December 11
“After His mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. So, her husband, a righteous man, and not wanting to disgrace her publicly, decided to divorce her secretly.” Matthew 1:19
We don’t know a lot about Joseph either. We are told he was a carpenter from Nazareth. He was likely older than Mary, so probably an adult. Like Mary he was just an ordinary man from an ordinary town. But we are given some insight into his character in the passage above. It tells us he was a righteous man, and he did not want to embarrass Mary. Imagine how shocked he was to find out that the young innocent girl he was about to marry was pregnant.
As was the Jewish custom in that day, a young couple would be engaged for around a year. During that time the husband would return to his father’s house and build a room for his bride so that after the wedding ceremony he could bring her home with him. During that time, they were not supposed to be intimate, but that was not always the case. It was not entirely uncommon for them to give in to temptation and for the girl to show up at her wedding with a baby bump or have a very large “premature” baby 6 months after the ceremony. As long as the husband did not make a fuss it was just assumed that they rushed things a little. There was teasing and some disapproval, but it was generally just brushed under the rug. If, however, the woman became pregnant and the husband knew he was not the father, she could be treated as an adulterer and stoned to death.
Joseph knew he was not the father because he had not been with Mary. He must have assumed that she had been with someone else. Being a kind man, he did not want to cause her embarrassment or harm, so he decided to quietly divorce her and allow the opportunity for the father to step up and marry her instead. This is an amazing part of the story that often gets overlooked. The normal reaction would be anger, hurt, embarrassment, outrage, and a desire to find and kill the other guy. But even before the angel came to him and told him that the baby was conceived of the Holy Spirit, that was not his reaction. He didn’t lose his temper and fly off in a rage to find Mary and drag her into the street to be stoned. He didn’t run around trying to figure out who the other guy was. He just decided to quietly divorce her to protect her from disgrace. He was obviously a kind and gentle man. Even after the angel came to him, he just did the kind thing. He let everyone assume that he had given in to temptation and been with Mary before the wedding. He not only did not disgrace her, he subjected himself to the disapproving looks and gossip that would come with her pregnancy. This required a tremendous amount of faith to trust God when his reputation was at stake and he didn’t understand what was happening to him. When faced with a difficult circumstance his true character was revealed and he was shown to be a righteous man. God chose Joseph to be the earthly father of His Son. God notices our character even if no one else does.
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