An Imperfect Yet Holy Family - December 24
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 45, 46; Baruch 4:36-5:9; Gal. 3:23-4:7; Matt. 1:18-25
Today’s Reflection
“Joseph, who only a few scripture sentences earlier had considered abandoning Mary, is now behaving like a loving, earthly father to this strange holy infant. The window reminds me that God is taking a confused man, a teenage woman, and an unexpected baby, and turning them into a holy family; echoing the message of the other window nothing is impossible with God.” —The Rt. Rev. Dr. Glenda Curry in her 2021 Christmas Message to the Diocese of Alabama
In Scripture, we hear the story of Jesus’ birth in the Gospels of Luke and Matthew. In Luke’s version of the nativity story, we hear of the annunciation to Mary, which is when the angel appears to her and tells her she will bear a child, conceived in her by the power of the Holy Spirit, and that child will be the Son of God, who will inherit the throne of his forefather David and rule over the house of Jacob. However, in Matthew’s Gospel, which we hear today, we learn of another annunciation—an annunciation through an angel of the Lord to Joseph. The angel tells Joseph he is not to abandon Mary, but that he is stay committed to her beyond all societal and legal expectations.
And not only that, but Joseph is to make a social and legal commitment to Mary’s baby—a child not biologically his own. The commitment Joseph makes comes through obeying the command that Joseph will be the one to name the baby Jesus. Joseph’s role in naming Jesus is no small detail—it’s very important to Jesus being the fulfillment of all the prophecies of the long-awaited Messiah. If we think back to how the book of Matthew begins, we hear the long genealogy that spans the generations from Abraham and Isaac and Jacob down through to Jesse and David and Solomon and then all the way down to Joseph.
When we start reading Matthew 1, this genealogy seems kind of tedious to get through with all its many, many generations of long, complicated names. But this genealogy is so important because it traces the family tree of Jesus as stemming from the line of Abraham and David—and it connects Jesus to the Abrahamic and Davidic line through Joseph. What this means is that, in order for Jesus to come from the line of David, we have to understand Joseph as being Jesus’ father. But how can that be if Jesus is the Son of God, conceived by the Holy Spirit?
This is where Joseph’s obedience to God, in the most difficult and unlikely of circumstances, is so important. Joseph steps up and does what God (through the angel) told him to do, which was to name the baby Jesus. That act, of being the one to name him, is the act that culturally and legally made Jesus part of the house of Abraham and the house of David. Joseph naming him allowed the name of Jesus to be added after his own in the genealogy of the house of Abraham and the house of David.
Of course, it’s essential that Jesus was born of Mary, in that the divine also entered humanity by being born of a woman, living and dying as one of us. However, some would argue that it is equally important that Jesus was also named and adopted by Joseph, because that is how Jesus would come to recognized as the fulfillment of prophecy. And it makes sense that Matthew, of all the Gospel writers, emphasizes this aspect of the nativity story, because, as one commentator describes, “Matthew crafted his account to demonstrate Jesus’ messianic identity, his inheritance of the Davidic kingship over Israel, and his fulfillment of the promise made to his ancestor Abraham. … Matthew’s Gospel [was] an evangelistic took aimed at [Matthew’s] fellow Jews, persuading them to recognize Jesus as their long-awaited Messiah” (ESV Study Bible 1816). Jesus is marked as the long-awaited Messiah by virtue of his kinship with Joseph, the man who obeyed God by naming him Jesus and thus adding that name into the house of Abraham and the house of David.
God turns us back toward restored relationship with himself by letting his face, or his countenance, shine on us that we might be saved. But what does it mean for God to let his face shine on us—and how does that save us? God let his face shine on us by allowing the Word to become flesh and dwell among us. God let his face shine on us by allowing his Logos or Incarnate Word to be borne of Mary, and then allowing him to be named and adopted into the house of David by Joseph. Jesus, fully divine and fully human, is the way through which the God of Abraham and the God of David could shine the light of his face into our world, by living and dying as one of us. In Advent and at Christmas, we remember and celebrate how God came down to us as a baby, grew and developed as a child, lived and walked among us as an adult, and then conquered sin and death for us. And so, today, we echo the psalmist’s cry to God: Restore us, O God, let your face shine upon us, that we may be saved!
Becky+
Questions for Self-Reflection
Bishop G recently shared a beautiful Christmas message with the Diocese, in which she reflects on the Christmas story through the lens of the four stained glass windows in the Chapel of the Holy Family at her former parish, All Saints. Reflect on these thoughts that our bishop shared about Joseph (see quote above), and what this brings up for you in light of your own experiences and memories of family.
Daily Challenge