December 20 Advent

There is one last verse in Chapter one, that I don't really want to skip over (for the sake of not “picking and choosing”  which parts of scripture are important), so here’s the last two verses, to give you context!

²⁴ When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. ²⁵ But he did not consummate their marriage until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.  (Matthew 1:24-25)

This last verse may not seem important in a devotional perspective, but for the sake of a historical record, it is crucially important that Luke’s carefully researched collection of stories of Christ, includes the part where Mary didn’t have sex AT ALL until after Jesus was born! We cannot be sure of Joseph’s motivation  behind this though. Maybe he was continuing to be God-honoring  and wanted to keep Mary pure, or maybe it was very common practice in those days not to have relations with your wife if she was pregnant, or perhaps he was still slightly bitter despite his faith in God, and didn’t want any perception that this child would be his, if it came out a girl (which would prove all the prophecies they had both heard from angels wrong). Honestly, at this point, it doesn’t totally matter, because the main point is that he did it! Which takes a lot of integrity despite his motivation! Remember, he was newlywed, and loved Mary dearly.

The last part of the verse is also key! This is the verse that confirms to us that JOSEPH in fact names Jesus... This is very huge, because it showed publicly that Joseph accepted the role of father over this child. What this ALSO means, is that Joseph accepted the public shame that goes along with a child conceived out of wedlock. It takes two! And so the stigma which would have been Mary’s to bare alone, was theirs to bare together now. Joseph could fully support Mary under the weight of the judgmental glances, and stigmas she may have had to put up with. 

And so we close this portion of the Christmas story (the actual birth event) knowing that Mary and Joseph have both been equally chosen by God to be the parents of His son. Mary just happened to be the female in this equation, and so actually bore Christ, but Joseph was just as much his parent as Mary was.

Let us move on from some of the technicalities and shift gears to take a moment to marvel about the fact that we have just learned about Jesus coming to earth!! And God purposefully chose such humble circumstances to have his son enter our world. And let us not forget that His birth is only the beginning.

Here is a song by Steven Curtis Chapman called “this baby” (in case the link doesn’t work for you... just youtube it!). It’s an older song, but the words (and I somewhat liked this particular video too) really do tie it all together. This is fully about the BIRTH of Christ, which is the reason we can glorify God at all in any other events of the Christmas season. It is the reason we can glorify God that he chose shepherds or foreign kings to worship his son... Because it’s all about Jesus at the core. It’s about the fact that God brought Jesus to earth as an ORDINARY baby in an ORDINARY family... Praise God for the ordinary!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z1wlZoN6h9M

We have closed the story of Christ’s physical birth. Tomorrow we begin to hear about the wise-men’s journey and we move on from there to learn about some of the travels that Mary and Joseph endured for Jesus’s safety. But for today, we have one beautiful moment to simply dwell on Christ’s birth itself, and Worship God through it.

Here is another song to help bring you to that place of worship of Christ. This one may hit you in a special way if you have had a nurturing role in a young child’s life. (I mean, I’m pregnant, So I obviousely just bawled my eyes out! Haha). But it is a beautiful picture of how simple a baby is, yet ties in the huge significance of who this baby really was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NgcGmgrNuLM (Mercyme – Joseph’s lullaby)

The truth is, this is all I have for today, because I truly believe we need to individually take time to worship Christ today, in this moment. This is not something I can do for you, it is something you must do for yourself. So I encourage you, to set aside even just the next five minutes, and sing, pray, worship, listen... take the next five minutes and give them to God, in worship for his Son.

God, we lift up this time to you now, and ask that you be here and present with us. Lord, meet us here and help to focus us on worshipping you. Lord, we give you this time now in holy worship of Jesus...