December 18 Advent

Today we begin to look at Matthew! I love the idea of going through both Matthew and Luke. We did this at mom’s group, where half our table read Matthew, and the other half read Luke. Then we compared and contrasted. It was so deeply meaningful and I highly recommend this exercise for any age group if you are looking for a good bible study for Christmas! 

With the book of Matthew, we will also be looking at the first two chapters, however, the chapters themselves are much smaller so it won't take nearly as long. Don’t get me wrong, the story packs a significant punch!

Today you get the beautiful genealogy! (Likely this is why people chose Luke over Matthew ;). I won't go through every name, but I do want to point out a couple of interesting points about the genealogy.  I won't hit on the ever-so-popular point-“there’s women in the genealogy”, since I feel that this has been over-done as of late (at least in my circles), and it's not a lesson I need to learn from at this point. But there are a couple of new things that stood out to me this year.

-          The number of tainted people in Jesus’s genealogy. Just goes to show, you are not what you came from. You are your own person...

o   Tamar – Daughter-in-law of Judah, who was widow to two of his sons, without leaving either of them an heir (due to the men’s wickedness). She eventually disguises herself as a prostitute, whom Judah himself takes advantage of, getting her pregnant with twins.

o   Rahab- another prostitute (she hides the spies to keep them safe)

o   Ruth – Not jewish

o   The long line of very evil kings... (13... minus two good ones in there)

-          Uriah is mentioned... (Rea at Mom’s group pointed this one out!) Uriah is the man whose wife David sees bathing on a roof top. He pressures her into infidelity which gets her pregnant. David then has Uriah killed in battle to cover up his own sin. The second child from David’s union with Bathsheba (who ISNT named in the genealogy) is Solomon...But what is interesting is that URIAH  is named in the geneology. It is so special that God doesn’t forget Uriah who dies a victimised death for being loyal to his king... He dies without an heir, and God chooses to have his name mentioned in the lineage of Jesus. What a gracious and loving God we serve.

What is really neat about these genealogies, is that in the old testament there are genealogies from Adam and Eve up until Abraham. So this genealogy takes us from Abraham to Jesus Christ... We know the direct blood line straight from Adam and Eve, up to Jesus Christ! How neat is that!? It may not be  the most exciting part of the story to read, but as far as historical significance goes, I am sure glad it’s in there! Especially after reading the old testament, its neat to read the genealogy and understand all the stories attached to each name in that book. It is very cool that almost everyone (up to the exile) is mentioned in the old testament as well. Talk about knowing where you came from!)

We will dive into the story of Jesus a little bit today, but I’ll leave you on a cliff-hanger for tomorrow! Matthew 1:18-19:

This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about^[a]: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. ¹⁹ Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet^[b] did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

Boy! Talk about different from Luke! No back-story, just straight into the meat of the plot! One trend you will see in Matthew’s version is that it is very much JOSEPH’S account of the birth story. Luke, you will see (as you read on in Matthew) is very much from Mary’s perspective (even John the Baptist, is HER relative. The genealogy in chapter three is HER genealogy, rather than Joseph’s which we read in Matthew). So as we can see, The plot right away is from Joseph’s perspective. She was discovered to be pregnant supposedly through the holy spirit... And naturally as an engaged man, Joseph was heartbroken, furious, and depressed. Legally she could be stoned to death for this, and I am sure part of Joseph (the angry part) would have been okay with this...But we can see that Joseph is also a man of both character and tenderness/sincerity. He was going to marry Mary because he loved her dearly. As such, he did not want to see her die, even though she "must have been" unfaithful to him... So he decides to do what any noble man would decide to do, break off the engagement quietly and just go their separate ways. Maybe she would be able to hide for the whole pregnancy, and give the baby to a relative to adopt. Perhaps she could hide the whole thing and live through her disgrace of unfaithfulness...

 

This is where I am going to end it... We all kind of know where this is going, but lets just take a moment to consider what Joseph was going through in these moments... The incredible heartache.  The anger towards Mary that she had the nerve to use God as an excuse for her behavior. Utter confusion at this lack-of-character in his betrothed that he thought he knew...  So many feelings bubbling up inside of him, and yet he makes such a grace-filled decision. He hold’s Mary’s life in his hands at this moment, and he makes the most loving and grace-filled decision any man could make in his shoes. He decides NOT to draw any attention at all to the situation, and to respectfully save his and her honor (what’s left of hers anyway).

Do  you know who this reminds me of? It reminds me of Christ.... and it reminds me of God...  Joseph's character also had a pivotal role in Christ's up-bringing and we need-not forget that. We know and respect and pay honor to Mary for being Chosen by God, but do we ever really acknowledge the fact that JOSEPH was also chosen? Heck! He would have done most of the teaching of Jesus’s growing up years! After all, Jesus did become a carpenter like his dad Joseph (we assume). We do not give the character of Joseph NEARLY enough credit in the bible story. We let him sort-of sit around in the back ground of the story, and mention him when he pops up, but otherwise forget him... in fact, we often treat him as though he isn't there at all when setting up a nativity scene, don't we? 

“oh ya! Joseph is in the nativity too. I thought that was another shepherd figurine!” (and then we promptly move whichever shepherd looks less shepherdly, to mary's side).

But the truth is (as we will discover tomorrow) Joseph hears from Gabriel just as validly as Mary does. He is JUST as chosen as she is, only he isn’t a sperm donor (because God wanted his son’s birth to be miraculous). But for all intensive purposes, Christ was just as much Joseph’s son as he was Mary’s. We ought to be confident in this because both were chosen to be his parents by God, and ultimately Jesus was fully God, and didn’t “belong” to either Mary OR Joseph. 

The truth is, we can learn a lot from Joseph’s character even in these two short verses. We learn about his sincere heart for Mary, and that he has the grace  and love of God in his soul. He chooses to act on these qualities right from the beginning of the story, before he has ANY confirmation from God... these are characteristics that come from deep relationship with God, and a longing to be like Him...

We too, should strive to have these qualities. They are not quickly attained, but come from much practice, many devotions, and devoted time spent investing-in and practicing-out your faith. Today, let us pray and thank God for choosing Joseph to parent his son, and ask God to teach us how to have His spirit, just as Joseph did.

Dear God, Thank you for hand-picking your son's dad here on earth. God, we sometimes over-look this aspect of the story, but we know you didn't over-look anything. We know that you brought Mary and Joseph together because you saw each of them as having the right faith and love for you, to parent your only son. Lord, help us to have hearts like Joseph, full of grace, love and compassion that goes beyond "common practice" or the rules of today. God give us a grace like Christ, Just as you gave to Joseph, for Mary even before he knew that she carried your son. God thank you that this is the very same grace that you have for us, that saves us from our sin. Thank you for that grace, which is why you sent Christ to earth in the first place. Lord, please begin softening our hearts, so we might acquire your beautiful grace, for all those in our lives as well. We know this is what you want, and we pray it in Jesus name, since it is also what he commanded us.

Amen.