Today, especially within the media and intelligentsia, many mock the Christian Faith. Sometimes, it’s subtle; sometimes, it’s not. You may find that they treat a Christian the way someone might treat a mentally challenged person who does something awkward. They smile, nod politely, and then quickly shuffle him off. At best, they tolerate us; even worse, we get pushed out from much of the conversation in the public square.
That seems especially true whenever we talk about the birth of Jesus. Almost no one denies that a man named “Jesus” was born when our calendar switched from BC to AD. But far fewer people are willing to believe, teach, and confess that Jesus was conceived in a miraculous, extraordinary way. Even within the walls of the Church you sometimes hear how Jesus was the illegitimate son of a Roman soldier.
But St. Matthew tells us the truth: “The birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. After His mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18).
Why was our Lord born of a virgin who was engaged, or betrothed, to be married? If it was all-important for our Lord to have a human mother, without a human father, then why did God choose a betrothed woman, instead of one fully married?
Well, besides fulfilling Old-Testament prophecy, a virgin birth would show that the Messiah came from God’s doing, not man’s doing. And because of that, a virgin birth testified to a Messiah who could do what only God could do: Save us from sin, death, and eternal damnation.
Yet, God was also making another theological point. For the Law would consider a woman in Mary’s position–being pregnant and unmarried–as an adulterer. According to Old-Covenant Law, adultery carried the sentence of death (Deuteronomy 22:22, Leviticus 20:10). So, based on how it looked, Mary had earned herself the death sentence.
Joseph’s role then becomes one of becoming Christ to Mary: He takes the death penalty away from Mary by taking her as his wife. Isn’t that how the New Testament describes us, we in the Church, as the Bride of Christ? It’s as if Joseph was going to present Mary to himself “in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any other blemish–holy and blameless” (Ephesians 5:27). And that is how Joseph will come to see Mary. But, right now, he’s not there yet.
In the Lord’s mercy and wisdom, He chose a young, betrothed, virgin girl to be the mother of Jesus. Of course, then, it was much misery and hardship because it meant that both Mary and Joseph would lose their good reputations. But they accepted their roles willingly, for they looked in faith to the One who would take all our guilt away and give us righteousness and life eternal in its place.
That encourages us when hardship or difficulties come our way. Instead of thinking that God has abandoned us, we can remember that God is working through the events of our lives, just like He did with Mary and Joseph. “We know that all things work together for the good of those who love God” (Romans 8:28), for we know that God the Father has “appointed [Jesus] as head over everything for the benefit of the Church” (Ephesians 1:22).
Yet, as important as Joseph’s role was in the birth of our salvation, He did not have sex with Mary or cause her to become pregnant. That means Joseph was not the real father of Jesus. He was only His guardian-father.
Jesus’ real father is God our heavenly Father, through the Holy Spirit working through the Word that Gabriel, the angel, spoke. And so, Mary became pregnant through her ears as the Holy Spirit entered her through the spoken Word of the angel. Jesus’ conception didn’t happen in a normal, earthly way, but in a heavenly and divine way. As St. Matthew tells us, Jesus’ conception was through or from “the Holy Spirit.”
That’s how God sent His Son to become our salvation. That’s how God sent His Son to create a new and different beginning for us. At the dawn time, God formed Adam, our first parent, from the new, virgin earth and gave him life by breathing into him His breath, His Spirit. But Adam became disobedient and fell into sin. That drove the gift of God’s life far away, which is why every one of us returns to the dust of the earth in death.
And so for our salvation, Jesus becomes the second Adam. God the Father forms His humanity from the virgin soil of Mary’s womb and His very breath, His Holy Spirit. God didn’t form Jesus from the soil of a new earth, but from the dust that is our flesh in the womb of the Virgin Mary.
That was how Jesus came to be the beginning of a new humanity, a second Adam, who could save us while our old humanity still entrapped us. Jesus’ Holy-Spirited conception is something on which our Faith stands or falls. For if the Holy Spirit didn’t bring about Mary’s pregnancy, then Jesus was just a man, not the God in human flesh who saves us for eternity.
But poor Joseph doesn’t know about this–at least, not yet. So, imagine Joseph’s predicament. In his mind, he must have gone back and forth about Mary being pregnant. He could have made her pregnancy public, showing that he had no part in an unlawful adultery. But, according to the Law, that would have exposed Mary as an adulteress. That would have meant the death sentence for her. But if Joseph pretended that Mary’s pregnancy never happened, he then would be consenting of her actions. What was Joseph to do?
St. Matthew explains what Joseph had decided to do: “[Mary’s] husband Joseph was an honorable man and did not want to disgrace her publicly. So he intended to divorce her privately” (Matthew 1:19). That’s what Joseph was going to do–divorce her privately.
Betrothal was serious. The culture of that time considered those who were betrothed as husband and wife, of course without the sexual relations. That would happen after marriage. Betrothal was so serious that someone could break the betrothal, call off the marriage, only by going through a divorce. It wasn’t like today’s marriage engagements.
And if early-Church tradition is accurate, Joseph had previously married and had other children. Those children became the brothers and sisters of Jesus, which the New Testament mentions. Joseph’s earlier wife had died, and he was a man with a long-established and good reputation (Epiphanius of Salamis). What then should he do?
And when we learn what Joseph finally does, he gives us a good, Christian example on how to deal with sin. Of course, we still call a sin a sin. But we should also seek to deal with sin in compassion and mercy. We should see beyond the weakness that makes a sin so easy to commit and, instead, see the Son of God, born of the Virgin Mary, who came to set us free from our weaknesses and sins.
That’s the way God treats you. He saw, even from conception, how the germ of sin has infected each of us. That’s why we have the sinful cravings and the evil thoughts that we do. We sin because we are conceived in sin. We don’t become sinners because we happen to do something wrong. Sin is our congenital condition, which we’ve inherited from Adam.
That’s why God sent His Son to be the second Adam, to be born in a new and pure way. That was so we, who are born in sin, could be reborn into holiness through the forgiveness of sins. That’s why Scripture calls baptism a new birth (John 3:5-7). That’s why God uses baptism to bring you into the forgiveness of sins (Acts 2:38). That’s the new birth that God uses to bring you into the new life of Christ.
Well, back to Joseph. He didn’t divorce Mary. He, instead, responded to Mary’s pregnancy by becoming the face of Jesus to her, to the one who was swaddling the Christ-child within her womb. Joseph sacrificed his reputation to save Mary’s life. That’s also what Jesus did. He responded to your sin by sacrificing His reputation on the cross, giving up His sinless life for your sinful one, all so you could live forever in the forgiveness of sins.
Jesus, the Messiah, shows us what it means to be righteous. It offends Him that your sins enslave you. So Jesus becomes human in every way, except sin, so when He dies His death, He can give you His life. That’s what the Angel Gabriel meant when he said: “Joseph, son of David, don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21).
That’s the salvation we need. That’s the salvation for which we long. That’s the salvation that becomes reality on Christmas day, when Jesus becomes the infant God in human flesh. Jesus becomes our God, coming to us in the closest, possible way. He becomes human–sinless and perfect, to save us from our sins and defects. He comes to live within our hearts through His Gospel message, the preached Word. He enters our bodies through His Supper, giving us the holiness and life that He brought into the world through His incarnation.
And now, we look forward to His return on the Last Day, when this wonderful salvation will be visible for all to see. On that Day, the Son, who became human by the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, will arrive on the clouds. It is then that we will arrive in eternity wearing the robe of a sinless, perfect human flesh, reunited to our souls, into God’s rule and reign of everlasting life. Amen.
