make a public example of her. He would swallow his pride and give up the urge to exact revenge. It was going to be a quiet divorce. Only he and she would know that the child was not his, and all their friends would just assume, “things just didn’t work out between Joseph and Mary. I guess they were just incompatible.”
How would the Bible describe you? It would be nice to be called a “righteous” person like Joseph, and yet often we human beings don’t act much like him, do we? It is just our sinful human nature to want to get back at someone who hurts us. We learn that early on at the playground: if Tommy hits me, I’m going to hit him back. On Jerry Springer, when that innocent person is confronted with their spouse’s infidelity, often they are stunned and want to get back at them. When someone at work says nasty things about you behind your back, the natural reaction is to get back at them, or at the very least, to gain some sort of satisfaction when you see them get into some sort of trouble. And as we look at this story, we ask ourselves, “how did Joseph do it? How was he so kind and forgiving to a fiancée he thought had been unfaithful to him?”
Being a righteous man, Joseph understood grace. What exactly is grace? How would you define that little churchy-word: “grace”? If you said grace is God’s love, you are only half right. Because unfortunately, we human beings come into this world with a selfish view of love. We are programmed only to love that which is loveable. By nature, we human beings only love those people whom we feel have done enough to be entitled to our love. We do not love Osama bin Laden, because he hasn’t done anything to win our love, quite the opposite. But when we get to grace, it is not just love, but it is God’s capacity to love someone who doesn’t deserve loving. Joseph understood that he was a sinner, but a sinner who was nevertheless loved and forgiven by his Lord, and so this righteous man Joseph was able to reflect God’s love even to a cheating spouse. And you are able to do the same, when you consider the great debt of sin the Lord has wiped off your slate. God has given you, Mr. Joe Sinner, a place of honor in his heavenly kingdom! And with a God like that, we can love the unlovable. Have you prayed for bin Laden? For Saddam? “A waste of a prayer!” you might say. But doesn’t Jesus tell us to do just that? Pray for our enemies. Love them…since God loved us when we were his enemies. Our enemies need our prayers more than anyone. They don’t deserve them, but they need them. Pray for your enemies at work or at school or in your neighborhood. What does the Bible say? “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.”
Part II
And if the story ended there, that would be an amazing enough lesson for today. But of course God knew something that Joseph didn’t know: that Mary hadn’t cheated on him, and that he was to receive about the greatest honor ever bestowed on a mere mortal. Joseph would be the guardian of the God-child. Joseph would protect God.
“But after he had considered 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 home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.’”
Before this angel visit, Joseph figured that he had two options with Mary: he could either go with the messy divorce, or the quiet divorce. The angel gives Joseph a third option along with some great (but unbelievable) news: he could go ahead with the marriage as planned, because Mary hadn’t been unfaithful to him after all. This was amazing news! What Would Joseph Do? Would be believe the angel? Would he chalk up this odd dream as the result of eating too much lentil soup the night before? We see what Joseph did with this angelic visitor, “when Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.”
This past week, my family was at Disney, and we had a chance to see that Candlelight Processional that they put on each year at Epcot. And I have to say, with how politically correct Disney is, it was amazing to me how much of the biblical story they actually told at this concert. They of course read about the birth of Jesus. The narrator commented on how this carpenter’s son never traveled far, never had much money, never even owned a house, but how this poor man who lived only 33 years has had more impact on world history than any king, emperor, general, or admiral. They went into how public opinion turned against Jesus, how he was put on a mock trial, how he was fastened to a cross, and buried in a borrowed tomb…and that was about it. They stopped right there! Again, I wasn’t expecting a whole lot from Disney, but they missed the best part: his resurrection! His victory over sin and death!
It is easy for us humans to be like Disney, and pick and choose only the parts of the Bible story that we like to hear. If a part of the story makes us uncomfortable because it exposes our sins, well, our sinful nature would rather not hear about that. If a part of the story makes us uneasy because it introduces doctrines that are difficult to accept, our sinful nature would rather smooth over these difficulties than wrestle with them. Joseph had some hard angelic news to deal with – a virgin birth – but we do not see him waver. We see him put his reason up onto the shelf and simply trust the Word of God.
And that’s what God enables you to do as well. God doesn’t ask you to understand every aspect of the Bible (which is a good thing – how could we understand the mind of God?). The Lord makes no apologies that many things he teaches us are difficult to understand. God simply invites you to trust him when he says that his Son was born of a virgin, born without any spot or stain of sin. God simply invites you to come back here on Christmas Eve, and peer into the manger, and see your God who has just been born as a fragile little baby. God simply invites you to stare at the cross, stare at the love this Christ will show you as he gives up his life to save yours. God simply invites you to believe that this life isn’t what it’s all about. There is something much better for you, and the Christ-child is the key to your eternal happiness.
God invites you to trust him in every aspect of your life. When you are dealing with a family member stricken with cancer, the Lord asks you to trust him that he still loves you and has everyone’s best interests in mind. We talked a bit about Job last week. And when his wife wanted him to reject God because of the bad things that were happening to him, Job replied to his her, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?” You know, struggle is really a blessing. Because when things are good for us, it’s easy to forget time for God. But when we are down, we recognize just how desperately we need him. So the Lord shows you his love, even when he asks you to handle something difficult.
Conclusion
For a man who doesn’t have a word of his recorded in the Bible, Joseph can teach us a lot. And let us teach others, not just with words, but with our attitudes and actions just what in means to be a Christian during this time of year. The question really isn’t, "What Would Joseph Do?", but more, "What DID Jesus Do?" And since by the grace of God you know what Jesus did for you, let us leave by asking the question, "What Will I Do about this awesome news?" Christmas is God giving us the greatest gift ever, a gift that we are privileged to pass on to others. Amen.
sdg
