Because we live on this side of Christmas, we want to rush to the end of the story where everything turns out okay. We miss the anxiety in a young woman's announcement, "I'm pregnant," and the tension on a man's brow as he parses the right decision. You might even be tempted to think Joseph was slow spiritually and should have figured out what was going on a lot sooner. But if you do that, you miss the whole point of what Joseph is learning, and of what we can learn from him: there's some amazing stuff going on around Christmas besides how Jesus got here. You miss out on how God is already beginning to redefine what true righteousness is.
Matthew 1:18–19 tells us,
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
Joseph, Scripture says, was a righteous man. There's a rich history behind this idea. The Hebrew word for a righteous man is tsaddîyq. Joseph was a tsaddîyq, and this means he was known for his uncompromising obedience to the Torah, the law of Moses. (For some of this concept I'm indebted to Scott McKnight, a New Testament scholar.)
Joseph didn't eat unclean food. He didn't mix with the wrong kinds of people. He didn't keep his carpentry shop open on the Sabbath to make a few extra drachmas. He was a tsaddîyq; that was his identity. Everybody knew this about him. Nobody invited Joseph over to have ham sandwiches with tax collectors and prostitutes. He was what people wanted to be. Like a businessman in our day wants to be a CEO, or like an athlete wants to be an all-star, an Israelite wanted to be a tsaddîyq. Becoming one meant you were admired and looked up to. Then you were somebody. And that was Joseph.
But now he's a tsaddîyq with a problem. The girl he has promised to marry is going to have a baby, and whoever the father is, Joseph knows it's not him. Nazareth is a small town, and as a general rule, word gets around in a small town. So we have a tsaddîyq and a pregnant fiancé in a small village where, as a general rule, everybody knows everybody's business.
The Torah has some clear instructions about what to do to somebody in Mary's condition. A section in Deuteronomy 22 covers marriage violation. If a woman pledged to be married is unfaithful, it says: "She shall be brought to the door of her father's house, and there the men of her town shall stone her to death. She has done a disgraceful thing in Israel by being promiscuous while still in her father's house. You must purge this evil from among you."
The Torah was clear. Joseph's reputation as a tsaddîyq was on the line. His fellow tsaddîyqim would have told him this sin must be publicly exposed and punished. But Joseph couldn't bring himself to do this.
The Ministry of Disequilibrium
Being a righteous man, Joseph must have agonized over this day after day. When the angel comes to him, Joseph already knows Mary is pregnant. How did he find out? Mary would have told him. Put yourself in his place. Your fiancé comes to you and says, "I have some bad news and some good news. The bad news is I'm pregnant even though we're not married yet. The good news is I haven't been with anybody else. An angel came to me and said, 'Hail Mary, full of grace.' I'm going to have a miracle baby, and all generations will call me blessed. I know it's never happened before, but it's going to happen."
Imagine how she must have protested to him about her innocence. Imagine Joseph's struggle. Most likely his father had arranged the marriage. He probably did not know her terribly well at this point. She seemed to be sincere. But an angel? A virgin birth? No way. So he decides to divorce her quietly, the text says. A betrothal was a legal act in that day, so to end it required an act of divorce. That way he could minimize her suffering but maintain his status as a tsaddîyq, a righteous man.
Then God sends a message to Joseph: "After he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream." Why did God make Joseph wait till after he had to think and struggle with all this stuff? Why couldn't an angel come to him ahead of time and explain everything and remove that anxiety?
Is it possible that anxiety removal is not God's number one goal for Joseph—or maybe for you and me? Is it possible that in getting his world turned upside down, in having to struggle between what he thought a tsaddîyq—a righteous man—ought to do, and his longing to show compassion to this young girl, maybe Joseph was being prepared by God to come to a new understanding of what righteousness is?
Is it possible there's a ministry of disequilibrium God is allowing to take place in Joseph's life so he'll come to a new era of growth? Is it possible in your life, maybe right now? If you're confused or disoriented or uncertain about something, maybe it's not because you've done something wrong. Maybe you're about to grow. Maybe what you need to do is wait on God and trust God's going to do something in your life you don't even know about yet!
A New Definition of Righteousness
The angel says, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife." Why would Joseph be afraid to wed Mary? Of course Joseph would be afraid of offending God and violating the Torah, but it's not just that. Joseph would be afraid of losing his reputation.
He would be afraid of what everybody would think about him. Joseph knew about his own doubts when Mary told him about the angel. There's no way people in his town were going to believe an angel came to a poor couple in an obscure village and caused the conception of a child in the body of a virgin teenage girl. He knew that if he married her, his friends would never accept his account of what happened. He would not be invited to their homes, he would not be given their business, and he would never again be admired and respected as a lover of the Torah. If he committed himself to this baby—to the one who would be known as Jesus—he would do so at enormous sacrifice. His whole reputation, the work of a lifetime, would be trashed.
Since that time, millions of people have made sacrifices for the sake of this one called Jesus. Many have given up status, possessions, convenience, freedoms, even their lives. But Joseph, who gave up his identity and reputation for Jesus, had not even seen him yet. When Joseph looked into people's eyes after he obeyed God, things were never the same. They never looked at him with the same respect and adoration. But when he looked into the eyes of that child, Jesus, he knew he had done the right thing.
Later, when Joseph was long dead and Jesus was a grown man, he taught in Matthew 5:20, "Unless your righteousness passes that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law"—the old system—"you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven." Jesus must have been thinking inside, I've seen the better kind of righteousness firsthand; Joseph was such a man.
Maybe God had a reason for this odd, painful, lonely way to start a family. Maybe God still calls people to be willing to die to reputation and status and comfort for the sake of love. That's why we seek to extend this kingdom launched by that little child.
When Joseph made the decision to wed Mary, he thought it was the end of his being known as a righteous man. He did not know fully that the child he would adopt would bring to the human race a new kind of righteousness. That's what we celebrate this Christmas.
John Ortberg is teaching pastor at Menlo Park Presbyterian Church in Menlo Park, California. He is author of several books, including If You Want to Walk on Water, You've Got to Get Out of the Boat (Zondervan, 2001).
This column is excerpted from the sermon "Recognizing Divine Interruptions" at our sister website PreachingTodaySermons.com.
