Joseph's Story
In Seattle, where a kennel license is required if you house four or more pets, a woman with two dogs and a cat called the pet-license office for information. She explained that she was considering marriage to a man with two cats and a dog. “We both love our animals dearly and don’t want to give any up,” the woman said. “But if we get married, could we somehow continue to have the dogs and cats—under separate ownerships, as it were—so we wouldn’t have to take out a pet-kennel license?”
The official explained that since the three dogs and three cats would be housed on the same premises, a kennel license would be required. There was a moment’s silence at the other end of the line. Then the woman said, “I think you have just stopped a wonderful marriage,” and hung up abruptly.
—Seattle Times
Mt 1:18b–19 shows Joseph’s perception of the situation and his pious, yet uninformed, decision. Mary “was found” (presumably by Joseph) to be pregnant with the result that righteous and compassionate Joseph decided to cancel the legal marriage created by their betrothal. This is the natural human evaluation of the “origin” of Jesus Christ. Since his origin is not from Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, it must have been from a sinful union between Mary and another man. Ironically, although the narrator has informed the hearers/readers that Mary is pregnant “from the Holy Spirit,” Joseph can act only on the basis of his own logical understanding of the child’s origin. Joseph’s plan to divorce Mary discreetly “would leave both his righteousness (his conformity to the law) and his compassion intact.”36 Joseph is, for the right reasons, about to do the wrong thing, but God intervenes.
In Joseph’s well-meaning incomprehension, we have the first glimpse of a powerfully important theme in Matthew’s Gospel, namely, that in order for human beings to know the ways of God and his Christ, those ways must be revealed to them. They cannot attain to this knowledge and faith by their “own reason or strength.” Whether it is the difference between those who did not repent at Jesus’ miracles and those who did (11:25–28) or those on whom the seed of the Word falls in vain and those in whom the seed bears fruit (13:1–9), what makes the difference is that humans fail to understand unless God reveals his purposes to save in Jesus.
Mt 1:18b–19 shows Joseph’s perception of the situation and his pious, yet uninformed, decision. Mary “was found” (presumably by Joseph) to be pregnant with the result that righteous and compassionate Joseph decided to cancel the legal marriage created by their betrothal. This is the natural human evaluation of the “origin” of Jesus Christ. Since his origin is not from Joseph, Mary’s betrothed, it must have been from a sinful union between Mary and another man. Ironically, although the narrator has informed the hearers/readers that Mary is pregnant “from the Holy Spirit,” Joseph can act only on the basis of his own logical understanding of the child’s origin. Joseph’s plan to divorce Mary discreetly “would leave both his righteousness (his conformity to the law) and his compassion intact.”36 Joseph is, for the right reasons, about to do the wrong thing, but God intervenes.
In Joseph’s well-meaning incomprehension, we have the first glimpse of a powerfully important theme in Matthew’s Gospel, namely, that in order for human beings to know the ways of God and his Christ, those ways must be revealed to them. They cannot attain to this knowledge and faith by their “own reason or strength.” Whether it is the difference between those who did not repent at Jesus’ miracles and those who did (11:25–28) or those on whom the seed of the Word falls in vain and those in whom the seed bears fruit (13:1–9), what makes the difference is that humans fail to understand unless God reveals his purposes to save in Jesus. That revelation, moreover, possesses the power to evoke a trusting response in men and women, as Joseph will show in 1:24–25.