Sunday Devotional: Matthew 1:19-20
19 But Joseph, her husband, being righteous and not wishing to disgrace her, planned to put her away secretly. 20 While he was thinking these things, behold an angel of the Lord appeared to him by means of a dream saying, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to receive Mary as your wife, for the one who is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”
Joseph and Mary have just discovered that Mary is pregnant, a piece of news that would normally bring joy and celebration to any young couple. In this case, however, it brings concern and confusion. They had not “come together” as the passage delicately says in verse 18, meaning biologically this child growing in Mary’s womb was not the product of a union with Joseph. We can speculate what might have happened between Mary and Joseph, the suspicion that would be only natural if a man discovered his bride-to-be was pregnant and he knew for a fact he was not the father. But we need to be careful not to go beyond what the text says. Yes, there may have been arguments and accusations, but Matthew simply tells us that Joseph wanted to treat Mary with as much dignity as possible. He says this is because Joseph was “righteous.” That doesn’t mean Joseph was morally pure, or without sin. It means that he feared God, was a good Jew, and sought first and foremost to please God. He knew that Mary’s condition would bring her shame given her unwed status, so he wanted to “put her away”–that is, divorce her–secretly, or privately. Joseph didn’t want to make a big deal about this. He certainly didn’t want Mary to suffer any of the usual legal consequences for adultery (e.g., stoning).
Joseph’s righteousness, his desire to please God, was a critical part of the Lord’s plan for Jesus’s birth. There is no way Joseph could have known by natural means what was going on with Mary. Even if he believed her that she had not been sleeping around, that didn’t explain how she was pregnant. Under normal circumstances, what options were there? Of course, there was a good explanation, but it was a supernatural explanation that required supernatural revelation for Joseph to know, believe, and understand. This is why an angel of the Lord had to come to him to provide that explanation.
The angel uses a dream to speak to Joseph. No doubt he had been having some restless dreams since he discovered his betrothed was pregnant with someone else’s child. Thankfully, this was the best dream he could ever want. But notice carefully what the text says. The angel was not a mere dream, rather the angel made use of the medium of Joseph’s dream to supernaturally communicate to him vital information he needed to know so that he would act according to God’s good pleasure.
The angel refers to Joseph as “Son of David.” This reminds us of Jesus’s natural lineage, one that was necessary for him to fulfill the Messianic prophecies that refer to the one who would sit on David’s throne. The angel tells Joseph not to be afraid to take or receive Mary as his wife. Remember, Joseph planned to divorce her, and while he would be discreet and respectful, there would still be social shame and stigma on Mary, not to mention she would be left raising this child on her own with, perhaps, the support of her family. Joseph receives reassurance from God’s emissary that it is both legally and morally okay for him to continue with his marriage plans. The baby growing in Mary’s womb is “from the Holy Spirit.” In other words, the Holy Spirit who was brooding over the deep at the beginning of creation had brought about life in Mary’s womb. By some means, and Scripture doesn’t go into detail, the baby growing in Mary is both God and man in the fullness of both.
Also note that by telling Joseph to take Mary as his wife, the Lord is telling Joseph that while this child may not be his biologically, he is to treat him and raise him as his own. People would know the child as “Son of Joseph” even though he and Mary knew otherwise. Imagine being entrusted by God to raise the Messiah, God incarnate. What an awesome responsibility, but Joseph takes it on in faith, his only desire being to be a pleasing and obedient servant of the Lord.
It’s also interesting to note that Matthew doesn’t record any word of doubt or complaint from Joseph. He is willing to accept the angel’s words at face value. As a righteous, God-fearing man, Joseph was not afraid of the supernatural and open to that explanation of events. While there may have been only one natural explanation for Mary’s condition, he was willing to receive a supernatural explanation, and he did so even if it defied human reason.
But this is always the case with supernatural revelation. By definition, supernatural revelation defies natural, human reason. If we could reason it out naturally. it wouldn’t be supernatural! Joseph understood that when he had exhausted all natural explanations, the supernatural was all he had left. And when the angel appeared to him in the dream, that confirmed to him that the supernatural explanation was indeed the correct one.
As Christians, we believe in the supernatural and should not be surprised when God moves in supernatural ways. That doesn’t mean we expect the supernatural all the time; even in biblical times, when God would speak directly to Moses or Elijah, this was unusual. Miraculous events in Scripture are miraculous to the people to whom they happened because they were seen to be outside of the normal course of events. Things did not normally happen that way, so it must be a supernatural, miraculous event. So too we should be open to God moving in supernatural ways in our lives. When we pray for God to act in a situation, we are asking for supernatural intervention into the natural order. There’s nothing wrong with this–in fact the Lord encourages us to ask. But we should also be aware that God’s supernatural intervention may be through natural means. That divine healing might come through drugs or a surgeon’s knife. This is no less a miracle than God supernaturally using Mary’s womb to bring the Messiah into the world.
May we have the kind of righteousness Joseph displayed that desired for God to be glorified in all things. May we not fall into the trap of trying to rationalize the supernatural to try to make it fit into our natural understanding. This is not what Joseph did when he heard that Mary’s pregnancy was of supernatural origin, and we should follow that example. Let God be glorified in the confounding of the wise and the humbling of our arrogance, as He did when He took flesh to destroy the power of sin and death for His people.
