Devotions for 12-11-24
Matthew 1:24 “And Joseph awoke from his sleep and did as the angel of the Lord commanded him, and took Mary as his wife.”
Whenever we look at the Christmas story we focus on Mary and baby Jesus. Some Christmas cards and other Christmas scenes only have Mary holding Jesus in them. But we need to remember that Joseph was a huge part of that story too. Even though he was not the biological father of Jesus, he still played a very significant role in the Christmas story and in the life of Jesus for many years as Jesus grew up. We don’t know how many years that would have been, but at least 12 as the last mention of Joseph was when Jesus was 12.
I thought it would be good to look at Joseph’s part in the birth of Jesus. Joseph had two significant parts in this story, he took Mary as his wife, and he gave him the name Jesus.
His story starts out while he was sleeping. He had a dream, a vision from God. Here is my question regarding that dream; who considers actually doing what you see in a dream? I’ve had many dreams in my life, some of them very realistic, but I have never considered doing what I dreamt about. However, Joseph did.
That would be because Joseph knew this was no ordinary dream, it was a message straight from the Lord God, his God, Joseph’s Lord.
Joseph knew that Mary was pregnant, and it wasn’t his child. That is from verse 19. He still loved Mary, but thought he couldn’t trust her, until his dream. In that dream the angel said not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife and that the child was not from any infidelity on her part. It was from God.
If that was my dream, I would have seriously questioned it. Maybe Joseph started to at first, who wouldn’t? But here is the thing, verse 24 says that Joseph awoke from his dream and took Mary as his wife. He went through with the wedding.
That took some guts, some inner strength. By the time of the wedding, Mary would have been showing, everyone would have known she was pregnant. By marrying her, everyone would have assumed Joseph was admitting that the baby was his. If it wasn’t, they would have assumed he would have cancelled the ceremony. But Joseph followed through and married Mary when her pregnancy was on full display. He proudly stood with her before all the world. He took Mary as his wife, and so he took Jesus as his child, his child to raise, love and care for as his own.
What shows to me that he fully accepted the dream as real is not just that he took Mary as his wife, but that he named their son Jesus, the name given by the angel. If the child was his, he would have named it with some family name, maybe his name, maybe his dad’s name, but not Jesus. That was the name given by the angel. My guess is that their other boys were given family names, James, Joseph, Simon and Judas. Those were likely family names.
My point in all this is that Joseph obeyed the Lord. He took on what he had to know was a difficult task, embarrassing to his family and friends who would have thought he and Mary couldn’t wait, and difficult in that he would have to raise Jesus as his own son.
Not every man would do that. Most would have walked away, but Joseph believed the angel, believed the Lord and loved Mary. So, he took her as his wife.
What is God asking us to do for Him? Surely it isn’t as big a thing as Joseph was asked to do. God asks us all to do many things for Him. To walk with Him. To believe in Him. To trust Him. To love others for Him. To pray to Him. To go where He leads us to go and do what He leads us to do. Most likely we haven’t had an angel bring God’s call to us, but God still has a calling for us all. Let us walk the life God is leading us to live for Him, whatever that is.
Pastor Gary
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