Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Matthew chapter 1 verses 18 through 20:
18 This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. 19 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.
20 But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
“Joseph was a righteous man”. That’s how the New International Version phrases it in verse 19 of today’s Lesson. Joseph was a righteous and decent man, and there was probably no more righteous man than Joseph in all the earth. He was meek, and gentle, and true as steel.
Joseph was all these things — full of virtue — and yet, he was still going to divorce Mary. And Joseph would have divorced Mary, and been perfectly justified by the Law and by everyone else in leaving her and her baby behind, had not the angel miraculously intervened.
Joseph’s story should serve as a warning to us all about the limits of our own virtues. And it should serve as a warning about the limits of the Law. Law and virtue are fine things; but they would have ended in Mary’s dismissal. Joseph would have been esteemed for his decency and even mercy in having not called for Mary’s stoning, yet the mother would still have been dismissed, and the child, who knows.
And that is what makes Joseph’s story so remarkable — that what truly made him righteous was the fact that in the end he trusted not in his own righteousness, nor in the righteousness of the Law, but trusted rather in the Revelation of the Gospel, spoken through words of the angel, by the power of the Holy Spirit.
“Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife,” the angel said. And Joseph heard the inner voice, and believed it to be the word of God’s and so he said, “Yes.”
“And it was credited to him as righteousness,” (Genesis 15:6).
No comments:
Post a Comment