This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. 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."
Matthew 1:18-21 (find this or any other passage at www.Biblegateway.org)
Have you ever found the order of events here interesting? The angel appears to Mary, she becomes pregnant, Joseph finds out she is pregnant, then he gets the news that the Child is from God. If Mary told Joseph the story before, he must not have believed it.
Would it not have been much simpler for the angel to have come to Joseph before he found out about Mary's pregnancy? His mind would have been eased from the beginning, and Mary would not have had to deal with the prospect of divorce. Why did God elect to put them both through this?
It is often said that God wanted to find out what kind of man Joseph was and how he would react...some kind of test. I don't buy that. God knew very well what kind of man Joseph was. Better than Mary did, and better than Joseph himself.
Maybe that was the point.
Maybe Mary needed to learn what kind of man Joseph really was, considering the future now placed in their hands.
Maybe Joseph needed to find out what kind of man he really was too. The Law afforded him the right to disgrace Mary and put her to public trial, and have her put to death, but Joseph was a righteous man.
And he valued that righteousness...and kindness...and mercy, over the Law.
That sounds a lot like the Man he would raise his Son to be.
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Questions:
1. Why do you think God ordered these events this way?
2. Have you ever considered the importance of Joseph's character on Jesus?
3.Have you ever viewed Joseph's behavior as radical, in the same way Jesus' behavior was?
INTERESTING THOUGHTS ON RIGHTEOUSNESS:
"Prayer is the first thing wherewith a righteous life beginneth,
and the last wherewith it doth end."
Richard Hooker
"Christ took our sins and the sins of the whole world as well as the Father's wrath on his shoulders,
and he has drowned them both in himself so that we are thereby reconciled to God and become completely righteous."
"This is the mystery of the riches of divine grace for sinners,
for by a wonderful exchange our sins are now not ours but Christ's,
and Christ's righteousness is not Christ's, but ours."
"Night and day I pondered until I saw the connection between the justice of God and the statement that 'the just shall live by his faith.'
Then I grasped that the justice of God is that righteousness by which through grace and sheer mercy God justifies us through faith.
Thereupon I felt myself to be reborn and to have gone through open doors into paradise."
"For God does not want to save us by our own but by an extraneous righteousness,
one that does not originate in ourselves but comes to us from beyond ourselves, which does not arise on earth but comes from heaven."
Martin Luther
"He hideth our unrighteousness with His righteousness,
He covereth our disobedience with his obedience,
He shadoweth our death with His death,
that the wrath of God cannot find us."
Henry Smith
"Our peace and confidence are to be found not in our empirical holiness, not in our progress toward perfection,
but in the alien righteousness of Jesus Christ that covers our sinfulness and alone makes us acceptable before a holy God."
Donald Bloesch
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