“Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was faithful to the law, and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.” (Gospel of Matthew 1:18-19)

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It is easy to look back once you know the whole story and think of how inspiring it is. Living a story real-time, however, can feel like hell. Put yourself in Joseph’s sandals for a moment. He was just living his life, and then suddenly, without warning and without explanation, he is handed a story he didn’t choose.

Joseph’s fiancée, Mary, reveals that she is pregnant and the child is not his. To add insult to injury, she claims the impossible - that in some mysterious way God and not another man is responsible for this. I’m sure there have been many over-the-top excuses and explanations to cover up unfaithfulness throughout the ages, but to claim that what happened is somehow God’s plan cuts extra deep.



As far as Joseph can tell at this point, Mary has cheated on him. Let that sink in. That’s really heavy. Joseph didn’t choose this story but now he gets to choose how he responds. He has options, including publicly denouncing her and even seeking the death penalty for her adultery. This would have been a perfectly acceptable and lawful decision according to the spiritual leadership of his time (think of how the Pharisees dragged the woman caught in adultery before Jesus).

Maybe this seems barbaric to us, but then I also think of how our culture relishes in breakup songs and revenge movies and instant karma. We take pleasure in cheaters (fictional or not) being eviscerated and getting what they deserve. We even experience a sense of empowerment when we put down those who brought us down.

Joseph makes a very different choice, though. He chooses a path of gentleness. He chooses to divorce Mary quietly, seeking as much as possible to avoid exposing her to any shame or disgrace. Even though he has done nothing wrong, he loves Mary enough to seek her good even amidst his hurt and confusion.

I can see why God chose him to be the earthly father of the Messiah. I’m not entirely sure why God let Joseph go through this phase of turmoil before sending an angel to reveal the truth, but it gives us a powerful glimpse at the strength of Joseph’s gentleness and love.

Even after the truth is revealed to Joseph, we get to see even more of his character. I admire the incredible humility of Joseph in receiving the angel’s words and in taking Mary to be his wife - and along with her, to take Jesus, a child he did nothing to create, as his son. Even though he has no earthly reason to do so, he is fully invested. He exemplifies the adoptive and self-sacrificial love of the gospel.

Just imagine what gossip would have been circulating - people would either assume that Joseph had been dishonorable in sleeping with Mary before they were married or they would assume that Mary had been unfaithful, both of which would have brought a lot of shame upon Joseph. But in spite of what others would be saying, Joseph humbly accepts this word from the Lord and boldly loves Mary (and God), serving them both in a life he had not chosen.

Joseph truly lives out the servant leadership that Jesus will feature so prominently in his life and teachings. In the stories of Christmas, Mary and Jesus take center stage, and I think that is beautiful. Joseph is there, but always in a supporting role. He is off to the side or in the shadows, doing the little and yet important things necessary for Mary and Jesus to thrive. I love this picture of Joseph leading Mary on the donkey, his face unseen like any common character on the streets, yet he moves with determination in his steps to take care of his precious passengers.

The strength of Joseph in this story is that he doesn’t take center stage. He doesn’t demand the spotlight in order to find meaning and significance. He receives a story he didn’t choose, and instead of carrying it as a burden, accepts it as a gift from God.

By leaning into the role God offers Joseph, he chooses to partner with God and unite himself with Mary, who is also living out this experience in bold faith. It is a beautiful picture of how we can live as well. In the twists and turns that our own stories take, how will we respond to the unexpected and the unexplained? Will we trust God when the story isn’t going according to plan? Will we partner with those God brings us, even when unity defies earthly expectations? Will we find purpose in the unconventional and unmatched gifts of God?

May we all, like Joseph, respond with such gentleness and humility and trust in God.

Imagine that you could choose to be born. What if, floating in some kind of state of pre-existence, you could look out over the whole of history and pick a period to be born into? When would it be? What country would you choose? Knowing how much our family and our family history shapes us, who would you pick to best set you up for success? Would you pick a mighty royal dynasty or a family of wealthy influencers or a brilliant circle of scientists or philosophers? It is kind of fun to think about how we could, to a large extent, choose the story we would get to live.

In the history of the world, however, only one person ever chose to be born: Jesus. And he made some distinctly curious choices. He chose to be born in obscurity, from a broken lineage, into a time of great spiritual darkness.

(University of Pennsylvania Archives and Records Center)

In the first chapter of the Gospel of Matthew, we find the genealogy of Jesus as traced through Joseph, the man who would serve as his earthly father. About halfway through, I stop recognizing most names. Famous figures are rapidly replaced with men who lived lives that we know little or nothing about. Jesus waits and chooses to be born into an unremarkable, modest family. He isn’t born amidst the luxuries of Abraham or Jacob. He isn’t born in the palaces of David or Solomon. He isn’t born in the spiritual revivals of Josiah or Zerubbabel. He is born as the son of a common man, grows up in a town of questionable integrity, and lives a life of general poverty.

Even in the grander moments of his family tree, we find a scandalous series of ancestors. Generations of habitual liars, adulterers, murders, prostitutes, polygamists, rapists, slave dealers, idolaters, and child-sacrificers. Yikes. That sounds like a seriously scary family reunion. Jesus didn’t come from a perfect family by any stretch of the imagination. This is all too familiar for many of us who carry around a lot of family baggage we didn’t choose; but Jesus did choose, and he chose this messy, mangled family tree.

Finally, Jesus is born into a time and place of profound spiritual darkness. The 400 years of silence between the Old and New Testaments reflects more on the deafness of humanity, particularly the Jewish nation, than on the voice of God. As the story of Jesus unfolds, the depravity of the spiritual leadership found in the Pharisees, Sadducees, and scribes makes it clear just how deep this darkness is: dark enough to crucify God on a cross.

This is the life (and death) Jesus chose. There is stunning humility, not just in the act of God becoming human, but in this specific type of incarnation. In laying aside what he could have claimed for himself, and choosing the life of Jesus of Nazareth, he chose to align himself with our brokenness. Jesus knows our suffering and is touched by our weaknesses because they are his own. When Jesus was born, he truly came to be Emmanuel, God with us. Not just God near us or around us or next to us, but God with us, as one of us.

Jesus laid aside his clothing of light too powerful for sinful humanity to bear, in order to be with us. This incredible embodiment of love is so strong, and so gentle. To lay aside his glory is a truly humbling act of gentleness. I can only imagine how vulnerable this must have felt, like being stranded outside in the winter without clothes. Yet Jesus became Emmanuel with a grace that shook the world.

When I see the humility and gentleness of how Jesus chose to be born, I am challenged to want to live like that. Yes, even though all that is within me and around me tells me that this path leads to a story of less power and less control, I cannot help but believe it is the way to true life. I want to let brokenness and baggage (in myself and others) transform into compassion and empathy inside me. I want to be willing to lay aside my power and the things I have the right to, in order to serve others with humility and gentleness. May we all receive this gift from the healing hands of Jesus and, in turn, share this grace with all around us.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (Jesus, as recorded in Matthew 11:28-30)

Have you ever felt the kind of tired that no amount of sleep can cure? It is like carrying around a heavy weight with nowhere to put it down. Sometimes these are burdens that others have placed on us. Other times it isn’t so much what we carry, but how we carry ourselves - the posture of our spirits. I have found that I’m quickly exhausted by a life that is not gentle or humble. I have also found that too often I don’t have the emotional or spiritual resources to be truly gentle and humble when I need it most.

And that is why these words of Jesus are so powerful and life-giving. It is refreshing that Jesus doesn’t say: you just need to try harder. Rather, he says: Come to me, and I will give you rest.

I need this. I need more gentleness and humility in my life. I need rest for my soul.

Jesus invites us to come to him and find this rest. In his presence, we can both learn and receive from Jesus how to be gentle and humble of heart.

Journey with me, if you will, as we explore these themes throughout the Gospel of Matthew. We will begin this month with the Christmas stories which really set the stage in beautiful and challenging ways. We’ll look at the messy family tree of Jesus, the understated strength of a man who did not choose his own story, the radical reality of Emmanuel, and finally the tension of a shepherd born into a world of kings.

Jesus said to him, “Do you want to get well?”

“Sir,” the sick man answered, “I don’t have a man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up, but while I’m coming, someone goes down ahead of me.” (John 5:6-7)

Jesus asks one of his famous questions, and the crippled man’s response seems almost patronizing. Like, “Clearly you don’t understand how this thing works. Let me explain it to you. These are the steps necessary for me to achieve healing, and yet clearly they aren’t working for me.”

He is answering with methodology and inability. Jesus is asking a question of desire and faith.

How often I have this same idea in my mind about how things should work, how to get from A to B. How to be healed. How God’s promises should be fulfilled. But, like this man’s idea, many of mine are rooted in works, not faith. Jesus offers a gift, but so much more than just the gift of the end result – Jesus offers freedom from a crippling, enslaving way of thinking. Jesus offers the freedom of faith. Jesus offers freedom through and through.

Jesus asks a question that cuts through to desire, to worldview, to understanding and perception of God – how he works, his character. He wants to reveal to us how small our view is of his love and his graciousness. He wants us to see that his gifts are better than anything we could earn.

May Jesus open our eyes to who he really is. May he awaken faith in us, trust in him and his goodness, not some formula or process. May our hearts be opened to his gifts – more than we can ask, more than end results, but a new creation from start to finish.

The sun sets on Bethlehem’s horizon, dragging with it the heat of the day. The dark and the chill of the night creep in, spread across the land, find their way through open windows, cracks in walls, find their way into skin and bones, make themselves at home. A people living in darkness kneel in darkness, heads bowed by a weight they cannot shake, and beg God for mercy. Beg him for a miracle. Plant yet more tears in the poisoned soil of their lives.

The first Christmas day has risen and fallen. The wait is over. Jesus is here. But for every joyful shepherd or seeking wiseman, there are thousands who go to sleep that night still waiting for their miracle. Still unaware that God has not only heard and answered, but become. Immanuel. Redemption has arrived.

The wait is over, yet still they wait. Still they wake in the middle of the night, plagued by trembling heart and aching soul. They cry out in the all too familiar refrain: “How long, Lord, how long?” For all they can see, the promise of God is still unfulfilled. For all they know, there is nothing to believe in but silence and emptiness.

Across town, the promise lays asleep in a manger. The miracle sleeps. Light asleep in darkness.

 

This will not be the last time Jesus sleeps. This will not be the last time the power of Jesus underwhelms, delays, displays itself as apparent inaction. The storms will come and Jesus will sleep in the sinking boat. The dead will be buried and Jesus will sleep for three more nights. The cross will kill and Jesus will sleep.

If I am honest, sometimes I wonder if he is sleeping still. We wait and wait and cry and beg for mercy. For miracle. We hang all our hopes on him and wonder if he will ever show up. Jesus sleeps and we resign ourselves to our inevitable end.

Christmas tells a different story: Immanuel, God with us now. Jesus has shown up, though maybe not in the way we expected. The promise has been fulfilled, even if our eyes can’t see it. The miracle is a reality long before we ever see the proof. Jesus sleeps, but the storm will be calmed, the dead will rise, all things will be redeemed.

“Though the fig tree does not bud
and there are no grapes on the vines,
though the olive crop fails
and the fields produce no food,
though there are no sheep in the pen
and no cattle in the stalls,
 yet I will rejoice in the Lord,
I will be joyful in God my Savior.”

(Habakkuk 3:17-18)

“He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—

how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?”
(Romans 8:32)

I begin at the end.

Not because I can see it on the horizon. Not because I can see the path to it. Not because I can see, but precisely because I can’t.

If I am brutally honest, I do not even believe in this end. I look around at the rubble and ash, and think: impossible. There is no way from here to there.

Which is why I must write about the end now. Because at the end, there is redemption.

There must be.

It is the hardest truth to believe, but the only one I cling to when I doubt everything else: the redemption of all things.

Even now, I think again: impossible! There are some things too horrible, some wounds that cut too deep. Crushed beneath the weight of injustice, suffering, death… can there really be redemption at the end?

There must be.

The redemption of all things.

Yes, even that.

And not just a bandage. It is not enough for the past to be merely wiped away. We require redemption.

Strength from weakness. Life from death. A crown of beauty from ashes.

We require a love powerful enough to redeem us beyond mere restoration.

Impossible.

And yet…

• What was meant for evil, God used for good.
• Dry, dead bones coming to life.
• Lazarus hears the Voice of the Resurrection and the Life… of all things.
• All things work together for the good of those who are His.
• Restoration of all the years the locusts stole.
• Death swallowed up in victory.
• The God become man, who came to die, not just to destroy our curse, but to redeem it with His life in us – better off broken and redeemed than never lost at all.

Jesus, the Redeemer of all things.

Impossible, and yet there is no other hope. There is no other name.

Jesus.

“To what then should I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to each other,

‘We played the flute for you,

but you didn’t dance;

we sang a lament,

but you didn’t weep!’

For John the Baptist did not come eating bread or drinking wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon!’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindication by all her children.” (Luke 7:31-35)

There is a lot packed into this short passage, but for now I just want to focus on one thing: Jesus. Who is Jesus in this passage?

In this world, there are many who seek to sway others with their influence. Whether at home or at work, in politics or religion, there are those who expect that when they use their power to elicit a certain response in others, they will get it. And for the most part, they are not disappointed. For the most part, people are willing to dance to the tune being played.

It is interesting, on the other hand, that there are always people who are impossible to please; they are determined to be dissatisfied no matter what you do. Their standards shift and change depending on who they are currently upset with. This was the case with the Jews. When they turned against John the Baptist, they criticized him for abstaining from food and drink; when they turned against Jesus, they criticized him for consuming food and drink[1]. You can’t win with these people.

http://jesusistheword.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/jesus-is.png

This is what Jesus is pointing out here. He was reaching out to them in every way he could, but they refused to accept him. Instead, they expected him to play by their rules, but he didn’t. They wanted him to be swayed by their influence and desires, but he wasn’t.

I love this about Jesus. In a world where people – even good, strong leaders – are swayed under pressure, Jesus stands firm. Who is Jesus in this passage? Jesus is Jesus. He always has been. He always will be.

He is the one person you can always, always count on to be himself no matter what. And because Jesus is true to himself, he will be true to you. No one can sway his opinion of you. No one can convince him to love you less. No one can deter him from his life-mission to fully redeem you. He will keep reaching out to you in every way possible at every chance he gets.

This truth thrills me, fills me with confidence. Our weary souls find rest in his constancy! Jesus is Jesus. Always.

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[1]It is also interesting to note that while Jesus was and is the friend of sinners, he was not the glutton and drunkard they claimed he was. If we wish to follow in Jesus’ steps and become a friend to sinners, we can also expect to be falsely accused of all kinds of things.