Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25
For this Third Sunday of Advent, we are looking at the Christmas story from Joseph’s perspective. Luke’s gospel—which we looked at over the previous two weeks—tells that story from Mary’s perspective. But Matthew’s Christmas story focuses on Joseph. And I want to make three points: Number One, the Decision. Number Two, the Dream. And Number Three, the Disciple.
But first… The Decision…
An article from last week’s New York Times reported that a humpback whale recently set a new world record: it traveled the longest distance ever recorded by that species. This particular whale was first spotted off the coast of Colombia, in South America, in 2013. And this very same whale was spotted again off the island of Zanzibar, in Africa, in 2022. This whale crossed three oceans and swam 8,106 miles. 1
And why did the whale do this?
For the best reason of all: He was looking for love… He was looking for a mate. And he obviously had very high standards!
Remember that huge hit song by that Scottish band, the Proclaimers, from the late-’80s. “When I wake up, well I know I’m gonna be/ I’m gonna be the man who wakes up next you.” Remember the chorus: “But I would walk 500 miles/ And I would walk 500 more/ Just to be the man who walks a thousand miles/ To fall down at your door.”
Walking a thousand miles is nothing compared to swimming 8,106! Either way, it just goes to show that one will go to great lengths for the sake of love.
But sometimes even love—at least romantic love—has its limits. And in the first couple of verses of today’s scripture, Joseph, it seems, has reached his limit, in the case of his fiancée, Mary. Verse 18: “When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” And of course last week I preached on that event from Luke chapter 1. Since the angel Gabriel told Mary she was having this miraculous child, she has had a difficult conversation with her fiancé: “Joseph, I’m pregnant… But let me explain!” Verse 19 indicates that Joseph didn’t believe her story. Because it says, “And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.”
He “resolved to divorce her quietly.”
You’ve probably already heard that in the first century, being “betrothed,” or engaged, was a much more formal, legal, and binding agreement between families than what we think of today. To break off an engagement back then was the same as getting divorced.
And Joseph had resolved to do that. This was his decision. And why does he make this decision?
First, because he was a “just man.”
What does that mean?
Something like this: Joseph learns that his fiancée is pregnant. And he knows for sure that he’s not the father. Which means—as far as he knows—another man is the father. So by divorcing Mary, he’s giving that other man the opportunity to do the right thing and take Mary as his wife. Because of his sense of justice, he resolves to get a divorce…
But not only that: he resolves to do so “quietly”… because, we’re told, he was “unwilling to put her to shame.”
I confess that for years I didn’t understand this part of verse 19.
I’ve sometimes heard—as many of you have—that since adultery was a capital crime under the Law of Moses—that is, in Leviticus and Deuteronomy, if adultery can be proven, then both the man and the woman received the death penalty… Since that’s the case, Joseph, in divorcing Mary quietly, was somehow sparing Mary’s life.
But how would that even be true?
Whether Joseph keeps it quiet or not, Mary will still be pregnant out of wedlock. Joseph’s family will soon find out about the pregnancy—and they won’t believe Mary’s story about a miraculous conception any more than Joseph believed it. And everyone else in that small town of Nazareth will soon find out and most of them wouldn’t believe her story, either!
Once they find out about the pregnancy, won’t Mary still be in trouble? And if adultery is a capital crime, won’t Mary still be in danger of losing her life?
Probably not. Historians believe that by the first century, the death penalty for adultery was rarely carried out… Sometimes, though—we remember the woman caught in adultery in John chapter 8… But Mary probably wasn’t in danger of being killed. Which is why verse 19 doesn’t mention the death penalty. It says that Mary was in danger not of suffering death… but of suffering shame. Verse 19 says that Joseph’s “quiet divorce” would avoid “putting Mary to shame.”
But the question remains: Why?
Everyone will find out about her pregnancy. Wouldn’t this still be deeply shameful for Mary? Wouldn’t people assume that Mary was guilty of very serious sin?
No… At least not if Joseph “divorced her quietly”… And here’s why…
It was not unheard of for engaged people in the first century to get pregnant in that year or so before a wedding took place. They weren’t supposed to have intimate relations, of course, but sometimes they did. And when the bride turned up pregnant—well, the groom would likely know whether or not he was responsible! And if he knew he wasn’tresponsible—in other words, if he knew his fiancée had been unfaithful to him—he would publicly accuse her of infidelity, and then use her infidelity as grounds for obtaining a legal divorce.
In which case, Joseph would protect his good name and be considered perfectly innocent—and his fiancée, Mary, would receive all the blame. She would be “put to shame,” as verse 19 implies.
But… suppose the woman gets pregnant and her fiancé doesn’t accuse her publicly of infidelity—and instead “divorces her quietly.”
Do you know what people would assume in that case?
They would assume that the man had slept with his fiancée, got her pregnant, and decided that he didn’t want to marry her after all—that he didn’t want to support this child, that he wanted to shirk his responsibility. 2Today we might call him a “deadbeat dad.”
And when he did that—“divorced her quietly”—people would not blame Mary: they would blame Joseph.
And Joseph would suffer the harm to his good name and reputation. Joseph would suffer the guilt and the shame.
So all Joseph had to do to avoid this guilt and shame was to accuse Mary publicly of infidelity before filing for divorce…Then he could walk away with his good reputation intact. Mary’s reputation would be ruined.
And from Joseph’s perspective, isn’t that what Mary deserved?
Maybe so but it doesn’t matter… He doesn’t want Mary to suffer for her sins! Even though—as far as he knows—that’s what Mary deserves!
Joseph would rather suffer in Mary’s place—for Mary’s sins—even though he’s completely innocent.
Does that ring a bell?
First Peter 3:18: “Christ suffered for our sins once for all time. He never sinned, but he died for sinners to bring you safely home to God.…” Second Corinthians 5:21: “For God made Christ, who never sinned, to be the offering for our sin, so that we could be made right with God through Christ.” Galatians 3:13: “But Christ has rescued us from the curse pronounced by the law. When he was hung on the cross, he took upon himself the curse for our wrongdoing. For it is written in the Scriptures, ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”
Jesus will later do for all people who’ve ever lived—on a very large, cosmic scale—what his adoptive father Joseph was willing to do for one person… on a very small, intimate, personal scale.
Matthew, in other words, is giving us a picture of substitutionary atonement… a picture of what Jesus does for us on the cross. By “divorcing her quietly,” Joseph is taking Mary’s guilt upon himself and suffering for it… in her place, so she won’t have to. And Jesus, of course, will later follow in his adoptive father’s footsteps.
So in two ways, Jesus will be a “chip off the old block.” First, because he’s the perfect reflection of his heavenly Father. As Jesus says in John 5:19, he does precisely what he sees his heavenly Father doing.3
But… in another way Jesus is a “chip off the old block” when it comes to his adoptive father, Joseph, as well. It’s no wonder that our heavenly Father chose Joseph to be the adoptive human father of Jesus!
And that’s Point Number One: That’s the meaning of Joseph’s decision to divorce Mary quietly…
Number Two: The Dream.
I’ve told you before about some of my recurring nightmares! For years I was having them, no exaggeration, once a week. In one of these nightmares, I got a call—out of the blue—from the principal of my high school. Even this makes no sense: Dr. Burns died years ago—and besides, my high school is now a middle school.
But in my dream it’s still a high school… and my former principal is alive and well—and still the principal!
He informs me that there was a mistake in the record-keeping back in 1988 when I graduated, and as it happens, I’m going to have to go back to high school in order to receive all the necessary credits I need to earn my high school diploma. And… If I don’t go back to high school, he’s going to call Georgia Tech and Emory University and tell them to take away the three degrees that I’ve earned between those two schools!
I’m pretty sure my old high school would never have the authority to do that, but in my dream it does!
This was hardly a terrifying nightmare, I admit, but when I would wake up and regain my senses, I would breathe a sigh of relief: “This was only a dream!” Whew! Then I didn’t have to give it another thought… until it happened again the next week! These dreams were so common that at one point a few years ago I even asked Pastor April to pray that God would take them away.
And God answered that prayer with a resounding “yes.” Because within a matter of months I read a newspaper article—I’m not exaggerating—an article about the prescription allergy drug I had been taking for many years. According to the article, this drug had been known to induce nightmares in patients. So I stopped taking it. And I promise… my nightmares came to an end. Instantly. Almost two years ago. Isn’t that amazing?
Of course, my allergies are worse… but… totally worth it not to have those disturbing dreams, I assure you.
Speaking of which, Joseph had a disturbing dream. An angel comes to him in his dream and says the same thing the angel said to both Zechariah and Mary: “Do not fear…” In Joseph’s case, “do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Now, there is a play on words, in Joseph’s native language, which we miss out on in English: Joseph understood that the name “Jesus” is nothing other than an abbreviated version of the name Joshua, in Hebrew. The name “Joshua” simply means, “Yahweh saves.” (Yahweh, of course, is the proper Hebrew name for the God of Israel.) So it’s as if the angel were saying, “You shall call his name ‘Yahweh saves,’ for Yahweh will save his people from their sins.”
You may recall an episode later in the gospels… It involves four men who bring their paralyzed friend to Jesus to be healed.4 These four men are carrying their friend on a mat. They believe that Jesus has the power to heal people—physically: to make the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear. And their friend can’t walk; he’s disabled; and they know that if they can only get their friend to Jesus, Jesus will heal him. The only problem is, they show up at the house in Capernaum where Jesus is preaching and healing—and it’s standing room only. It’s too crowded to maneuver their friend to Jesus.
But they’re persistent and resourceful. Instead of giving up, they climb onto the roof, which is made of thatch—of mud and straw mixed together. And they climb on top of the roof and literally break a hole in the roof just above where Jesus is standing, and they lower their friend on his mat down through the roof… down to Jesus.
And what does Jesus do? He says some shocking words: “Son, your sins are forgiven.” Your sins are forgiven…
These words are shocking to the four friends because we rightly suspect that the “forgiveness of their disabled friend’s sins” was not on their radar when they went to the great trouble of bringing their friend to Jesus; the paralytic’s “sin problem” was not the problem that they wanted Jesus to solve. I mean, sure, their friend needed healing, by all means—but the main healing he needed was physical healing—not spiritual healing!
So these four friends were likely disappointed. They must have thought, “Who cares about forgiveness of sins? Can’t you see our friend is unable to walk, Jesus?”
But no… the meaning of Christmas is that God sent his Son first of all to perform a spiritual healing: to solve our problem with sin;to make forgiveness of sins available to everyone; to bring people into a right relationship with God through faith in Christ.
By the way, if you read the rest of the story in Matthew chapter 9, you’ll see that Jesus does go ahead and heal the man physically, but he only performs that miracle to prove that he also has the power to perform a more important kind of miracle—which is the forgiveness of sins. Because that kind of spiritual healing is what matters most.
After all, when this formerly paralyzed man dies and stands before God in judgment, what will matter most is this: “Has this man been healed of his desperate spiritual problem? Is he in a right relationship with God? Have his sins been forgiven?”
So that’s Point Number Two: the meaning of Joseph’s dream is the very meaning of Christmas…
Number Three: The Disciple… What can Joseph, who is officially the second disciple of Jesus Christ, teach us present-day disciples about following Jesus?
Not long ago, I prayed with a parishioner who was suffering from a complication from surgery. The surgery had seemingly gone perfectly well, but now this unexpected problem cropped up related to the surgery itself. It happens, right? Anyway I prayed with him and for him. “God please heal him of this complication.”
And after I prayed, this dear brother reminded me of something… He reminded me that when I was with him two weeks earlier—at the time of the original surgery—I prayed, “Let this person have no complications from surgery. Let him get back on his feet quickly.” I prayed that! And my prayer obviously didn’t accomplish what I wanted it to accomplish. God didn’t answer my prayer—or I should say, he told me no.
So the funny thing was, this person remembered that I had prayed against the very thing that was now happening to him!
So much for praying, right? I’m kidding.
But I confess I felt slightly embarrassed on God’s behalf: because God had seemingly “failed” to answer my prayer. And I wanted to say, “Lord, this isn’t making you look very good. Even my friend noticed that you didn’t answer our prayer. Would it have been the worst thing to give us what we prayed for, at least in this instance?”
I talk to God like that sometimes when I’m disappointed… or angry… He understands… What does that Jesus commercial say, “He gets us.” Yes, he does! He gets me, at least.
But why was I disappointed? Don’t I trust that God knows more about any particular situation than I do?
Well… I’m supposed to. We’re supposed to. But it’s hard… Let’s face it: It’s hard!
It was hard for Joseph…
Remember that crazy dream Joseph had? Unlike in the scripture we looked at in the previous two weeks, the angel does not show up in person for Joseph. Instead, the angel—we don’t know if it was Gabriel or some other angel—the angel came to Joseph… in a dream. I told you that I felt relief when I would wake up from my unsettling dreams: I would say, “It was just a dream, Brent. It doesn’t mean anything. I don’t have to worry about it. I don’t have to do anything in response to it… like call DeKalb County Schools and enquire about what classes I need to make up in order to earn my diploma! Whew… What a relief!”
Joseph didn’t have it nearly so easy. Instead, he had to discern whether he was just having some crazy dream—like all other crazy dreams—or whether this dream represented the very word of God speaking to him. See what I mean?
Wouldn’t it have been easier, for instance, if the angel came to him the same way he came to Zechariah and Mary?
Yes, that would have been easier… But our Lord doesn’t promise us easy…
Or consider this: Wouldn’t it have been easier on both Mary and Joseph if the angel had come to them on their wedding day, let’s say, at the same time, when they were both together—maybe moments before they got married. And the angel could have told both of them at the same time, “Look, Mary is going to conceive a child by the Holy Spirit, so Joseph you won’t technically be the father, although you’ll raise him as your own child. But no one else will know—at least until decades later when Mary tells the writers of the gospels. And since Mary will be conceiving this child on your wedding day, no one who tries to ‘do the math,’ will suspect that the baby was anyone other than Joseph’s. So your reputations, your good names, will be protected, and no one will look down on you or your son.”
Wouldn’t that have saved all of them a lot of trouble? Wouldn’t that have been much easier?
Maybe so, but our Lord doesn’t promise us “easy.”
Instead, in verse 23, he promises something much better than “easy”: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).”
God is with us.
You know who understood this as well as anyone?
Caleb…
Caleb was one of twelve spies sent by Moses to spy out Canaan, the Promised Land. Alongside Joshua, he was undaunted by those “giants” that the other ten spies reported seeing. Remember? The other ten spies said they felt like “grasshoppers” in comparison to the people of the land? 5 Caleb and Joshua, by contrast, were confident that God would give Israel victory. Sadly, they failed to persuade the others, and the people revolted.
And as a result, Israel spent the next 39 years wandering in the wilderness before finally entering the Promised Land. And of that first generation of Israelites to leave Egypt, only Caleb and Joshua would live to enter the land.
Caleb reappears in the Book of Joshua. He tells Joshua that God had promised a particular piece of land for him and his family many years earlier. The only problem? That land is in the hands of the fearsome Anakim—those same giants from decades earlier. Would Caleb and his family be able to take the land from these giants now—especially given how old Caleb is? He’s 85. He was only 40 when he was ready to enter the Promised Land the first time.
It seems impossible, right?
Except, as before, Caleb has faith. He says, in Joshua 14, verse 12, “But if the Lord is with me, I will drive them out of the land, just as the Lord said.”6
But notice Caleb’s slight uncertainty: If the Lord with me…
If the Lord is with him, then that means certain victory for Caleb—of that he has no doubt. His only hesitation is if.
What’s the difference between us—who through faith in Christ have received the Holy Spirit—and Caleb?
Only this: Unlike Caleb, we who are in Christ can always be confident that God is with us!
Remember verse 23: “they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).” 7
Our Christmas promise is that Christ is our Immanuel, “God with us.” And he promises to “be with us always to the end of the age.”8 Matthew 28:20.
Unlike Caleb, we Christians can always be confident that “the Lord is with us.”
There is no “if,” there is only a “because”: because God is always with me, I can be assured of the victory!
Amen!
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Alexandra E. Petri, “Humpback Whale Sets Record for How Far It Traveled,” nytimes.com, 12 December 2024. Accessed 13 December 2024. -
R.T. France, The Gospel of Matthew (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2007), 51. -
“So Jesus said to them, ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of his own accord, but only what he sees the Father doing. For whatever the Father does, that the Son does likewise.’” John 5:19 ESV - Matthew 9:2-8
- Numbers 13:33
- Joshua 14:12
- Matthew 1:21-23
- Matthew 28:20