Joseph's Story

Encyclopedia of 7700 Illustrations 190 Stopping a Marriage

In Seattle, where a kennel license is required if you house four or more pets, a woman with two dogs and a cat called the pet-license office for information. She explained that she was considering marriage to a man with two cats and a dog. “We both love our animals dearly and don’t want to give any up,” the woman said. “But if we get married, could we somehow continue to have the dogs and cats—under separate ownerships, as it were—so we wouldn’t have to take out a pet-kennel license?”

The official explained that since the three dogs and three cats would be housed on the same premises, a kennel license would be required. There was a moment’s silence at the other end of the line. Then the woman said, “I think you have just stopped a wonderful marriage,” and hung up abruptly.

—Seattle Times

Blessed Lord, You have caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning. Grant that we may so hear them, read, mark, learn, and take them to heart that, by the patience and comfort of Your holy Word, we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life. … through Jesus Christ, Your Son, our Lord, who lives and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen.

Matthew 1:18–19 ESV

18 Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

Concordia Commentary: Matthew 1:1–11:1 Human Misunderstanding of the Origin of Jesus (1:18b–19)

Mt 1:18b–19 shows Joseph’s perception of the situation and his pious, yet uninformed, decision. Mary “was found” (presumably by Joseph) to be pregnant with the result that righteous and compassionate Joseph decided to cancel the legal marriage created by their betrothal. This is the natural human evaluation of the “origin” of Jesus Christ. Since his origin is not from Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, it must have been from a sinful union between Mary and another man. Ironically, although the narrator has informed the hearers/readers that Mary is pregnant “from the Holy Spirit,” Joseph can act only on the basis of his own logical understanding of the child’s origin. Joseph’s plan to divorce Mary discreetly “would leave both his righteousness (his conformity to the law) and his compassion intact.”36 Joseph is, for the right reasons, about to do the wrong thing, but God intervenes.

In Joseph’s well-meaning incomprehension, we have the first glimpse of a powerfully important theme in Matthew’s Gospel, namely, that in order for human beings to know the ways of God and his Christ, those ways must be revealed to them. They cannot attain to this knowledge and faith by their “own reason or strength.” Whether it is the difference between those who did not repent at Jesus’ miracles and those who did (11:25–28) or those on whom the seed of the Word falls in vain and those in whom the seed bears fruit (13:1–9), what makes the difference is that humans fail to understand unless God reveals his purposes to save in Jesus.

Concordia Commentary: Matthew 1:1–11:1 Human Misunderstanding of the Origin of Jesus (1:18b–19)

Mt 1:18b–19 shows Joseph’s perception of the situation and his pious, yet uninformed, decision. Mary “was found” (presumably by Joseph) to be pregnant with the result that righteous and compassionate Joseph decided to cancel the legal marriage created by their betrothal. This is the natural human evaluation of the “origin” of Jesus Christ. Since his origin is not from Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, it must have been from a sinful union between Mary and another man. Ironically, although the narrator has informed the hearers/readers that Mary is pregnant “from the Holy Spirit,” Joseph can act only on the basis of his own logical understanding of the child’s origin. Joseph’s plan to divorce Mary discreetly “would leave both his righteousness (his conformity to the law) and his compassion intact.”36 Joseph is, for the right reasons, about to do the wrong thing, but God intervenes.

In Joseph’s well-meaning incomprehension, we have the first glimpse of a powerfully important theme in Matthew’s Gospel, namely, that in order for human beings to know the ways of God and his Christ, those ways must be revealed to them. They cannot attain to this knowledge and faith by their “own reason or strength.” Whether it is the difference between those who did not repent at Jesus’ miracles and those who did (11:25–28) or those on whom the seed of the Word falls in vain and those in whom the seed bears fruit (13:1–9), what makes the difference is that humans fail to understand unless God reveals his purposes to save in Jesus. That revelation, moreover, possesses the power to evoke a trusting response in men and women, as Joseph will show in 1:24–25.

Later, in Jesus’ ministry, the issue of divorce under the Law of Moses would come up:

Matthew 19:3–9 ESV

3 And Pharisees came up to him and tested him by asking, “Is it lawful to divorce one’s wife for any cause?” 4 He answered, “Have you not read that he who created them from the beginning made them male and female, 5 and said, ‘Therefore a man shall leave his father and his mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So they are no longer two but one flesh. What therefore God has joined together, let not man separate.” 7 They said to him, “Why then did Moses command one to give a certificate of divorce and to send her away?” 8 He said to them, “Because of your hardness of heart Moses allowed you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so. 9 And I say to you: whoever divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, and marries another, commits adultery.”

In , the Lord gives instruction regarding divorce and remarriage, that, in passing, set certain parameters around the grounds for divorce. In verse one, it says:

Deuteronomy 24:1 ESV

1 “When a man takes a wife and marries her, if then she finds no favor in his eyes because he has found some indecency in her, and he writes her a certificate of divorce and puts it in her hand and sends her out of his house, and she departs out of his house,

Those words now stood in the center of Joseph’s heart and mind as he wrestled with Mary’s pregnancy. He had been a faithful husband, but it appears to him that she has given herself to another. The text doesn’t tell us whether she told him, or he simply saw the growing of her belly, and silently, without a word to her, was contemplating what to him was the most compassionate solution that he could come to. According to the Law, she was guilty of adultery unless she had been raped and no one responded to her cries for help.

Deuteronomy 22:23–27 ESV

23 “If there is a betrothed virgin, and a man meets her in the city and lies with her, 24 then you shall bring them both out to the gate of that city, and you shall stone them to death with stones, the young woman because she did not cry for help though she was in the city, and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst. 25 “But if in the open country a man meets a young woman who is betrothed, and the man seizes her and lies with her, then only the man who lay with her shall die. 26 But you shall do nothing to the young woman; she has committed no offense punishable by death. For this case is like that of a man attacking and murdering his neighbor, 27 because he met her in the open country, and though the betrothed young woman cried for help there was no one to rescue her.

If he loved her, he wouldn’t want her to be with him when she wanted to be with someone else, and was even carrying his child. If the marriage was for other reasons, he wouldn’t want their presumed firstborn child and his heir to actually be another man’s child. One way or another, Joseph’s plans for the future, his hopes and dreams, seem to have been crushed by an action over which he had no control nor derived any pleasure.

If Joseph had sought vengeance for his wound, who could blame him? He was wronged, it would soon be apparent to all, or he could watch as in a few months he would become a byword among the people as they counted the months and came up short.

Matthew 1:20 ESV

20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 1:20–21 ESV

20 But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

There is an old saying, “prayer changes things.” Joseph had resolved to divorce her quietly, yet he wasn’t at peace with what was a merciful decision. He wrestled into the night until he fell asleep, and I believe that, just as I would have done in such a situation, he fell asleep with a prayer on his lips and in his thoughts, asking God for guidance and peace. God responded by a dream visitation from an angel of the Lord, and gave Joseph what he needed - an answer of peace. It was more than that, though; it was also the Gospel, the message of salvation for all who would believe.

Matthew 1:24–25 ESV

24 When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, 25 but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.

Somebody might have noticed that I seem to have skipped over something, but don’t worry, I’ll get you there, if you’ll bear with me. I’ll get to the “why,” but let me finish with the “what.” Joseph did what the angel commanded. He didn’t receive a promise or a commendation of blessing. There is no word to him that people would call him “blessed among men,” as Mary had received from Gabriel regarding her status among women. In fact, Joseph is only mentioned one other time in the New Testament:

Matthew 13:55 ESV

55 Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother called Mary? And are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas?

That’s it - not even an honorable mention. It’s kind of like those times when during a football game on TV, an athlete sees the camera pointed at him and he says “Hi Mom!” Seldom if ever do you see one of them greet their fathers. Yes, we know that Mary has received grace, and Mary is blessed among women, but Joseph gets left out of all the accolades.

What do we make of this? How do we respond to Joseph’s story? The first thing that I can take from this is that Joseph needed Jesus to be born, because he too, needed a savior from his sins. He now knows the “why:”

Matthew 1:21–23 ESV

21 She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” 22 All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: 23 “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. Joseph heard that word of promise and found grace for himself and for his bride. That grace would enable him to embrace her and the baby boy, and to serve the Lord as His Stepfather, for as long as he was needed. while the church would honor Him as a saint, it did not place him anywhere near the level - both rightly and wrongly - as it did his wife, Mary the Mother of God. The Lord does not tell us Joseph’s testimony about his faithfulness. He serves in silence, in the shadows, as many of us who need Christ to save us from our sins. Someone recently asked me to tell this story from the standpoint of what it does for us, what benefit we get from the Gospel or from Christianity.

That Jesus saves us from our sins is everything, whether we are called blessed or not, whether others know our name or we labor in obscurity. Whether our sins are known by all, or known only to God, God has revealed to us that the Lord Jesus Christ has come to “save us from our sins.” His death on the cross paid the debt that we all owe. His resurrection was for our justification. With His stripes, we are healed.

So let the peace of God, that passes all understanding, guard our hearts and minds through Christ Jesus our Lord, Amen.

Joseph's Story

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