CHRISTMAS

Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened this way. When His mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, and before they were sexually intimate, Joseph discovered she was with child. Then Joseph, her husband to be, being a just man and not wanting to make a public example of her, was considering quietly breaking off their engagement. But while he was still thinking about this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, calling him by name, telling Joseph, as a son of David, not to reject her, because the child she was carrying was conceived of the Holy Spirit. He said that she would give birth to a Son, and that he should call His name Jesus, for He would save His people from their sins. Then Joseph, waking from the dream, did as the angel had told him, and he married his wife, but they remained virgins until she gave birth to her firstborn Son, and they named Him Jesus. (a Skipslighthouse "translation" of Matthew 1:18-21, 24-25).

To the Jew, an engagement was the same thing as a marriage in the eyes of the Law. Breaking the engagement was the same thing as a divorce. Mary was "with child." She did not need to give birth to the child for it to be considered a child. Had there been an abortion, it would have resulted in murdering the Child, not simply expelling fetal matter.

Joseph was considered a just man, even though he did not reveal Mary's "sin" of being pregnant prior to marriage. A just man is a man who obeys the Law, and by sparing his wife-to-be, he was actually defying the Law. To the Jew, a woman who became pregnant by someone other than her husband, was considered an adulteress. Adultery broke the seventh commandment (Ex. 20:14), and was punishable by death (Lev. 20:10). It appears that Joseph was dreaming about his decision to divorce Mary, because the angel of the Lord spoke to him in a dream. Joseph must have believed that God spoke to him in his dreams, because he obeyed as he would a command from the Lord. He also responded the same way concerning their flight to Egypt to avoid the blood-bath that was to take place in Bethlehem (Matt. 2:13-18).

The word "until" in Matthew 1:25, indicates that Joseph and Mary did not consummate their marriage "until" after Jesus was born; obviously the did so following His birth (Matt. 1:2, 11; 4:18; 12:46-50; 13:55-56; 22:25). I am not sure exactly what we should call Joseph. He obviously was not His Father. He was not the Lord's stepfather, because there had not been another marriage involved. He was not a foster father, nor an adoptive father, and yet, Luke identifies Joseph and Mary as His "parents" (Lk. 2:27, 41). Also, Jesus must have treated Joseph as He would a father, in that He submitted Himself to Joseph's authority (Lk. 2:51).

It is a shame that Joseph's name is not listed in Hebrews Chapter Eleven. It is also a shame that we never hear of his training Jesus as a carpenter, or why Jesus didn't prevent his death. But without Joseph, we would not be celebrating Christmas, that's for sure! Thank God for his faithfulness!