Joseph / Based on Matthew 1:18-25 / Delivered December
9, 2018 to UMC-Hudson
Based on a CCH message I created from 20161218 and added
poetry from a 1998 service on Joseph.
Hymns: Come Thou Long Expected Jesus, Joseph Dearest, Love
Divine All Loves Excelling.
Matthew 1:18-25 (CEB)
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. When
Mary his mother was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she became
pregnant by the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph her husband was a righteous man. Because
he didn’t want to humiliate her, he decided to call off their engagement
quietly. 20 As he was thinking about this, an angel from the Lord appeared to
him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as
your wife, because the child she carries was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21
She will give birth to a son, and you will call him Jesus, because he will save
his people from their sins.” 22 Now all of this took place so that what the
Lord had spoken through the prophet would be fulfilled:
23 Look! A virgin will become pregnant and give birth to a
son,
And they will
call him, Emmanuel.
(Emmanuel means “God with us.”)
24 When Joseph woke up, he did just as an angel from God
commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25 But he didn’t have sexual relations
with her until she gave birth to a son. Joseph called him Jesus.
Our scripture today gives us a view of the birth of Jesus
from Joseph’s side. We often think of
Mary and how this event would have been experienced through her eyes, but
Matthew gives us a chance to pause and examine the man who would adopt the Son
of God and raise him as his own son.
The three ideas I am pulling from this scripture passage are:
Trust during the unexpected
Choose love over law
Claim Jesus as your own
Trust during the unexpected
18 This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place. When
Mary his mother was engaged to Joseph, before they were married, she became
pregnant by the Holy Spirit.
I think we can agree that this was quite unexpected. Joseph was set to marry this nice, righteous,
young woman and then she turns up pregnant.
The human response could of easily been “why me?” which is more of a
statement of “poor me” than it is a real question. The verses do not show Joseph thinking in
that way. Instead it shows him taking
steps to do the next best thing he can.
Joseph’s response to this unexpected event is to decide to do
the most loving thing he can think of, but then God gives him another
option. His dream told him to risk
trusting God was in this situation. He
had to trust Mary had not been unfaithful and risk his own reputation in the
community.
By taking a pregnant Mary as his wife he would appear to be
admitting he had sex before completing the wedding vows. The words, “do not be afraid to take Mary as
your wife” were appropriate given what he was facing. It would have been scary. He was a carpenter and relied on people’s
business. If his reputation was
tarnished it could affect his livelihood and his ability to provide for his family.
Then there was the faith needed to believe Mary had not been
untrue to her commitment to him. In the
case of all other pregnant young ladies around, there had been a man
involved. Being pregnant as a virgin was
quite uncommon to say the least. Joseph
had to have faith in the angel’s words and faith in the fidelity of his
betrothed.
Joseph’s
final response was total trust. 1:24 “When
Joseph woke up, he did just as an angel from God commanded and took Mary as his
wife.” He didn’t need a day to think
about it.
Choose love over law
19 Joseph her husband was a righteous man. Because he didn’t
want to humiliate her, he decided to call off their engagement quietly.
Joseph was called “a righteous man” which means he knew the
scripture. To be engaged was equal to
marriage except you didn’t live together yet.
That meant if Mary was pregnant by someone else she had committed adultery.
Here’s the law per Deuteronomy 22: If a man is found sleeping with another man’s
wife, both the man who slept with her and the woman must die. You must purge
the evil from Israel. If a man happens
to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you
shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the
young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man
because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
But if out in the country a man happens to meet a young woman pledged to be
married and rapes her, only the man who has done this shall die. Do nothing to
the woman; she has committed no sin deserving death. This case is like that of
someone who attacks and murders a neighbor, for the man found the young woman
out in the country, and though the betrothed woman screamed, there was no one
to rescue her.
Joseph was planning to claim that final scenario happened to
Mary. That was choosing love over
law. He took what little wiggle room he
had to spared her life as well as her reputation.
Claiming Jesus as your own
24 When Joseph woke up, he did just as an angel from God
commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25 But he didn’t have sexual relations
with her until she gave birth to a son. Joseph called him Jesus.
Matthew doesn’t give the birth of Jesus a lot of
explanation. The key words out of this
verse is that Joseph named him. That
indicated Joseph claimed him as his own.
The beginning verses of Matthew contain the genealogy of Jesus. It traces back from Abraham to Joseph. Joseph accepted the role of Father.
The name Jesus is the Latin version of the Hebrew name Joshua
which translates as “Jehovah saves”. It
was Joshua that led the Israelites into the promised land. Jesus would carry on that responsibility as
savior and lead us into the promise of life with God.
I sometimes wonder about Joseph’s Fatherly influence over
Jesus as he was growing up. Jesus was in
trouble often for choosing to love over obeying the law. Healing on the Sabbath comes to mind, as well
as his disciples harvesting grain to eat on the Sabbath. It may have been first taught by seeing
Joseph’s example.
Pulling a little farther back in my archives I came upon this
two-character play between Joseph and the Angel I wrote when Pastor T. Thom
wanted to do a service about Joseph. It
touches on the similarities of Jesus teaching with Joseph’s profession as a
carpenter. It is more from my
imagination than scripture, but it speaks to our human sense of unworthiness
when we think of inviting Jesus to enter our lives. Here it is again for those that may have been
around in 1998.
What guidance can I give the Son of God?
I am a simple man with a simple trade
There is little I can do to prepare him for his life
Joseph, why do you doubt the Master’s
choice?
You were chosen you know
I’m tired – it’s time for a break
A man can’t put in quality work if he doesn’t take time to
rejuvenate
Mistakes can be made if you don’t step back from your work
now and then
The importance of rest
A good lesson to pass on to your son
You’ve separated some wood pieces
apart from the others
This pile is wood I can’t use – it’s too weak
It looks fine on the top but see how the inside has been
rotting away
Could have fooled some, but you can’t judge wood by its
outsides only
The importance of examining what’s
inside
A good lesson to pass on to your son
And these planks here – why are they
set apart?
They may not look like much because they appear a little
rough and dark
Their beauty will be brought out after some sanding and a
little stain
Yes, the grain is beautiful on those pieces if you take the
time to look and work with them
The importance of recognizing
potential
A good lesson to pass on to your son
Are these little pieces ones you’re
discarding?
Goodness no – those will be used for backing and shims
It takes a lot of little pieces to create a large project
A house can’t be built with just a brass knocker you know
The importance of respecting the part
each one contributes
A good lesson to pass on to your son
I think I understand what you’re getting at
I can share with him the simple things of my trade
Like how important it is to have a solid foundation before
building higher
Yes Joseph
Sometimes the simplest lessons are
the best
What can we learn from the example of Joseph?
We can work toward trust in the face of unexpected
circumstances. This isn’t easy. When I first started studying scripture my
pastor taught that “why” wasn’t a meaningful question to ask. “Why” was most often associated with
whining. Why did this happen to me? Or questioning the authority of the person
causing the situation. “Why did you do
this? A better question is “What do I do
now?”
There are times when it is good to determine the cause of a
problem and attempt to modify things, so the problem doesn’t reoccur. However, there are many times we are given a
path where trust in an unknown master plan is our better option. Moving forward in the face of an unexpected
reality is a better choice than dwelling in “why me?”.
I have a motto for my tougher days that is “do the next right
thing.” We don’t know where our path
will lead far into the future, so taking the next right step is sometimes as
far as we can go. We can trust the
wisdom of Psalm 119:105, “Your word is a lamp for my feet, a light on my path”
and work toward discerning that next right thing.
We can follow Joseph’s lead, as well as the teachings of
Jesus, and choose Love over Law. You may
say, “We don’t have religious laws like that in our post-resurrection
time.” Let me use another quote to give
you a little different perspective. Anne
Lamott said, “It's better to be kind than to be right.” I knew a person that held up a line in a fast
food restaurant and made an employee feel like a failure because she shorted
him 25 cents when she gave him his change.
He was a person that was on the upper end of the income bracket, but he
was “right” about the amount of change he deserved even though the emotional
cost to the cashier was far more negative than him missing a quarter. William James put it this way, “the art of
being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.”
There are times when a situation needs to be set right. There are other times when the emotional cost
to the people involved is more important than correcting a misstep. In that case it is far wiser and kinder to
lead with love and forgiveness and let the misstep be overlooked. Your life and the lives of those around you
can experience more peace if you don’t feel the need to correct every
wrong. To be righteous and know right
from wrong is a good thing, but if that slides into being self-righteous, which
is believing you are morally superior, it is a negative one.
We daily can choose how we accept Jesus into our lives. I am asking you to claim that baby in the
manager as your own just as Joseph did.
We are to name him Jesus / “Jehovah saves” and Emmanuel / “God with us”
and know that we are the “us”. We say
in the Apostle’s Creed that we believe in Jesus “who was conceived by the Holy
Spirit, born of the Virgin Mary; suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified,
dead, and buried.” To believe means we
accept it is true. Joseph believed that
what the dream explained was true. He
took it one step past belief and acted in faith by claiming Jesus as his
own. Faith can be defined as “complete
trust or confidence.” It is the
difference between calling Jesus a savior and claiming him as my savior.
My little play brought out a risk we have as humans. We may not invite Jesus into our lives
because we feel unworthy of welcoming him in.
Jesus words, “your sins are forgiven”, was given to many coming to him
for healing.
Psalm 103:8-12 tell us;
The LORD is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger,
abounding in love. He will not always
accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; he does not treat us as our sins
deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. For as high as the heavens are above the
earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; as far as the east is from
the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.
Jesus said he’s standing at the door knocking. He has chosen to make his dwelling within
us. He believes we are enough. We have free will. He’s not going to knock the door down and come
into our hearts without being invited in.
Our world needs God’s love today. Our world needs God’s peace. His love came down two thousand years ago as
a child and Joseph took Him into his heart and into his home. Today his love comes down when we say
“welcome” and open our hearts to receive him.
This must be an active choice. It
must come from your heart.
For those of you hesitating because you don’t know what you
could contribute toward this relationship, my advice to you is to be yourself
and give yourself to Him. You have been
chosen. You are God’s child. You are enough. Accept yourself as worthy of acting as His
dwelling place, and then accept Jesus, who is waiting to enter, into your
heart.
In our first hymn we sang Jesus was “born to reign in
us”. In our final hymn of the day we
will sing “fix in us thy humble dwelling” and “enter every trembling
heart”. Own those words. God will work with you on the rest. Trust Him in faith. Live in love.
Claim Him as your own.
One more little piece I wrote in 1998 on the influence of
Joseph.
Jesus
was indeed
influenced by a carpenter
For at the close of his life
with wood and with nails
and his own two hands
he formed a gift
no other craftsman
could equal
Amen
