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ANGELS AND PEACE
Deuteronomy 22:22-27
Matthew 1:18-25
December 6, 2009
It’s taken you a long time to get yourself established. Of course, you didn’t have the advantage of your older brothers. The first born son got two thirds of the family business; and the second son received the last third. You started out with nothing, and it’s taken a while to get your carpentry business up and running. So, while your brothers are married with children, here you are in your mid thirties just now starting a family.
Still, things are looking up. You’re finally engaged. You worked out a fair and reasonable dowry with Mary’s father – he seems to be a decent guy. Mary is in her mid teens; which is an excellent age for conceiving and surviving the very dangerous birthing process. Yes, in a couple of years from now you should be a successful businessman with a wife and children, and your own home.
And then your fiancé shows up pregnant. What does it take for a guy to get a break? You’re a good man. In fact, your friends and your Rabbi describe you as righteous. You are a man who loves God, and tries to do the right thing in all situations. Shouldn’t that mean that you get a little help from God, instead of everything being such a struggle? It’s like you’re constantly swimming upstream.
Her father swears to you that she hasn’t been unfaithful; he keeps calling it a miracle. Do they think you’re stupid? You may not know how germs work; but even you know that pregnancy only happens when a man and a woman come together. It always takes two, one of each gender, no exceptions. No, you are not stupid.
Of course, you’re also not a mean spirited man. Mary is old enough to take a husband and have children, but that doesn’t necessarily mean she’s a grown woman. In many ways she’s still a kid; and kids make stupid mistakes. Maybe some fast talking boy deceived her. Maybe it was a moment of undisciplined impulse. Maybe there is some young man she has loved for a long time, and he couldn’t reach an agreement with her father. You don’t really know Mary very well. Most likely she wasn’t trying to hurt you – she just made a mistake.
People make mistakes, you know? You are a descendant of King David. And, when you look at your family tree there are four women who stand out from the rest of your ancestors (Matthew 1:1-17). Each one of them has sexual scandal attached to her name. Tamar pretended to be a prostitute and seduced her father in law – Judah (Genesis 38:6-26). Rahab openly confessed to being a prostitute (Joshua 2:1). Ruth spent a night sleeping with a man she wasn’t married to (Ruth 3:1-10). And, Bathsheba committed adultery with King David, and got pregnant, while her husband was away at war (2 Samuel 11:3-5). If God could be forgiving of Bathsheba and her illegitimate pregnancy, maybe he will be forgiving of Mary too. And, if God can forgive Mary, then maybe you shouldn’t be so hard on her. You’re a little older than the average newlywed, so you understand, young girls, like young boys, make foolish mistakes.
Unfortunately, your hands are tied when it comes to what to do next. An engagement is just as legally binding as a marriage, and Jewish law requires that you now divorce Mary. The only question is do you go public and messy or quiet and private? If you go with a public trial Mary’s name will be dragged through the mud, and the law may require that she be stoned (although that doesn’t seem to happen as much as it used to). But, you will be vindicated as the offended party and you will get to keep the dowry. That only seems fair after the embarrassment she has subjected you to. On the other hand, you could go with a quiet divorce – just you, Mary’s father, and two witnesses. Eventually the rest of the town will find out that she is pregnant and divorced, but there won’t be a public vilification. And, you would have to give the dowry back.
The one thing you can’t do is just go ahead with the marriage. People can count to nine months, and they will certainly figure out that she was pregnant before the wedding. You will be subjected to one of two assumptions. Either people will think that you were too stupid to count, and you didn’t know she had been unfaithful – which will make you the laughing stock of the entire village. No one will ever respect you again. Or, people will assume that you’re the one who got her pregnant; that makes you a sexual predator guilty of defilement. No, getting married isn’t an option. Let’s go with a quiet divorce and you can start negotiating for another bride. You can sleep on it, but tomorrow morning you’ll start the ball rolling in that direction. Why is life so unfair?
That night, as you are sleeping, the Angel of the Lord comes to speak to you. This isn’t like a dream; you are fully cognizant, fully aware. And, this is big! This isn’t just an angel delivering a message – the Angel of the Lord is God himself! As a righteous man you know that Hagar was visited by the Angel of the Lord, but it was God himself talking with her (Genesis 16:7-13). Moses saw the Angel of the Lord in the burning bush, but it was God himself talking with him (Exodus 3:2-6). God the Father speaks clearly to you, Mary’s son is a miracle, and this is God’s own child! What do you know; Mary was telling the truth and her father was telling the truth.
And then, God offers you a way out of your situation; a way that is loving, and compassionate, and forgiving, and respectful. God says for you to name the baby. That’s the way a man adopts a child that isn’t his. The Mishna Baba Bathra (8:6) spells it out. Normally, a mother names the baby – because there isn’t any doubt at all that the baby is hers. But, if a woman becomes pregnant by her husband and then he abandons her; runs away and is never seen again – another man can freely step in and adopt her child as his own. He is free to marry the woman, and love that child, and there is no shame or embarrassment for anyone. The way the man makes this commitment is to take the baby in the presence of the Rabbi’s and Temple authorities, and for him to give the baby its name.
The Angel of the Lord says to you, “She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Which makes perfect sense, Jesus is the Greek form of the Hebrew name Joshua; which means the Lord Saves. God is going to save the world from its sin by coming and living among us as a man – which makes him Immanuel, God is with us.
When you awake there is complete peace in your heart. You’ve been given a third option which preserves everyone’s honor and dignity. You will not break the engagement and divorce Mary. You will wait until she gives birth to her baby boy, which you will name Jesus and adopt as your own son. After that there will be time to wed her and have your own children with her. You don’t know why all of this is happening to you. You’re not completely sure if this is a blessing or a curse. You know for sure that God has put his hand on you and your life, but you really don’t know how this is all going to play out. What will the next twenty or thirty years look like? What will be the lasting repercussions of the decision you have made? Why is God doing this to you? You don’t know. But, because you trust God; because you believe that God is good and he has only the best intentions for you; you are at peace with your situation. There will be rumors and innuendo, but you can live with that. Because you are righteous, because your faith in God is full, you have peace.
I don’t know what difficulties each and every one of you are facing. You may be in a physical, emotional, or spiritual crisis over your health, your career, your marriage, or maybe your faith. Like Joseph you may be in the middle of a situation that seems completely unfair. You haven’t done anything to deserve the hardship at your door, and yet here it is. It seems like God is either absent or unconcerned about you. You can’t see the big picture and it crosses your mind that you deserve better than this.
How easy would it have been for Joseph to give up on God? But imagine the blessing he would have missed if he didn’t have the faith to find peace in trusting the Lord? It must have seemed to him like his situation couldn’t get any worse, and that God was nowhere to be found. Yet, he trusted – and that brought him peace in his crisis. Do you have the faith to trust God in the middle of your worst crisis, and reap the peace that passes all understanding (Philippians 4:7)?
Jackie and I have a good friend, Diane, who we have known for thirty years now. She is a powerful Christian woman. She married a classmate of mine from the Air Force Academy. Seven years ago he passed away; suddenly and without warning, and left her as the single mother of two teenage children. Her life is permanently scarred from that trauma, but with time she met another man who valued and loved her. Three years ago they were married. On a Saturday afternoon one week ago he was jogging when he suffered a massive heart attack and died. His funeral was this past Friday. Diane is not even fifty years old, and she has already buried two husbands, and is alone again.
I don’t have a single word to offer Diane that will make sense of her situation. Everything about this seems unfair. She has so many challenges ahead of her now; settling his estate, selling his business to his sons, mountains of legal paperwork. And, the worst part is that she knows how hard this is going to be, because she’s been through it all before. But, her biggest challenge of all will be to find peace; to hold onto the belief that God is good, and that he has the best intentions for her. That is a big challenge, but it is possible. People like Joseph show us that it can be done.
I doubt that Diane will ever find a satisfying answer in this life. However, I believe when she stands in the presence of our Lord Jesus Christ, he will be able to show her the perfection of her situation, and why this was necessary. Like Joseph, I believe when Diane speaks directly to God everything will be made right. If she believes that, if she absolutely believes that, then she should have peace for the remainder of this life. Trust in God, accept his peace, and wait for the answers.
Here is my prayer for you: may you believe with all of your heart that God love you, and wants goodness for you, and may you believe that only God can turn your worst disaster into your greatest triumph. And, may that knowledge bring you peace.
Raymond Edward Brown, “The Annunciation of Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25)”, Worship 61:6 (November 1987), 482-492.
Dale C. Allison, “Divorce, Celibacy, and Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25 and 19:1-12)”, Journal for the Study of the New Testament 49 (March 1993), 3-10.
Kenneth L. Barker & John R. Kohlenberger III. Zondervan NIV Bible Commentary, Volume 2: New Testament (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1994), 9.