Sermon Tone Analysis

Matthew 1:18-25

Evangelical Heritage Version

18This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place.

His mother, Mary, was pledged in marriage to Joseph.

Before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit.

19Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her.

So he decided to divorce her privately.

20But as he was considering these things, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

22All this happened to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23“Look, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son.

And they will name him Immanuel,” which means, “God with us.”

24When Joseph woke up from his sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him.

He took Mary home as his wife, 25but he was not intimate with her until she gave birth to her firstborn son.

And he named him Jesus.

An Unusual Birth

I.

He was not a high-powered man.

Then, even as now, far too many of those who considered themselves the intellectual elites would have never even given him a moment’s thought.

He worked in the skilled trades.

The highbrow in society often look down their noses at those who come to build or repair their homes and the things inside them.

When the tradesman is called in to perform service, the self-identifying elite assumes the skilled tradesman knows little outside his trade, and tries to cheat him by underpaying for his service.

This particular tradesman had even more strikes against him.

He lived in the wrong place.

Noone of importance was from there.

Everyone, regardless of trade or skill or knowledge was looked down on.

To borrow a phrase, his home was just on the wrong side of the tracks.

He was not a rich man, but he could make a living.

Everyone needed his kind of skill, for he was a carpenter.

There is always something that needs to be done, whether the work could be brought to the shop, or whether it was something he had to load up the tools on the cart to go onsite to do the work.

Though he didn’t really have much money, Joseph was betrothed.

Back then things worked a little differently than they do these days.

To get engaged required the prospective groom to pay a bride price.

Things were agreed on by the bride’s father.

The betrothal wasn’t the big wedding ceremony with the gifts and the wine and the party that would sometimes last for days—all of that would come later.

But the betrothal—the engagement—was tantamount to marriage.

In the eyes of God, the couple had pledged themselves to one another for life.

Despite the pledge to be united in marriage, that did not allow the couple to live together or to be sexually intimate with one another.

They were to maintain their celibacy until after they were officially married.

As much as the Bible talks about sexual sins, I would imagine people violated the terms of what God wanted all the time, even back in early New Testament times.

Joseph, however, was a righteous man, and did not violate the pledge or the letter of God’s laws in this matter.

He would wait for the marriage to be official.

“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ took place.

His mother, Mary, was pledged in marriage to Joseph.

Before they came together, she was found to be with child by the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18, EHV).

While Joseph was “just” a skilled tradesman, he wasn’t stupid.

The elites might make that mistake about those they think are of a lowly estate, but intelligence often has little impact on the profession an individual chooses.

Joseph knew a little something about pregnancy.

Pregnancy takes two people.

Mary had already been visited by an angel.

The angel told her: “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you.

So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God” (Luke 1:35, EHV).

Do you think Mary had mentioned this special visit to Joseph?

I would imagine so.

II.

“Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man” (Matthew 1:19, EHV).

Joseph had to ask himself a couple of questions.

Did he believe his bride-to-be?

One thing Joseph knew beyond a shadow of a doubt: he had not been one of the two people required to make a baby.

But, being a righteous man, Joseph would have known his Old Testament prophecies.

He would have known the prophecy that was our First Lesson for today; “Therefore the Lord himself will give you all a sign.

Look!

The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and call his name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14, EHV).

Christmas is a Mary-Jesus thing, not a Joseph-Jesus thing.

Christmas carols speak mainly about Mary and Jesus, not many mention Joseph.

Joseph winds up in the background.

He’s somewhere back with the shepherds and the angels who appeared to them in the fields and the Wise Men.

“Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her.

So he decided to divorce her privately” (Matthew 1:19, EHV).

Joseph had his doubts about Mary’s story.

He knew of the prophecy that a virgin would give birth to the Messiah, but he didn’t believe her when his bride told him she was the chosen one.

It didn’t seem logical.

She wasn’t from a prominent family.

Perhaps he forgot his Bible history.

David wasn’t from a prominent family originally, either, yet now the family line of David was the line from whom the Messiah would come.

Both Mary and he, himself, were of that family line.

In Matthew’s gospel, Christmas begins with Joseph’s dilemma about what to do with a wife-to-be whom he thinks is carrying another man’s child.

In the circumstances in which he found himself, Joseph had every right to make a big deal out of this situation.

He could embarrass Mary publicly and humiliate her.

The consequences for unfaithfulness back in those days was not pleasant.

It was death by stoning (Deuteronomy 22:23-24).

While Joseph didn’t seem to believe the story Mary told, he still loved her and did not want her to be subject to such punishment.

Joseph chose the form of divorce the Old Testament laws allowed which was to divorce without cause.

III.

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

21She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:20-21, EHV).

A visit from the angel in his dream gave Joseph exact and precise confirmation of what Mary had already told him.

She was the one to be the mother of the Messiah.

She had not been unfaithful to him.

“All this happened to fulfill what was spoken by the Lord through the prophet: 23 ‘Look, the virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son.

And they will name him Immanuel,’ which means, ‘God with us’” (Matthew 1:22-23, EHV).

Back in those days, people would soon know Mary was pregnant.

The little town the two were living separately in wasn’t very big—just a few hundred people.

Once her condition became apparent, the tongues would start to wag.

She wouldn’t be able to get away.

Women rarely traveled alone, so he couldn’t send her off by herself.

If the Child Joseph now understood to be Immanuel was born seemingly-illegitimate he would have a difficult time convincing people he was, indeed, the Messiah.

“When Joseph woke up from his sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him.

He took Mary home as his wife, 25but he was not intimate with her until she gave birth to her firstborn son.

And he named him Jesus” (Matthew 1:24-25, EHV).

Joseph woke up from his instructional dream and followed the instructions of the angel to the letter.