St. Matthew’s Gospel records a very quiet and subdued version of the birth of Jesus. Joseph and Mary were engaged to be married. The marriage would be consummated when Joseph took Mary to his home. That would happen after about a week of celebrating the bride and groom.
But the best laid plans don’t always work out. Such was the case with Joseph when he learned that Mary was pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Now what? He didn’t want to disgrace Mary by exposing her to public scrutiny. He had decided to divorce her quietly.
Engagement was a very serious step in those days, and so breaking off an engagement was a very big deal.
Just when Joseph had made up his mind, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. The angel explained to Joseph that there was another option: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
Joseph is called a righteous man where this birth story is recorded in Matthew 1:18–25. Joseph’s righteousness moved him to reverse his initial decision; that, and the angelic vision in his dream. Joseph and Mary were married: “He took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.”
That’s it. No angels or shepherds. Not even Wise Men from the East at the time of the birth. Just Joseph and Mary, and then the baby. Joseph “named him Jesus.”
I like this version of the birth of Jesus in a different way this year. In worship on Christmas Eve, we will read the version where angels appear to shepherds and sing to them about the birth of Jesus. The shepherds run to the manger to see the baby sent from God. That version is recorded in the Gospel of Luke, Chapter 2.
What I get from the version in Matthew’s Gospel is the quiet way Joseph changes his plans in order to participate in God’s plan. Joseph’s trust is that this will work out. That’s righteousness.
Righteousness means trusting God even when there seems to be no evidence that God is near, that God cares about humanity.
At Christmas, we learn to trust God anew because God has entrusted to us the promise of a Messiah. God trusted Mary and Joseph with the promise that had just been born to them.
Next, they would have to flee to Egypt with their new baby because a very insecure and unbalanced king was after the baby that the king believed would threaten his reign.
At Christmas, we think about those who aren’t so fortunate, who are pursued by people who believe that their way of life is threatened by some outsiders who look different or speak another language or believe differently. Jesus and Mary and Joseph became refugees, asylum seekers in Egypt. God watched over them and brought them to safety.
Howard Thurman reaches out to us and touches us with his thinking about the birth of Jesus called “The Work of Christmas”:
When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace among brothers [and sisters],
To make music in the heart.
Ronald E. Koch is Pastor of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church in Gilroy. He is a founding member of the Interfaith Clergy Alliance of South County. Pastor Koch can be reached at lc*********@***il.com.
