"Beginning with unbelief, ending with faith"

We know it happens from time to time – a woman engaged to be married ends up pregnant. Every now and then, she ends up pregnant by someone other than who she’s engaged to. I’m sure that situations like that are trying for everyone involved, especially the soon to be husband. Joseph probably couldn’t believe that Mary would do something like that. He trusted her, and now, at least for the moment, he would always wonder if she could be trusted with anything.

Our text this morning tells us the story of Joseph and the trouble he had getting a handle on the fact that the woman he was engaged to was pregnant, and he knew that the child was not his. But in a dream, an angel appeared to him and explained that this child was the Messiah, conceived in Mary by the Holy Spirit, a child promised long ago by God himself.

Scripture doesn’t come right out and say it, but Mary must have told Joseph that she was pregnant. Joseph believed Mary’s word that she was pregnant, but not that she was pregnant with the child promised by the prophet Isaiah. Legal separation and divorce are bitter experiences, but in Joseph’s mind, he had no other choice.

Although only technically engaged, legally Mary was his wife. The fact that he considered divorcing her quietly instead of having her - at worst stoned, or, at best, publicly disgraced, is an exemplary example of Christian behavior. Joseph was not the kind of person that enjoyed making a big deal out of someone else’s sin.

Matthews unusual account of what to do with an allegedly unfaithful wife concludes with the birth of the Immanuel Child, God himself. Joseph claims the child as his own by naming him Jesus. Ultimately, this is a story of how God saved us. Jesus means "God saves" or "God is salvation." Mary’s child turns out to be God appearing in human form.

We confess this every Sunday we say the Apostles Creed; He "was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary." This incarnation of Christ, this appearance of God in the flesh, is the foundation of all that we Christians believe.

It’s not that Joseph didn’t believe Isaiah’s prophecy about the virgin bearing a child. He just had a hard time believing that the prophecy was coming true in Mary. Preposterous claims deserve skeptical responses, and no man in Joseph’s shoes would have reacted differently.

Christmas is a Mary-Jesus thing, not a Joseph-Jesus thing. Our carols are more about Mary and Jesus. Few even speak of Joseph. Look at the postage stamps we use on our Christmas cards. Each stamp has a masterpiece painting of the Madonna and child. Joseph’s role is secondary, somewhere back in the figures of the angels, shepherds, and wise men. It’s almost like the only thing he’s really useful for is getting Mary to Bethlehem so that prophecy can be fulfilled.

The Holy Spirit moved Mathew to begin the Christmas story with Joseph at center stage. For Matthew, Christmas begins with Joseph’s dilemma about what to do with a woman he thinks is carrying another man’s child.

Culture affects what we think is right and wrong. Joseph’s dilemma would not be a major problem today. The option of having Mary stoned would be out of question already. Today, people live together without being married. They have kids without being married. The scenario of a man marrying a woman who is carrying the child of another man is not all that uncommon.

Joseph’s world was much different. Israelite men were obliged to have a son to secure the inheritance that God had given the sons of Israel. Since Joseph was a descendant of David, he knew that there was the possibility that the Messiah could come through his family line.

We say it so much and so often when we repeat the Apostle’s Creed, that we are really unaware of the tension there was between Joseph and Mary. If Mary had been unfaithful, Joseph would lose a wife and Mary would not only lose a husband, but also support for the child and herself.

In Leviticus, the penalty for adultery was death. Old Testament law in general allowed divorce in cases of adultery and also allowed it without cause. Joseph chose the latter option. He chose the kinder path. He would not tell anyone what he thought Mary had done. It’s one thing to be morally right and another thing and a harder thing to forgive.

Indignation about the infractions of others comes easier than overlooking their faults. Joseph didn’t want to make a bad situation worse. Joseph is introduced in our Gospel account as not believing Mary’s child was the Son of God, but on the other hand, Joseph is what every Christian should be when it comes to not exposing the sins of others. Luther said that we should put the best construction on even the bad things that others do. In broadcasting the misdeeds of others, we bring condemnation on ourselves.

Now Joseph had to get down to the brass tacks of how he was going to prevent Mary’s pregnancy from coming to light in a town of less than a hundred people. There would be no sending her away to another town. Sooner rather than later, her predicament would become fodder for wagging tongues. This may have been part of what Joseph struggled with as he lay in bed one night.

Rare is the person whose sleep is never disrupted by the troubles of the day. We may sleep, but we really don’t. Our minds are running full throttle in anxious thoughts and dreams. When we do wake up, it’s as if we had never slept at all. Caught in a sleepless sleep, Joseph is told by the Lord’s angel to take Mary as his wife.

This would not be an ordinary child. This would be the Savior who would redeem the people and save them from their sins. Joseph would not be the biological father of the Messiah, but he would be his legal father. Joseph would pass his claim as a son of David on to Jesus. As soon as Joseph wakes up, and probably much to Mary’s surprise, he takes her into his home as his wife.

If, in our Christmas celebrations, Joseph is the minor figure, in the first Christmas story that the first Christians heard, Joseph had the major part. The dream he had telling him to take Mary as his wife would not be the last dream he would have that instructed him what to do next. He received another telling him to flee the wrath of Herod, taking Mary and Jesus to Egypt to save the child’s life.

He received another dream several years later, instructing him to return from Egypt to their home in Galilee, and that they should avoid Judea, where the treacherous son of murderous Herod reigned. Matthews Christmas story begins with Joseph’s reluctance to believe his wife’s report that she is carrying a child conceived by the Holy Spirit, but it ends with Joseph as a hero of the faith and guardian of the child who was born to be the Savior of the world.

Life can be defined in several ways. One definition we can all understand is that life is a series of dilemmas. When we get through one dilemma, we face another. That’s kind of the secondary story line of the Old Testament. As soon as God’s people get out of one dilemma, they find themselves in another.

When God resolved Joseph’s dilemma of what to do with an unfaithful wife, he was resolving the predicament of all mankind. Mary’s Child would save God’s people from their sin by releasing them from death and satan’s power. God could save us because he became one of us. He became flesh of our flesh and bone of our bone.

For all legal purposes throughout his life, Jesus was known as Joseph’s son. It was from Joseph that Jesus learned his trade as a carpenter. Yet after Matthew’s Christmas narrative, Joseph plays no part in the Gospel. If there was any doubt about Jesus being a son of David by blood and not just by law, Luke tells us that Mary was also a descendant of David. So Jesus is David’s son by law and by blood.

Joseph’s legacy would not only be preserved in the life of Jesus, but also in the lives of his own sons. James, the eldest brother of Jesus, became the bishop of Jerusalem and the author of a New Testament book. Jude, another son of Joseph also wrote a book of the Bible.

With the death and resurrection of Jesus, who was related to whom by blood sort of lost its importance. Jesus said that his brothers and sisters and mothers were those who did the will of his Father, by believing that he was the Christ. Together, Christ’s brothers and sisters constitute the household of God.

The important point of Matthew’s Christmas story is that God came to us as Mary’s Child. It begins with unbelief and ends with faith. But if we are looking for a second point to the words of our text, it might be Joseph’s willingness not to make a public example out of Mary. Joseph’s forgiveness is raised to an even higher plane in Jesus, who forgives all of us so that as his church, we can become his bride, without spot or blemish.

The current Sunday school curriculum from Concordia Publishing House invested heavily in commissioning new, realistic paintings to illustrate each Bible story. One of the new art pieces is a scene seldom pictured – but a scene that is probably very realistic. I mentioned earlier the postage stamps that depict Madonna and child. Many Christmas cards have the same theme – a picture of Mary holding the baby Jesus.

But the new curriculum art shows Joseph holding Jesus, while Mary, no doubt very tired, takes a well deserved rest in the background. Our bulletin cover for today is that very same piece of art. Not only is that likely an accurate picture of a tired mother, but it also reflects the essential role Joseph played in the Savior’s infancy.

Still more important, though, it gives a rich visualization of the love the true Father had in giving His Son. In sending Jesus into the world, the heavenly Father was taking us up in his arms, caring for us, whispering to us that we are his children. Amen.