18 This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. 19 Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.
20 As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. 21 And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
22 All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
23 “Look! The virgin will conceive a child! She will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel, which means ‘God is with us.’”
24 When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. 25 But he did not have sexual relations with her until her son was born. And Joseph named him Jesus.
Matthew 1:18-24
Dear God, I have two thoughts as I read this story for the umpteenth time this morning. First, like Mary, the angel is keeping Joseph on a need-to-know basis. All Joseph needs to know right now is that it’s okay to take Mary as his wife. He doesn’t need to know about the trials and tribulations of the road ahead. He doesn’t need to know the whole plan.
I went to a funeral yesterday for an 84-year-old woman who had her first date with her husband 70 years ago when they were both 14 years old and lived three houses down from each other in Pittsburg. I like to joke I haven’t had a “first date” since I was 19. Well, I don’t think either of these two ever had more than one “first date.” The 14-year-old dreamers never knew what life would hold for them. They didn’t know that the end of her life would involved Alzheimer’s Disease and cancer. They were on a need-to-know basis, and they didn’t need to know. The same is true for all of us.
The other thought occurred to me during her funeral yesterday. I wonder how many people Gabriel might have appeared to that wasn’t reported. We get Zechariah, Mary, and Joseph (in that order). But were there others? There are a couple I hope got visits just to give Mary and Joseph the support they needed. I hope Mary’s parents got a visit. I hope Gabriel told them they could believe Mary. And I hope Mary’s sister who was with her at the crucifixion got a visit at some point. I would like to think you gave Mary at least one person who was completely supportive and as confused as anyone when Jesus died. I hate to think Mary was standing there at the foot of the cross with a sister who was judging her and her son. I prefer to think she was at least almost as devastated as Mary was when Jesus breathed his last and then as vindicated and joyous as Mary was after the resurrection.
Father, I thank you that you didn’t give me the gift of prophecy. I thank you for ignorance. I thank you for my weakness. I have experienced great provision from you lately. I feel a little guilty about it, but maybe it’s something you want us to have so that we can be good stewards of it to others. So help me to be a good steward in real time so that you are glorified in everything my life stands for and everything I do. For your glory, Father, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, and not mine.
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. 28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. 36 What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. 37 For the word of God will never fail.”
38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
Luke 1:26-38
Dear God, I’ve read this passage and journaled on this passage so many times that it’s hard for me to look at it in a fresh way. But when I looked at it this morning, I thought of Gabriel and these jobs he was given by you. Now I want to be clear that there is no way I can even pretend to see anything from Gabriel’s perspective. Nor should I be able to. He is an archangel. I am at the bottom of the creation food chain. It’s like my dog understanding how to get to Europe by leaving our home and traveling by plane. She just has no frame of reference for that. And I have no frame of reference for what Gabriel saw and knew at that point.
However, I can observe what I have the benefit of knowing that he left out of his speech to Mary (and Zechariah and Joseph for that matter). In fact, before I go down this road, let me just consider that he was the messenger to all three of them in this. From heaven’s standpoint, this must have been an amazing inflection point in the space/time continuum.
But back to what he left out, he left out the difficult physical circumstances when Mary gave birth. He left out the flight to Egypt, the boys in Bethlehem being murdered, the difficulty in raising a perfect child, the conflict between Jesus and his siblings and hometown, the doubts about his sanity, the brutal death, and the ultimate losing of Jesus to the ascension. This was not an easy path for Mary to walk. It didn’t lead to power and wealth in her earthly life. It didn’t lead to ease. Simeon was the first one to tell her that her soul would be pierced through this child’s life. That he would cause people in Israel to stumble. Gabriel left all of that out here. Why? Because she was on a need-to-know basis, and it would not have blessed her to know that path ahead.
Father, I’m on a need-to-know basis too. Help me stay in the moment. Help me to look for you in the moment. Help me to be at peace. You know what my hopes are. You know the desires of my heart. But I know that my desires and your plans might not overlap, and I am willing to lay my desires at the foot of your cross and say, “Let your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I just ask for my daily bread and that you will forgive me and help me to forgive others. Please keep me from temptation and give me the strength to walk away from it.
1 This is a record of the ancestors of Jesus the Messiah, a descendant of David and of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac. Isaac was the father of Jacob. Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers. 3 Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (whose mother was Tamar). Perez was the father of Hezron. Hezron was the father of Ram. 4 Ram was the father of Amminadab. Amminadab was the father of Nahshon. Nahshon was the father of Salmon. 5 Salmon was the father of Boaz (whose mother was Rahab). Boaz was the father of Obed (whose mother was Ruth). Obed was the father of Jesse. 6 Jesse was the father of King David. David was the father of Solomon (whose mother was Bathsheba, the widow of Uriah). 7 Solomon was the father of Rehoboam. Rehoboam was the father of Abijah. Abijah was the father of Asa. 8 Asa was the father of Jehoshaphat. Jehoshaphat was the father of Jehoram. Jehoram was the father of Uzziah. 9 Uzziah was the father of Jotham. Jotham was the father of Ahaz. Ahaz was the father of Hezekiah. 10 Hezekiah was the father of Manasseh. Manasseh was the father of Amon. Amon was the father of Josiah. 11 Josiah was the father of Jehoiachin and his brothers (born at the time of the exile to Babylon). 12 After the Babylonian exile: Jehoiachin was the father of Shealtiel. Shealtiel was the father of Zerubbabel. 13 Zerubbabel was the father of Abiud. Abiud was the father of Eliakim. Eliakim was the father of Azor. 14 Azor was the father of Zadok. Zadok was the father of Akim. Akim was the father of Eliud. 15 Eliud was the father of Eleazar. Eleazar was the father of Matthan. Matthan was the father of Jacob. 16 Jacob was the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Mary gave birth to Jesus, who is called the Messiah.
17 All those listed above include fourteen generations from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the Babylonian exile, and fourteen from the Babylonian exile to the Messiah.
Matthew 1:1-17
Dear God, Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, Mary. The five women Matthew calls out as being part of Jesus’s lineage:
Tamar: Judah’s daughter-in-law who had to pretend to be a prostitute to get him to sleep with her and conceive a child because her husband had died and Judah wouldn’t follow through on his responsibility to have one of his sons marry her.
Rahab: I’m assuming this is the prostitute who hid the spies before Joshua led the Israelites against Jericho (although the lineage doesn’t quite fit with Boaz because of the gap in years, but there seem to be a lot of gaps in years here).
Ruth: The Moabite widow who followed her mother-in-law Naomi back to Bethlehem and ended up marrying Boaz. Frankly, the most obviously noble of the women so far, although that’s probably an unfair judgment of Tamar and Rahab.
Bathsheba: Should never have been part of this lineage if David hadn’t sinned so greatly, slept with her, killed her husband, and then married her. It’s interesting that the baby she got pregnant with died and so it was another baby (Solomon) who became part of the lineage when it was the baby Tamar had by tricking Judah who is part of the lineage.
Mary: Probably the youngest of the four. The most innocent. The virgin given an incredible assignment.
So what does this tell me this morning. The first thing I see is that none of these women had things turn out the way they dreamed. Tamar widowed and desperate. Rahab afraid of being killed by the Israelites and betraying her people. Ruth, widowed and having to leave her home. Mary, a dream of a normal life with Joseph. But look what you did with all of these lives. You redeemed mistakes. You loved. You provided. Most of it is so ugly, but that’s what you do. You take the ugly and turn it into something beautiful.
I heard about a young man yesterday morning who is walking a difficult path. He’s 18, still finishing his senior year in high school, but he’s been kicked out of the house by an alcoholic father. My wife and I reached out to the couple helping him to give them some support, but what he needs is so much more. Father, move in his story and redeem it. Redeem it and make the pain count for everyone he touches. For him. For his parents. For the family helping him. For those I cannot see.
Father, there are all kinds of stories that need redeemed. I have a story and pain that needs redeemed. Be with me and help me with this pain. Comfort me and everyone involved. Love others through me. Use this pain and make it count. Help me to lean into this pain and grow from it. Don’t let any of it be wasted. Use the scars from this pain and use them to make us all stronger.
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. 28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. 36 What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. 37 For the word of God will never fail.”
38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
Luke 1:26-38
Dear God, this is a story I’ve read so many times, but I suppose there’s always something new to be found. Today, what’s occurring to me is that Mary had this great affirmation in the moment that she was completely in your will, favored by you, and be part of your plan for Israel and the world. Not bad for a young, poor woman.
It makes me think about the few times in my life when I felt like I was right in the middle of your will. So many times–almost all of the time–I feel like I’m just guessing, but there have been a few times when I knew I was doing what you wanted me to do, and you were blessing my work. It actually left me afraid of doing something that would get outside of your will. It’s like Peter walking on water. He was doing great until he wasn’t. Oh, how I would like for my “great” moments to last. And when I say “great,” I mean doing exactly what you would have me to do.
Father, I am overwhelmed by the work in front of me. Help me to do it well. I am overwhelmed by the friends who need prayer. The coworker with a sick child. The cousin with a sick daughter. My niece with a significant medical procedure today. My friend who just lost her husband. My other friend who is recovering from surgery. And these are just a few friends from this week. Help them. Help me help them. Comfort. Heal. Love. Forgive. Redeem. Teach.
26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King David. 28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord is with you!”
29 Confused and disturbed, Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!”
34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
35 The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God. 36 What’s more, your relative Elizabeth has become pregnant in her old age! People used to say she was barren, but she has conceived a son and is now in her sixth month. 37 For the word of God will never fail.”
38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
Luke 1:26-38
Dear God, I’ve read this story so many times that it’s hard to get a new feel for it, but what stood out to me this morning was the idea that you had Mary on a need-to-know basis, and there was a lot she didn’t need to know. If you had given her a vision for how the next 33 years would play out, she probably would have crumbled in tears. Bethlehem. Egypt. Mocking. Crucifixion. Even the ascension after resurrection. This visit by Gabriel tells her what will happen in the unseen world, but she thinks it’s what’s going to happen in this world. But she doesn’t need to know.
Neither do I. Oh, how it’s so much better that I don’t know what’s next. I can make my plans, but I need to just do my best to serve you in the moment. To put my head down and embrace the path. To worship you, which Mary did. To love others, which Mary did. And then take life as it comes, which Mary did. A sword out pierce her soul (thank you, Simeon [Matthew 2:35]), but she didn’t need to know that right now. And my life will play out in ways that I don’t need to know either. It reminds me of the Garth Brooks song “The Dance.” The chorus: “And now, I’m glad I didn’t know the way it all would end. The way it all would go. Our lives are better left to chance. I could have missed the pain, but I’d have had to miss the dance.”
Father, here I am. I’m here to worship and to embrace the words Mary spoke in response to all of this: “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you have said about me come true.” Whatever that truth is, I embrace it as your path for the little life you have given me.
Painting: La Femme adultère “The woman Taken in Adultery” by Lorenzo Lotto
8 Jesus returned to the Mount of Olives, 2 but early the next morning he was back again at the Temple. A crowd soon gathered, and he sat down and taught them. 3 As he was speaking, the teachers of religious law and the Pharisees brought a woman who had been caught in the act of adultery. They put her in front of the crowd.
4 “Teacher,” they said to Jesus, “this woman was caught in the act of adultery. 5 The law of Moses says to stone her. What do you say?”
6 They were trying to trap him into saying something they could use against him, but Jesus stooped down and wrote in the dust with his finger. 7 They kept demanding an answer, so he stood up again and said, “All right, but let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” 8 Then he stooped down again and wrote in the dust.
9 When the accusers heard this, they slipped away one by one, beginning with the oldest, until only Jesus was left in the middle of the crowd with the woman. 10 Then Jesus stood up again and said to the woman, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?”
11 “No, Lord,” she said.
And Jesus said, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.”
John 8:1-11
Dear God, I don’t think this story gets enough time. It’s quite remarkable. My wife and I were talking about something last night and this story came up. I can’t remember what we were saying or the context in which we talked about it, but she mentioned this painting by Lorenzo Lotto to me. It gave me an interesting thought: What would it be like to follow this woman after she left Jesus that day? What was the rest of that day like for her? So I decided to take a little creative break from my 1 Samuel series and spend a little time with this woman this morning.
First, I want to back up and set the context. There was a festival going on in Jerusalem when this happened. It was the Festival of Shelters (John 7:1-10). I Googled that festival and found it was a seven-day commemoration of the years the Israelites spent in tents in the wilderness. That made me think of the book I read last year, The Year of Living Biblically: One Man’s Humble Quest to Follow the Bible as Literally as Possible by A.J. Jacobs. I remembered he had done something that seemed to line up with this so I looked it up. He called in the “Feast of Ingathering–or Sukkoth.” His description seems to indicate it’s the same thing and he said Orthodox Jewish people still celebrate it by building huts and sleeping in them (he was in New York City so he had to build one in his living room). So that’s the context. An annual festival in Jerusalem where a lot of extra people are in town. In fact, this is part of the story when Jesus’s brothers told him to go to Jerusalem and show himself off and he told them he wasn’t going to go, but then he went secretly until starting to teach in the Temple halfway through the festival.
Now, back to this passage. After I read it this morning, I had some thoughts. Let me stress here that ALL of this is my speculation and there is a great likelihood that I’m completely wrong about it. With that disclaimer said, I wonder what the previous 12 hours were like for this woman and then what were the next 12 hours like. What were the circumstances under which she was caught? Who was she? Was she the one who was married to someone else or had she slept with someone who was married to someone else but she was single? Was she a prostitute? In that culture, if she was a prostitute, would they have cared? I believe there were a lot of prostitutes running around and sleeping with married men so my guess is that she was the on who was married and caught. Perhaps her husband caught her that night before and brought her to the Temple for punishment for stoning.
It occurs to me as I write this that this could have been Jesus’s own mother, Mary, when she was pregnant with him. Wow! What a thought. The husband could easily have been Joseph, taking her to the Temple for judgment and stoning. But “Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.” I wonder if Jesus had this same thought that morning. If this had happened to his own mother while she was pregnant with him, it would have been a disaster.
As I’m sitting here (and I think I’m going to have a lot of disjointed, random thoughts this morning), I wonder why stoning was the chosen method of execution for so many sins. Was it because it wasn’t a hands-on approach? Back then, I suppose their options were to physically touch the person and kill them with some sort of blade or do something from a distance like throw stones or shoot an arrow.
Now that I think about it, the Jews under Rome didn’t have the right to execute people (that’s why they needed Pilate to sign off on Jesus’s execution). Was there an exception for stoning? I just Googled that too. Apparently, to compare it with modern American law, there were federal crimes (crimes against the Roman Empire) and state crimes (in this case, crimes against the Jewish religious law). Jesus’s crime was a federal crime because he claimed to be king while adultery or Stephen’s crime in Acts would be against Jewish law and could be executed by the Sanhedrin.
So back to our story. There’s a festival. I’m guessing that the woman’s husband catches her sleeping with someone else during the festival (maybe in someone’s special tent?) and takes her to the Temple for judgment and execution. Lots of anger. Lots of fear. As I’ve heard said in movies and other places before, “Women need a reason to have sex. Men just need a place.” (City Slickers) So perhaps this woman had a reason to not be faithful to her husband. I don’t know. But now she’s here, and she must be both terrified and humiliated. Regretful too. What’s going to happen now?
Then Jesus shows up in the Temple and starts teaching halfway through the Festival. I won’t go into the days he spent talking and everything he said, but, suffice it to say, the Pharisees were none too pleased. Then, on the last day of the festival, what John describes in John 7:37 as “the climax of the festival,” Jesus did one last big provocation about being living water. The Pharisees apparently sent the Temple guards to arrest him but they didn’t. Nicodemus, one of my heroes, tries to defend Jesus with, “Is it legal to convict a man before he is given a hearing?” and he gets jumped on and accused of being a Jesus defender: “Are you from Galilee, too?”
So now our scene takes place on the morning after the festival. Everyone might be a little hungover. This woman might have gotten caught up in the revelry of the night. And now she is standing in front of Jesus. The men (there are likely few if any women present) are simultaneously indignantly ready to stone her and wondering what it would be like to have sex with her (let’s be real, some of them were thinking that–that’s probably the most confident I am about any guesses I’ve made this morning), and she watches Jesus through a bowed head out of the upper part of her peripheral vision. What’s he going to do. So he bends down to write on the ground.
Here’s a new thought. Maybe he bent down to write on the ground so that she could see what he was writing. Maybe he wrote it for her. We assume he was writing to her judges and accusers, but maybe her face was so downcast that he knew this was the only way to communicate love and a new life to her.
So we know this next part. He stands up and affirms they are right that she should be stoned according to the law of Moses. But then he makes an interesting statement that (and again, this is a brand new thought to me) indicates humans don’t have the authority to commit capital punishment: “Let the one who has never sinned throw the first stone!” This statement could be applied to any sin such as murder that we think deserves the death penalty. As sinful creatures, do we have the authority to take a life–even the most heinous life, as the result of a crime? Wars are different animals that I won’t get into right now, but in this area, I think it helps convince me more than ever that capital punishment does not align with Jesus’s teaching.
So now everyone eventually admits they aren’t able to live up to the standard Jesus has now set for capital punishment and walks away, leaving only the woman, to whom Jesus famously says, “Where are your accusers? Didn’t even one of them condemn you?” She says no, and he closes the scene saying, “Neither do I. Go and sin no more.” End scene.
So what happened next? That’s the first thought I had last night when my wife brought up this story. What was the rest of her day like as a forgiven woman? Was her husband one of the people who dropped his stone and walked away? Did he divorce her? Did she have to move in with a friend? And what was the state of her heart from that day forward? If it was a long-term affair, did she break up with the guy? Did she take her freedom from her sin and turn over a new leaf? Did she earnestly start to follow you? Who did she become as a result of this absolution from her sin?
Father, I am not without sin. I have no stones to throw. Jesus taught such a unique…what’s the word I’m looking for? He taught a unique perspective on who we are as humans and who you are as God. Oh, Father, help me to “go and sin no more” and to offer this same opportunity of your unique perspective on who we can be through following you to others. Help me to make this the evangelism that brings your kingdom into this world and drives the hell out of people.
59 Joseph took the body and wrapped it in a long sheet of clean linen cloth. 60 He placed it in his own new tomb, which had been carved out of the rock. Then he rolled a great stone across the entrance and left. 61 Both Mary Magdalene and the other Mary were sitting across from the tomb and watching.
Matthew 27:59-61
Dear God, as I sit here on this Saturday morning before Easter, the word “hopeless” comes to mind. There are things in my life that bring me sorrow about which I feel hopeless. I’m tired. I’m defeated. I’ve tried multiple times and in multiple ways to remedy the sorrowful situation, but nothing seems to work. It feels hopeless.
I would imagine that is how Joseph and Nicodemus were feeling as they handled Jesus’s body that Friday night, making themselves unclean for the Passover. I would imagine that’s how the Marys and all of Jesus’s other followers/believers, whether close to him or believing in him from a distance, were feeling that Friday evening and Saturday. Hopeless. Asking themselves, “What does this mean? Where do we go from here?” while dealing with their simple grief of losing someone they loved so brutally. Rome was still in charge. Pilate had the power to kill him. Caiaphas and his crew had won. What now?
In today’s entry into Restore: A Guided Lent Journal for Prayer and Meditation, Sister Miriam…well, she says this:
An ancient homily on Holy Saturday captures it best: “What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were sleeping from the ages. God has died in the flesh, and the underworld has trembled…Truly he goes to seek out our first parent like a lost sheep; he wishes to visit those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. He goes to free the prisoner Adam and his fellow prisoner Eve from her pains, he who is God, and Adam’s son. The Lord goes in to them holding his victorious weapon, his Cross. When Adam, the first created man, sees him, he strikes his breast in terror and calls out to all: ‘My Lord be with you all.’ And Christ in reply says to Adam: ‘And with your spirit.’ And grasping his hand he raises him up, saying, ‘Awake, O sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give you light.'”
Father, I think I want to sit in this silence today. As I’ve been praying, I’ve decided to not “play” anything today. No music. No podcasts. No YouTube videos or sports. I think I want this to be a real day of silence for me. I want to be alone with the Holy Spirit and my thoughts. I want to commune with you without distraction. I want to learn to love you just a little better today. And I want to learn to be at peace in the silence of my sorrow. The silence of my hopelessness. But I have an advantage on Joseph, Nicodemus, the Marys, and all the others. I know what’s about to happen tomorrow, and it gives me hope too.
I pray all of this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,
Dear God, I am preparing my Sunday school lesson for this week, and I want to spend some time going over the things I’ve learned about Joseph over the last 24 years, since I first wrote God, Family, Job: In that Order?: A Study of Joseph, Jesus’s Earthly Father. Of course, my interest in Joseph started when I was at a retreat, and I started looking for a biblical man I wanted to emulate as a faithful worshipper of you, a husband, and a father. The list was short. Ultimately, I landed on Joseph and the Prodigal Son’s father. Since the Prodigal Son’s father was a representation of you, I ended up with Joseph. And I’ so glad I did. I’m so glad he was there to be Jesus’s earthly father. I’m so glad his example is there for me to follow.
When I think about Joseph off of the top of my head, here are my thoughts on an outline. Please guide me as I think about this, Holy Spirit:
His first decision: Divorce her quietly.
This decision would cost him and make him vulnerable
You needed Joseph to make this decision for your plan to work
He believed the dream and acted on it.
He married Mary but did not “consummate” the marriage
Did doubts ever linger?
He had to find a place for them to stay in Bethlehem
With family? In a tent outside of town? We don’t know.
What were their conversations like during the journey and before the birth?
The baby is born.
Had to improvise a difficult situation
Helping Mary made people unclean
Needed a better place but couldn’t find one
Doubts? What am I doing here? Was the dream real?
The shepherds.
Affirmation that this was all real! I cannot underscore this enough. If there were any doubts, the shepherds removed them.
The Temple (Simeon and Anna).
More affirmations.
Simeon’s warning to Mary.
The Wise Men
They created more problems than they solved.
More affirmations some months later.
The Dream and Escape to Egypt
Believing the dream
Survivor’s guilt?
Starting a new life? Gifts from the Magi?
Living in Egypt
Time to go home
More dreams.
Couldn’t return to Bethlehem because of Herod’s son. Ended up in Nazareth.
Lost in the Temple
He’s gone!
Where could he be?
Did Herod’s son, Archelaus, get him?
What were the conversations with Mary like for those three days of searching (four days of him being missing)?
Found!
He’s in the Temple and amazing people
Was this a surprise to Joseph and Mary? Had they already been amazed by him? When did Jesus start to display his knowledge and come into his mental maturity?
How inadequate did Joseph feel in raising your son?
Presumed dead
Sad that Joseph wasn’t around to comfort and help Mary during Jesus’s ministry.
Brothers and sisters seem to have been a hinderance
Would Joseph have been a hinderance too?
Father, there is so much for me to learn from Joseph. The least of which is that he, ultimately, considered his life nothing to him, even before his angel visit. He made a huge sacrifice just in his decision to divorce her quietly. I was just reminded of the scene in the first Captain American: The First Avenger movie when Steve Rogers, before the super serum, throws himself on a grenade to save everyone else, revealing the character the doctor was looking for in the man who would get this great power. That’s Joseph. Before you have him this great responsibility, even then, we are allowed to see his amazing character. Oh, Father, help me to be a man like that.
Dear God, on this Christmas morning, I want to spend some time with Eve and Mary. With this image. I want to see myself in Eve. I want to embody the shame on her face. The clutching of the apple. The serpent wrapped around her legs, ready to trip her. She is us. She is all of us. She is Adam. She is Abraham. She is David and Solomon. She is Peter. She is Paul. Frankly, she is even Mary and Joseph.
I think I mentioned this a couple of days ago, but I heard an Orthodox priest say last week that the Incarnation actually happened with Mary’s visit from Gabriel. The birth was the forthcoming of the incarnation, but the plan was officially in motion at that point. At least the part of the plan we can see.
But how am I like Eve, as depicted here by Sister Grace Remington? I come to you with a mixture of shame and wonder. She knows what she did. I know what I’ve done–mostly. Some things I’ve done wrong that I don’t even know, but I know I’ve failed you, myself, and others around me. And then to reach out at marvel at what is inside of Mary. To wonder what exactly it means. Not even Mary and Joseph knew exactly what the unborn Jesus would mean to them and to the world.
I see Satan trying to wrap himself around me. To hold me back. To trip me. To strike at my heel. To keep me from you. That is, after all his ultimate goal: to keep me from you.
Mary is holding Eve’s hand and her shoulder. Fellow sojourners. Fellow mothers. One with an awesome responsibility and yet in as much need as Eve. Mary is linked to Eve and Adam as much as I am. They are part of me. Their legacy lives on in me and the rest of us. And I don’t judge them. I love them. I appreciate them. I appreciate their strengths and their weaknesses. Their vulnerabilities.
Of course, Mary is crushing the serpent’s head with her foot. Some non-Catholics might take exception to this, but I don’t see this as Mary doing this, but the act of her obedience to play a role in the Incarnation as doing it. That’s what this process is about. That thing that is wrapped around me legs, that tries to keep me from you, is destroyed. Killed. If only I will ask the child Mary once carried inside of her to do it for me.
Eve doesn’t want to let go of the apple just yet. Yes, I have sins that I hold onto. I’m better. I think I’m better. I think I’ve let go of a lot of it. Help me, Father, to let go of all of it.
Father, Jesus, Holy Spirit, as I sit here on this Christmas morning, I find myself really being grateful. First, you did something very kind for my wife and me last night. Thank you. We really needed it. Take this little life of mine and use it to love others today, tomorrow, and for as long as it draws breath–and even beyond.
I pray to the Father in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,
7 Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. 8 But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil.
1 John 3:7-8
Dear God, first, when I just sat down and saw the words “Joy to the World” for the title of this collection of daily readings, it made me think of the Keith Green song “Easter Song.” The chorus: “Joy to the world! He is risen. Halleluiah!” This is just the beginning of the bigger story. The plan is in motion. It had always been in motion, but now human eyes are starting to see it take shape. You are coming forth from Mary. The incarnation! And you will die. And you will rise again. And Satan will be destroyed along with his works.
I have to say, it doesn’t feel like he’s been destroyed yet. My wife and I cried together this morning over a sorrow in our lives. No, his works are not destroyed. They are still causing all kinds of problems. And we seem to hold onto them.
Our small town weekly paper does a page this time of year for local pastors to write something for the community. I think there were six pastor messages this year. I read them all. The one I am holding onto today is the last one. He encouraged us to have the faith of Mary. Mary accepted Gabriel’s charge. And yes, she might have had some buyer’s remorse and fear after the angel left, but she still had faith. She still pressed on. And she lived a hard life. And she suffered. She had sorrow. She had pain. A sword pierced her very soul, as Simeon predicted in Luke 2:35.
Father, I don’t understand how you defeated Satan’s plans or what that looks like from your perspective, but I do not have to understand. As I prayed with my wife this morning: I believe. Help my unbelief. I have faith. Help my lack of faith. I worship you. Help me me to worship you well and sin no more. And may it all be for the sake of your name being made hallowed, your kingdom coming to earth, and your will being done on earth as it is in heaven. You have given me more than my daily bread in terms of material needs, but give me my daily bread of emotional needs and healing. Comfort. Keep me from temptation and deliver me and those I love from Satan’s plans. Deliver us all from Satan’s plans. All glory and honor are yours, now and forever, Father.
Emails to God 