Matthew 1:18-25


This Christmas season, I have been reflecting on the nativity story reading through the various Gospels. Mary and Joseph were ordinary people like you and me, yet God revealed Himself to and through them in extraordinary ways. Something in all of us longs to see the Divine break through the mundane, the ordinary eclipsed by the extraordinary. In those moments, the glory transcends the grime and we see the world with different eyes. Eyes of faith. By faith we have believed what we cannot see just as Mary and Joseph, and glimpses of glory remind us that we live and breathe and have our being for something eternal.  That eternal hope is what gives our lives meaning and purpose here on this temporal, sin-soiled earth. That hope is what fuels our endurance and bids us to take courage and stand strong through the storms of life.

Have you lost your way?  Have you let the demands of this life crowd out or cloud your purpose? Does auto-pilot feel more comfortable than the risk of hope?  Maybe sudden news has you reeling and you are considering your options, and none of them are what you wanted? Perhaps life has thrown you a curveball you could not possibly have seen coming? A discovery, and not one you considered positive. If so, Scripture says you are not alone. In Matthew 1:18 he shares, "The birth of Jesus Christ came about this way: After his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, it was discovered before they came together that she was pregnant ..." Wait what! Talk about a curveball! Mary was pregnant with the Savior of the entire world and oh yeah, she hadn't known a man. Sure! Right! While everyone was discovering what they must have thought was rather scandalous news, Mary knew what Gabriel had told her...but the people who were discovering her pregnancy, not so much. Here she was following God to the tee and at the same time possibly the center of some pretty character-shredding gossip. And yes, this all happened after she told God "may it be as You have said."

Then there was Joseph. He was definitely considering his options and none of them were good ones. We learn in Matthew 1:19-20 that "he had decided to divorce her (Mary) secretly. But after he had considered these things, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, 'Joseph son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, because what has been conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit." Joseph was in a tough place. What an encouragement it is to know that God knew what Joseph was considering and not only did He know, He intervened. God knows our hearts and our thoughts. He knows the tough decisions we are walking out in front of a world that may not have a clue what we are dealing with in our lives or what our obedience costs us personally. When push came to shove, Mary and Joseph obeyed God and willingly embraced His plan. What an inspiration. 


God had a plan. Mary and Joseph obeyed and God sent His only Son, Jesus to save the world. The angel told Joseph "what has been conceived in her (Mary) is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins." (Matthew 1:20-21) In the same way today, the Holy Spirit conceives the ideas of God in the hearts and lives of willing and obedient followers. And just as Mary gave birth to the Divine, God births his extraordinary plans in and through those who seek and follow Him with all their hearts.

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