How much do you really know about Mary and Joseph? The list might be rather impressive or surprisingly short. Hopefully, after this lesson, you will feel like you know them as more than characters in the Christmas story.
Let’s begin with an incredible truth about both of them: they were ordinary young people living in an ordinary town of Nazareth. Nazareth did not have the greatest reputation. In John 1:45, Philip told Nathanael that Jesus was from Nazareth. His response was “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” The influence of Rome had a big impact on this mid-sized town. They were overseeing the paving of the Roman Road that went right by Nazareth and in the nearby city of Sepphoris, Rome was building a modern city with a theater and gymnasium. The fact that both Mary and Joseph were devout in their faith and relationship with God in a highly secular driven society made them out of the ordinary, but not necessarily extraordinary.
Mary was between 13 and 15 years old. Eligible to be married at the onslaught of menstruation, she was betrothed to Joseph who was most likely several years older. Males married after completing schooling and an apprenticeship in a trade – usually between 18 and 20. Some traditions have Joseph significantly older than Mary, even a widower 2-3 times her age. This is based on the fact that by the time Jesus was 30, Joseph was no longer alive. Personally, I feel the narrative supports him being between 18-20, with the expectations of an ordinary life there in his adopted town of Nazareth.
Prior to the Roman occupation, Israel was a rural culture. They were farmers, shepherds, vinedressers, cultivated olive groves and made things to be sold in the local markets. Their wealth was in their land. However, with the Romans came high taxes, which necessitated many having to sell land that had been in the family for generations, develop marketable skills and move to where the work was.
Joseph’s family had its ancestral roots in Bethlehem, the City of David. Sometime during his youth he had moved north to Nazareth where most likely Joseph trained and worked construction. In our translation of Matthew 13:55, Joseph was identified as a “carpenter.” The Greek word is tekton, which actually means “a skilled builder or craftsman.” The big job market in Nazareth was actually as a stonemason. Roads, homes and public buildings were made of stone, as trees were not prolific in the area. Regardless of his specialty, Joseph was apparently gifted to earn the designation of “skilled” despite his young age.
Mary and Joseph’s lives were full of “ordinary” things as they made the huge leap from childhood to adulthood, planning, preparing and dreaming for the best ordinary life possible. In Matthew 1:18 and Luke 1:27 we are told that they were betrothed. Some translations say they were “engaged.” Betrothal was much more involved than an engagement. A marriage contract was negotiated and signed. They were legally bound. If the groom died, the bride would be his legal widow. The contract could be broken only be death or divorce. Though they were legally married, the marriage was not consummated until the final marriage ceremony or claiming of the bride. The betrothal period was usually a year, not just to give them time to prepare, but mostly to assure the husband’s pure line of linage. The bride’s purity was under intense scrutiny during this period. Pregnancy was grounds for adultery, which is a capital offense punishable by stoning.
We do not know how far into this betrothal period Mary and Joseph were when the angel appeared to Mary, but their ordinary lives were about to radically change.
“And coming in, he said to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was very perplexed at this statement, and kept pondering what kind of salutation this was.” (Luke 1:28,29) Obviously she is startled by the appearance of the angel Gabriel. She never described what he looked or sounded like. The fact he was an angel was never questioned. However, it was what he said that “perplexed” her. Unfortunately, the reason is lost in translation. The tense used is imperative. The Greek work is chaire. “You MUST rejoice – You MUST have great joy – You HAVE to be thrilled!” The next word he used was kecharitomone: you ARE highly honored, greatly flavored, bestowed with an abundance of grace! Kurios meta mou:The Lord is right here with you!
If someone suddenly showed up and told you thathow would you respond? Let me be that someone. In Ephesians 1:6 KJV (again lost in translation in NIV and NAS) it says, “To the praise of the glory of His grace, wherein He has made us accepted in the beloved.” The word translated “accepted” is a different tense of kecharitomone, echaritosen: You HAVE BEEN MADE highly honored, greatly favored, bestowed with an abundance of grace!
I love Gabriel’s excitement. He could hardly contain himself. She just HAD to be as thrilled as he was. He had incredible news for her. The centuries of promise and waiting for a Messiah, a Savior and Deliverer were finally over. Ordinary was about to become super-extraordinary, not just in her life, but in the entire world.
“But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”(Luke 1:30-33)
Once again the significance of Mary’s response can be lost in translation. NAS says, “Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” NIV is much closer to the Greek with “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” (Luke 1:34) She was NOT questioning IF, but by what means. She merely wanted to know what to expect. Would it be physical, invasive, or involved Joseph? She knew the prophecy in Isaiah 7:14: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.”The promised Messiah would come through a virgin birth short circuiting the bloodline of sinfulness. It wasn’t any more logical to Mary as it is to us. How exactly does that happen?
The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.” (Luke 1:35)
Did Mary have a choice? It is definitely implied. I cannot image God forcing such a huge role on an unwilling person. That would be counter-intuitive. I believe one of the reasons God chose her was He knew her willing spirit to partner with Him. It was within Joseph as well, he just took a lot longer to plug into it.
Mary chose a vital aspect of partnering with God: trusting Him. “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” (vs. 38) Does Mary’s words remind you of a very similar response 33 years later? They were echoed by her son, Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Not My will, but Yours be done.” (Matthew 26:39) No wonder God’s choice for the mother of His son was one who wholeheartedly trusted in Him.
Proverbs 3:5 says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart; do not lean on your own understanding.” There WILL be times, highly honored, greatly favored one, that the Lord will ask you to trust Him as you to step out of the ordinary into wholehearted partnership with Him. Romans 12:1 in The Message tells us, “So here is what I want you to do, God helping you: take your every day, ordinary life, your sleeping, eating, going to work and walking around life – and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for Him.” It requires trusting a trustworthy God. It won’t be easy. It can be very scary. For Mary, scary meant telling Joseph.
Gabriel graciously gave Mary a way to confirm what he said was true. He told her that her quite elderly aunt, who lived just outside of Jerusalem, was actually expecting a baby. “Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” (vs 36,37) In Luke 1:39-56, we have the wonderful confirmation and encouragement her Aunt Elizabeth provided. Verse 39 says she “hurried” to visit her aunt. She didn’t wait months for physical confirmation of pregnancy – remember, there were no lab or over-the-counter pregnancy tests. She simple took Gabriel at his word. However, before she could leave (and without any “proof”), she also had to tell Joseph. As part of the betrothal contract, she was legally accountable to him. She couldn’t just disappear before their wedding without telling him why.
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.” (Matt. 1:18) Joseph had a hard time with this news. Can you blame Joseph for having a hard time believing her story of supernatural conception? Telling him she was pregnant was too huge an offense to make-up. Claiming it was of God was blasphemous and insane. He knew it wasn’t his child. Adultery and blasphemy were both capital offenses at that time. Her life was literally in his hands.
Faced with this story, Joseph found himself in a mental, emotional and spiritual tug-of-war. He knew his purity – he thought he knew hers. He believed in a promised Messiah – he didn’t believe it would involve any one he knew, especially him and his betrothed. He knew her life and reputation depended on his response – so did his reputation and livelihood. He needed time to think. Mary going to see her Aunt Elizabeth gave him time. If she went to Jerusalem and found things weren’t as Mary claimed the angel had said, then maybe it was her sanity rather than her morals that were in question. Sending her to Elizabeth gave him time without coming out and saying “I don’t believe you.” He didn’t.
Three months! You can imagine what family, friends and neighbors were saying about her being gone instead of home preparing for their wedding and new home. During that time, he weighed every possible option. He struggled to do what was right in the face of all he knew and believed. He came to a “righteous” decision, but also a wrong one. “Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” (Matt. 1:19) God could of immediately told Joseph what to do, but He knew Joseph needed time just like Mary needed Elizabeth. When God lets us sweat out a hard decision, it is because He knows we need the process as much as the answer.
Finally, God stepped in and pointed Joseph back to Scripture. “But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.” (Matt. 1:20-23)
Just like Mary brought the vital aspect of trust to her partnership with God, Joseph brought the vital aspect of obedience. He responded immediately. “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.” (Matt. 1:24) He went to Jerusalem and brought Mary back, now 3 months pregnant, not as his betrothed, but “as his wife,” into his home whether it or he was ready or not.
When he took her as his wife, he took upon himself the blame and criticism of her condition. By accepting Mary as his wife, he publicly declared that the baby was his, an act of uncontrolled passion – immoral character that refused to wait. They didn’t know that she was a pregnant virgin and “he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son.” (v. 25) There was a high cost to this obedience, beyond wagging tongues. They both could be excommunicated from the synagogue for such perceived immorality. If he was self-employed, he was most likely blacklisted. They were spiritually and socially shunned. Less than 6 months later, they faced another cost, literally.
“Now in those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus, that a census be taken of all the inhabited earth. This was the first census taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. And everyone was on his way to register for the census, each to his own city. Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child.” (Luke 2:1-5) Mary was not required to go register at her place of birth like Joseph was. Despite being in the last days of her pregnancy, it was less dangerous to travel the 90 miles of rough mountainous roads to Bethlehem, then to leave her behind. When it came to family, the shunning followed them to Bethlehem.
Have you ever wondered why Joseph would return to his hometown only to find himself trying to find lodging in the already overcrowded inn? A family proud of their linage and family ties rejected one of their own. They knew there had not been the usual big family wedding that went on for days. No grandparents – aunt and uncle – cousin no matter how distant offered them a bit of space and a helping hand. We don’t know how soon after their arrival to register in Bethlehem, that Jesus was born. We do know that this baby born before his socially accepted time was not snuggled in the arms of proud grandparents or a doting aunt, but laid in a feed trough because his God-chosen father was willing to pay the cost of obedience.
Joseph taught his precious son that the high cost of grace was always worth it. Jesus chose the high cost of grace when He chose the cross for our salvation.
Partnering with God requires trust and obedience. Both Mary and Joseph chose to give these vital aspects of partnership. Their Son was taught it and caught it as He lived under the grace of their parenthood. He benefited. We benefit. Who benefits from your choosing to partner with God and willingly and sacrificially trust and obey? God? Your family? Others? Yourself? Are they worth it?
As you put out your nativity scene this year, ask yourself, “What did it cost each of these to participate in this representation of saving grace?” God asked, they chose. God asked, because you are worth it! They didn’t know it at the time, but it was their forever Christmas gift to you.
