A reading of the holy gospel according to Matthew. Now this is a continuation of yesterday's reading where we had that long genealogy which traces back Christ's ancestry way way back and brings it down to Joseph, his foster father. So now, Saint Matthew tells us more about that. This continues right after that genealogy. Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
When his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, But before they lived together, Mary was found with child through the power of the holy spirit. Joseph, her husband, an upright man, unwilling to expose Mary to the law, decided to divorce her quietly. Such was his intention when suddenly the angel of the lord appeared in a dream and said to Joseph, Joseph, son of David, have no fear about taking Mary as your wife. It is by the holy spirit that she has conceived this child. Mary is to have a son, and you are to name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.
All this happened to fulfill what the lord had said through his prophet, the virgin shall be with child and give birth to a son, and they shall they shall call him Emmanuel, a name which means god is with us. When Joseph awoke from this dream, he did as the angel of the lord had directed him and received Mary into his home as his wife. He had no relations with her at any time before she bore a son whom he named Jesus. And this is the gospel of the lord. In the name of the father and of the son and of the holy spirit, amen.
If yesterday's reading, that long genealogy of that lengthy series of names, a few only of which mean anything to us unless we spend a great deal of time researching it, we may have found that a bit boring. I tried to point out that whatever else may be said about that genealogy, it stresses in detail the fact that Jesus was human, that he had an ancestor. Now this excerpt that we have today from Saint Matthew follows right after the genealogy of yesterday, and it seems to me to be pointing to the same thing in extremely simple language. It reads something like an ordinary humdrum normal report of an event, nothing great that you might read in your morning's paper or the afternoon star. It reads in such a commonplace, ordinary way that it's easy for us to miss what is being said.
It's easy for us not to realize what's going on here. It's most easy for us to simply because it's so familiar, not to have what what these words mean have an impact upon our thinking and really startle us, startle us to the very depths of our being. If you just think about what is stated here in the most calm, matter of fact terms. That here was a girl, she was supposed to marry Joseph, She's found with child. According to the law, she should be taken to the court, and the death sentence could have been placed upon her because it was a it what happened here was equivalent to adultery.
And Joseph then, her husband to be, but this tie with a fiance in those days was a very close one. So that Joseph was torn here between being kind and generous and being benevolent to this young woman who was to be his wife on the one hand and not expose her to the law, even though that even though before the law she was guilty of adultery, he had that on the one hand, and on the other hand he had the law which said, if if here is the law, if you violate it, you should then be pay the penalty. So Joseph was torn between, let us say, a kindly love and generosity towards his fiancee, and on the other hand, his allegiance to the law. Because we have been told that Joseph was a just man. That's one of the most significant phrases in the New Testament about Joseph, that he was a just man.
Well, certainly, a just man has to obey the law. And so Joseph is in a very bad state here. The situation is critical, and he's torn between the what appears to be two goods. And then it's resolved by this wonderful event which happens in a dream, where he's told, in a dream now mind you, And he knows it's a dream because the text says he woke up. And in that dream, he's told and notice how common place the language is.
When we the text says that an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and tells him, well, this child is not the ordinary child, that this child was begotten by the holy spirit, that this child is something extremely special, and don't have any fear about taking this girl to be your lawful wife. And then Joseph wakes up, and then he does what he was told to do in a dream. This dream always bothers me. Here is a man making a tremendously important decision because of a dream. What convinced him that this dream had any more substance than a lot of other dreams he had?
Many a time he may have dreamed that he that he had a beautiful house, a beautiful workshop, that he had a beautiful family, But when he woke up, he didn't have any of those things. And now when he wakes up from this dream, he does exactly what the angel in the dream told him to do. This always amazes me. Amazes me. What convinced him to do this?
What gave him the key to this man's committing his life to a situation on the basis of a dream. And we make a big mistake if we think that just because we're separated from these people by a few thousand years that they were ignorant or that they were primitive in their thinking. They weren't. They were they knew a dream from reality. Some of us don't, but they did.
They were just about as gullible or non gullible as we are. And very few of us, when we're acting rationally, would commit our lives as a consequence of something that came to us in a dream. Some people will. I know that. I know people who would do it.
But we don't call that acting completely rationally today, and neither in his time would that have been considered rational conduct. Now what convinced him to do this? I don't know. I just don't know. But something did.
Something about this whole situation persuaded Joseph that this was something very special. And on that persuasion, he acted. He acted immediately and without hesitation. Is it possible that part of the answer lies in that little phrase, he was a just man. Isn't it possible, and that's all I say for it, that this man who did not who who who did hesitate to hand over to the law a a young girl who apparently had violated the law because he had a kindness kindliness in his heart, because he was a benevolent person, because he was a just man.
And remember, justice is something far transcendent to the letter of a law. It's one thing to talk about legalities. It's a totally different thing in many instances to talk about justice. Today, for the most part, we talk about legality. We may use the word justice, but in most instances, we're talking about some written law promulgated by some court with appropriate and proper jurisdiction.
But justice goes way beyond that. Isn't it possible that in this case that Joseph, because he was a just man, a good man, a benevolent man, a generous man, a kindly man, that all of these things prepared him to be persuaded by a dream. The dream may have just been the little bit of evidence or persuasion that he needed to push him in the way that he wanted to go to preserve the reputation of this young woman and not to destroy her. Remember, his reputation is riding on this too. His future is riding on this.
His life is riding on this just as much as Mary's. And so it seems to me that in this text, if you just take it and read it quietly, think it over, try to get behind these words, you too will be astonished. You too will be startled and maybe for once will get behind words to see the tremendous dramatic drama which took place in this simple little incident nearly two thousand years ago. In the name of the father and the son and holy spirit. Amen.