Word of Salvation – Vol.53 No.45 – December 2008

Joseph — the Silent Partner

A (short) Christmas Sermon by Rev Leo Douma on Matthew 1:18-25

Scripture Reading: Matthew 1:18-25

Brothers and Sisters in Christ.

I want to do something different this Christmas and deal with a character we don’t usually talk about on Christmas Day. He is seldom dealt with, although he is a key player in the drama. I guess one of the reasons we don’t talk much about him is that nowhere in the Bible do we read of him saying anything.

We hear Mary speak in response to the angel Gabriel. We hear Mary sing a new song in response to her cousin Elizabeth. We hear the angels sing in the heavenly choir. We hear the shepherds responding and telling everyone they meet. We hear the words of the Magi, speaking with Herod. We hear the words of Simeon, praising God for the coming of the Messiah and prophesying about the child. But for this person there are no lines in the drama, no sound bites in the awesome program. When I scour the Christmas carols there is no reference to him. We could call him the silent partner. I am, of cause talking of — Joseph.

Now, while Joseph is often the forgotten figure in the Christmas story, he is irreplaceable in the story of Jesus’ birth. His importance cannot be overstated. All of us are stewards of God. God entrusts things to us. To some people God says, “Here is a wonderful career and wealth”. One day we will have to give God an account with what we did with God’s gifts, especially in using them for the church and kingdom. To others God gives children. Those of us with children will have to give God an accounting of what we did in raising those children and modelling a Christian life for them. To others, God entrusts us with a special calling, to minister in his Name. We are stewards, responsible for whatever God entrusts to us. To one man God entrusted His own Son. That man was — Joseph.

With such an awesome responsibility it makes us wonder: who was this Joseph? What was he like to be the step-father to the Son of God? Was he a great scholar, a powerful man, a man of wealth? The King of the Universe is born — into what sort of home was he taken and raised? Let’s go through our text and find out. We are introduced to Joseph in the middle of a nightmare.

Look at verse 18. “This is how the birth of Jesus came about. His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit." If Joseph was typical of his day, he would have been about 25 years old. His wife, Mary a teenager, was about 15. In the Jewish way their betrothal would have been organised by their parents. Their “pledge to be married" was different to our engagement. The betrothal equated to our wedding vows. They were seen as husband and wife. If Joseph had died at that stage, Mary would be regarded as a widow. So they were betrothed but the marriage was not to be consummated till later when they had their own home. In the meantime they stayed in their parents’ home.

Mary has been away three months visiting her cousin Elizabeth. When she comes back she tells Joseph that she is pregnant. Now it doesn’t take much to imagine how Joseph felt. The man would have been totally devastated. He knows he is not the father because, as Matthew writes, “they had not yet come together." They had not made their home and consummated the marriage. You can imagine him demanding to know who the father is. And when Mary quietly but confidently says it “the Son of the Most High" as the angel had said (Luke 1:35). Joseph would have regarded that as blasphemy. We can well imagine him being deeply upset, broken hearted, feeling betrayed.

How does he handle what he is now confronted with? This is a good question to ask because this tells us a lot about who he is. If you want to know about a person’s character, just watch them in a crisis, watch them as they are under pressure, watch them as they deal with pain and suffering. Look at verse 19. “Because Joseph was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly." What we see here is a response born of a solid character. Matthew comes straight out and says so: “he was a righteous man." That means he was a God-fearing, law-abiding Israelite. He was a simple and honest man, the kind of person to whom God will entrust big things. Before any explanation from God, which we see comes in the next verse (20), Joseph chooses mercy. No malice, no revenge. No talk of, “I’ll get you for doing this to me!"

Joseph could have gone to the judge and had Mary exposed and punished for adultery and blasphemy. Deuteronomy 22:23 says, “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 the town and stone them to death..." Joseph may have to suffer the talk of Nazareth. Friends may distance themselves with snide remarks, but Joseph will not hurt Mary. His approach is to deal with her in grace.

Such a man is one God wants, who in deep emotional pain, feeling betrayed by his wife, still acts in grace, still acts with love and compassion. Such a man has the heart of God himself, a heart that acts out of grace towards a human race that has betrayed His love. In Jesus, God stoops to our level, Mighty God takes on the complete vulnerability of an unborn, so easily aborted in our culture. It is the righteousness and mercy of Joseph which preserves the life of Mary and the unborn Christ. The step-father-to-be, the merciful carpenter, without saying a word, is prophetic in his actions of a step-son whose grace still astounds us all.

We see something further of Joseph in verse 20 ff. We see God speak to him in a dream. God addresses him as “son of David". Matthew, in the genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17, shows Joseph as coming from King David’s line. It’s a title that is almost embarrassing to Joseph, so far down the line, and he just a carpenter in a very poor village. But the awestruck Joseph hears God telling about Mary conceiving through the Holy Spirit. And he believed God. There again we see something of Joseph. That recognition that God has spoken to him, that God has revealed the wonder of the promises in the Bible “the virgin will be with child… he will be Immanuel, God with us." A truth so astounding, so unbelievable; but Joseph believed God.

That is how we come into relationship with God — by believing God. That is how we come into the kingdom and God’s grace. We hear the Word and we believe, we hear God’s voice in our lives and we trust Him. And what flows from faith, what flows from trust, is obedience. The two things are the two sides of the same coin. Note verse 24: “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife." Joseph obeys, suffering the cutting remarks of others because of a child conceived prior to the proper time. He hears and obeys.

He would also obey by giving this child the name given by the angel, the name Jesus’, a name declaring the grace of God — Jehovah is salvation. Joseph hears and obeys. He did it several times, even when he needed to take Mary and the child to Egypt. Here again we can see a characteristic of Joseph; he simply does what God said. Men of God hear and obey.

We are often too smart for our own good. We want explanations; we want to think if it suits us, we struggle with our “Yes, buts...!"  Joseph heard “and did what he was commanded." Such are the people to whom God entrusts big things. Not the ambitious, not the power hungry, not the esteem grabbers, but those who seek no glory but God’s; those who take up their task and obey. It appears that Joseph died before Jesus began his public ministry. When Jesus was on the cross he asked John to look after his mother. When Joseph as step-father fulfilled his trusteeship, God called his steward home. God laid his biggest gift in Joseph’s calloused hands. And Joseph was faithful.

In Joseph we see the point of Christmas. The Son of God did not come among us as a powerful, privileged person. He was born amongst the weak and poor, amongst the cows in a feeding trough. He humbled himself. The Son obeyed the Father, becoming like us. The Son obeyed the Father through his death on the cross — “Not my will but yours be done". Through Jesus’ simple and complete obedience to the Father, He has brought us grace.

Joseph accepted as his son the one the world rejected. And through his mercy, faith and obedience, Joseph helped bring in the grace that will restore the universe. So it is for us. If you want to know the true mean-ing of Christmas, don’t just talk of well wishes, good cheer, and make-belief. Bow the knee before the God who came on his knees as the Christ child, and commit yourself to one simple thing: obedience to God.

Amen