01/02 - God Picks a Stepfather for His Son

Matthew 1:18-25

God had a delicate situation. His son was to have every human experience, including growing from infancy to adulthood. God would be constrained in how He intervened in the rearing of Jesus, a responsibility that would fall mainly on the boy’s mother and stepfather. Jesus would even learn the concept father first through his daily experiences with the one God picked for that stepfather role.

This passage gives us a glimpse of the character of Joseph. Imagine the scene where Mary tells him she was not just pregnant but pregnant by the Holy Spirit. Joseph was shocked and felt betrayed. The story about the Holy Spirit sounded like a weak attempt to divert attention away from her moral failure. Perhaps it made him question her mental stability. Despite the grief, anger, and dismay he felt, Joseph decided to break their betrothal quietly to reduce her embarrassment and punishment.

However, Joseph was not to have it so easy. God called him to continue the betrothal and to marry her. People then, as now, knew babies came in nine months, and they would interpret Mary’s expanding belly as evidence of his moral failure too. We can imagine how this pregnancy tarnished this good man’s reputation.

Based on how he is described in this passage, we can guess at how Joseph lived a life of kindness, strength, and godliness before his stepson. Jesus would eventually know the truth about his father. However, it was first from Joseph he learned about being a good man as he followed in Joseph’s steps in childhood, and as he worked in adolescent years with his stepfather in the family carpentry business.

Throughout his life, Jesus would think fondly about the strength and character he learned from Joseph. He would draw on this strength and character as he, like Joseph, sought to obey God in every situation regardless of its difficulty.