What strikes me every Christmas is how little we know about the man God picked to raise his Son.
We sing to Jesus, and we should. We sing about stars. We sing about shepherds. Mary gets a whole catalog — Silent Night. Mary, Did You Know. Breath of Heaven. Away in a Manger.
Joseph gets a cameo and a lot of responsibility.
Not one sermon preached. Not one word of his recorded anywhere in Scripture. And his quiet faithfulness helped change the world. As Joseph became less, the Son he was chosen to raise became more.
Matthew tells it straight
Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. No fairy tale. No folklore. No legend. Here is how it happened.
And the genealogy he opens with is full of tension. Men and women in that line. Jews and Gentiles. Sinners and saints. Rahab is in there. So is David, who slept with Uriah's wife. You read it and think, how could that produce the chosen one of God?
Because God uses broken things and broken stories to accomplish his purposes. This child was born to save all people, not some.
Consider Joseph's week
Mary is pregnant. Three or four months along — she has been away with her aunt Elizabeth, and now the bump is starting to show.
Understand what betrothal was. Not an engagement. A legally binding contract, with the parents choosing the spouse. So Joseph's mother and father picked Mary, and the two of them were legally committed but not yet married. This is likely a couple of thirteen, fourteen, fifteen years old. Young. Nervous. Excited. Trying to do the right thing.
And he is not a man with resources. When they later make their sacrifice, they bring a turtledove — the offering of the poor.
Imagine you are about to be married and you find out your bride is pregnant. What do you think? What do you say? The betrayal, the denial, the questions, the looks from the neighbors, your own character now up for debate.
The text says he was a just man, unwilling to shame her, so he decided to divorce her quietly. That is a kind man doing the least cruel thing he can think of.
Then an angel shows up in a dream.
I have thought about that. Lord, if you are going to talk to me it had better not be in a dream, because my dreams are crazy. But what would be more normal? A burning bush? A light out of heaven? A wild man walking up to tell me what God wants me to know? Pick your method. God spoke. Joseph heard. Everything changed.
Fear not, son of David
Every time an angel shows up in Scripture, the first words are the same. Do not be afraid. People fall on their faces when heaven opens, because they see how great he is and how helpless they are. And that command — do not fear — appears in Scripture 365 times. One for every day. As though God wants us to remember that once you fear him, there is nothing left to be afraid of.
Then look at how the angel addresses him. Joseph, son of David.
Sometimes God has to remind you who you are, because life will beat it out of you. I doubt Joseph thought much of himself. Backwoods town. Not much going for him. He knew right from wrong, and he was quiet, and that was about it. And the angel tells him: there is greatness in you. The man after God's own heart, the greatest king in Israel's history — that is your bloodline. That is the blood you carry. That is how God is going to keep his word.
He is not just repairing your circumstances. He is working out a plan.
The name is the whole point
You shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.
The name is a job description. Jesus means the Lord saves. And Christ is not a last name — it means the anointed one, the Messiah. So Jesus Christ is a sentence: here is our Lord, the chosen one, who came to save.
He came to save you from your sins. Not mainly from discouragement. Not mainly to heal your body or steady your anxiety. Those are real gifts and I am glad for every one of them. But sin is behind everything wrong in us and everything wrong around us, and it is our deepest need, and that is what he came for.
None of this is by chance. Matthew keeps saying it happened to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet — Isaiah's word that the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel. God with us.
The loudest sermon you will ever preach
Verse 24. Joseph woke up and did what the angel commanded. That is it. That is his line.
Bonhoeffer, the German pastor who stood against the Nazis and was killed for it, said one act of obedience is worth a hundred sermons. Joseph did not have the answers. He had enough to take the next step. Sometimes that is all faith is.
My wife found an old Bible this past week. A little pocket New Testament, full of highlights and notes in handwriting that was not mine. I opened the cover and there was my father's name. Verse after verse marked. Prayers written in the back.
My father did not always walk with the Lord. When God got hold of his life it changed everything in our family. He never preached a sermon. He believed, and he trusted the Lord to the end, and the legacy he left us will outlast all of us.
I am looking at men who are quietly trying to follow Jesus. Nobody is watching your posts. You have no notoriety. Hear this: your quiet obedience is not unnoticed by the One who notices everything. Your children's children will thank God for you.
The loudest sermon any of us will ever preach is the way we live.
So what would God be able to do with one act of obedience from you this week?
