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Monday, December 20, 2004
In our study of the Christmas story, we saw what Zachariah and Elizabeth experienced regarding the reality their child would be the forerunner to the Messiah. After a 400 year prophetic silence, God was back at work in human history.
We also looked at the angel's visit to Mary. She would be the mother of the Messiah. This humble peasant girl, willing to obedient to the work of God in her life would have the greatest honor of any woman on the planet. And this would come at great loss of personal reputation in her small town: The girl who got pregnant before she married...and telling the crazy story that she was pregnant by God Himself, with the Messiah in her womb.
Sometimes we forget what Joseph must've been going through. So, let me spend a few minutes telling you some "guy" thoughts.
He's got a fiance. Even if it was a totally arranged marriage (which I doubt), he'd been in the year-long engagement process with her. His thoughts led his emotions, I'm sure. He'd become mentally adjusted to the idea of spending the rest of his life with her. He'd started seeing her in a different light. She'd become beautiful to him in her own way. He'd very likely fallen in love with her. My suggestion is that he was already knew her, fallen in love with her, and then the parents arranged the marriage. It was a small town. A small village. He was in love.
Life was normal. Exciting in it's own way. But normal.
And then his fiance...
...the woman he loves...
...the woman who, to him, is the most beautiful on the planet...
...tells him a story.
Oh, by the way, honey, um, I got a visit from an angel. He said I was going to become pregnant. By the Holy Spirit. And I'm going to be the mother of the Messiah.
I'm not sure I can imagine what was going through Joseph's brain. The story is plausible?
Maybe?
Possibly?
Highly unlikely?
Totally unbelievable?
He must've been hurt. I know I would've been if my fiance came in with this kind of story. Maybe she's going crazy. That would hurt. We could work through it...but it would hurt.
No, the simplest explanation tends to be the right one. She cheated on me? Just thinking about that hurts. But it isn't her style. But no one's above cheating. But it isn't her style. But she IS pregnant. Simplest explanation. She cheated. And now she's caught.
But Joseph loves her.
The thought of breaking the legal engagement would disgrace her. She would get hurt by this public action...and even though he was hurt, the simplest solution would be to dissolve this union privately. Secretly is what's used in Matthew 1:19. See, if it was public, it would've been possible the elders could've had Mary put to death by public stoning (unlikely, but possible). The divorce decree would be disgraceful enough.
Joseph loves her. The thought of her disgraced (or even dying) is even more painful, I'd imagine. Verse 19 says the reason Joseph felt this way: "And Joseph her husband, being a righteous man..."
Righteous man loves woman. Who, in his way of thinking, is either losing it mentally or emotionally, but likely has cheated on him.
He's hurt. But righteous. Thankfully, he was choosing to follow his thoughts. Letting them change his emotions.
And then God steps in.
An angel...this time in a dream...says, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife; for that which has been conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit..."
So, the story she's been telling him is real! She isn't crazy! She didn't cheat! That's a relief!
Or is it?
He will be a Son.
You will name him Jesus.
He will save the people from their sins.
This will fulfill the prophecy in Isaiah 7.
Now Joseph has a new reality: The Messiah will grow up in his home.
Life will not be normal. Ever. At all. The promises of God's covenant are coming through the line of David, of which I'm a son, and now it's all happening. New emotions have to be tempered by new thoughts:
Trust Him. Obey Him. Don't let this overwhelm you.
And being obedient meant keeping Mary as his wife.
And being obedient meant no relations with your new wife until after the Baby is born.
But now he could do it and life would never be normal again.
His wife would be even more beautiful. How could she not be? She's chosen by God for the birth of the Messiah.
Life would be even more "real." How could it not be? You've been addressed by God and told you're part of the plan. How could you work with wood the same way ever again? Everything would have more meaning. More urgency. More reality.
It might not work out the way you planned it. That nice, quiet, rural lifestyle. Working the family carpentry business. Getting married. Raising kids. Living life in community. The whole bit.
It would still happen like that. Except all those things would look different. To you. To "us." To "them." People will talk. It will be harder. But it will be deeper. More adventurous.
More real.
And that's the way it works for all of us when God steps in the middle of our normal.
Normal is redefined.
And normal isn't so normal anymore.
When God is active in your life, there's no such thing as "normal." May our lives be anything but normal.
Brent 7:40 AM
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