Christmas -- Joseph Style

Since Christmas is approaching I have had somebody on my mind.  Joseph.  As in Mary, Joseph, and Jesus -- that guy.  


First of all, are there any nobler men?  Are there any men more committed to honoring their wife than Joseph?  I contend that the answer is no.  I have been trying to be reverent and think about the story with awe and also think how this would play out in real life.  It's so wild.  Joseph finds out that his betrothed wife is pregnant.  He "was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly." Most people in his place would just get out.  Even if he was trying to be kind to her while thinking she had cheated on him, he could just divorce her outright.  She should have been on her own.  But even thinking he had been so wronged, my guy Joseph was thinking of what he could do for her.  How he could handle the situation well for her.  Then the angel comes to him in a dream and explains that he is to go ahead and marry Mary.  And that their son would save people from their sins.  He wakes up and does it.  I don't know anyone with faith like that.  That is wildly spectacular faith.  You go on, Joseph.


Secondly, let's look at something that makes my heart so happy.  You know all of those "begot"s at the beginning of Matthew where they are naming those in Jesus's lineage?  They include all the greats -- Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Ruth, David, Solomon... I'm clearly just hitting some highlights here.  And this is a big deal, right?  Since the beginning of the Bible God has been artfully spinning out this beautiful line of people and telling them that Jesus will belong to them and their family.  So then we get all the way to the end and of the line and it leads to Mary, the mother of Christ.  Except wait! No it doesn't!  This whole plan, the whole line up, all comes down to the end... and it's Joseph.  Isn't that one of the most glorious things you've ever known?  It's Joseph.  The man who marries the mother of the Savior.  The man who raises Jesus as his son but with no biological connection.  


Oh I love this business.  


I love the richness of the Christmas season.  I love the crazy and bizarre way things had to be done.  We didn't just get a middle class baby born into the most typical suburb of Bethlehem with an average upbringing in a life with relative ease.   We get a baby born to a virgin who was pregnant before her kind and loving husband married her in a time where that was anything but okay.  We have an infant born and sleeping in a barn because his family had nowhere to go.  We have an old testament's worth of good-guy Bible genes that culminated into the adoptive daddy of Jesus.  We have a Savior born into a turbulent world of hiding from a King that wanted him dead.  We have the wild and mysterious and true story of the Jesus that came to save us.  Don't you love this?  I am so excited to think on these things and celebrate Christmas with Matt and Harper.  This year there is a lot to be sad about at our house.  But I also know that there are some things that are unchanging, right, and true.  So I'm getting Christmas all up in my heart.  I'm believing all of these things to be true and telling the Lord that I'm all in.  Joseph style.


Merry Christmas to you and yours,
Molly