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By Jeremy | December 18, 2006
Joseph usually gets no love. As a supporting character in the greatest story ever told, and a bit player in the narratives about it, he's left to lurk in the shadows cast by his stepson Jesus and the virgin mother Mary. My Uncle Dave pointed this out to me this summer, and said he wants to start a ministry to step-fathers at his church using Joseph as a model.
Yesterday at
Christian Community Church in Baltimore, Pastor Dave Robinson preached "Do You Hear What I Hear," a classic Christmas sermon told largely from Joseph's voice. I'm not going to post all my notes, but a few nuggets bear repeating here. (
Download the Podcast here.)
First, Joseph committed social suicide by embracing Mary and her child as his own. Matthew 1:19 tells us that Joseph was a "righteous man," a Tsadiq (Hebrew), and as such enjoyed special status and respect within that culture. He fully understood that the Levitical law provided for the public execution of unmarried pregnant women, and to not abide the custom would be to invite scandal upon himself.
Second, God allowed Joseph to squirm under the tension. He could have informed Joseph of his role in the pregnancy from the outset, but instead He waited until "after Joseph considered this." This period of pressure Pastor Dave called the Ministry of Disequlibrium. It's when God intentionally disrupts everything that gives us security and confidence (for Joseph, his stature as Tsadiq) and invites us to trust and depend on Him alone.
Third, when Joseph embraced Jesus as his own, he marked his family forever as second class and himself as unrespectable. Mark 6 illustrates this when Jesus' brothers are identified not as Joseph's sons, which would have been customary, but as Mary's.
Fourth, Joseph became a model of righteousness Jesus would later follow. When the righteous men of John 8 surround the adulteress to stone her, they ask Jesus what he would do. Jesus looks as that woman and remembers his mother, who should have been similarly treated, and a man whose righteousness exceeded Tsadiq by sparing her life and His own.
Like father, like son.
Related
The Stevens clan, whom Judah and I were visiting in Baltimore, send their love.
Topics: Christmas, faith, fathering, joseph, life | No Comments »
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