LESSON 2 READ: Chapter 1, Verses 18-25 SUMMARY AND COMMENT In this lesson Matthew told of the birth of Jesus. He began his account by telling a story about a carpenter named Joseph and his fiancée named Mary. The couple were engaged (pledged or betrothed) to be married. It is important to understand the Jewish culture of that time in order to understand the relationship between Joseph and Mary as the narrative begins. The betrothal period was supposed to last for one year. During this time there were to be no sexual relations between the couple. They were not considered "married" and did not live together, but in order to break off the relationship, it would be necessary to have a "divorce." If a woman''s fiancée would die during the engagement year, she would be referred to as a "virgin who is a widow.
"1 During some point in the first year of the engagement, Mary was found to be pregnant. Joseph was a righteous man and very compassionate, too. He did not want to expose Mary to public disgrace, so he decided to divorce her "quietly" even though they were not yet married. One night Joseph had a dream and an angel appeared to him. The angel told Joseph not to be afraid and that the baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit. The angel said the baby was a son and that he was to be named Jesus because he would save his people from their sins. Jesus is the Greek form of the name Joshua.2 The name Joshua is Hebrew and means "the one who will save his people from their sins.
"(cf. Psalm 130:8) The angel also told Joseph not to be afraid and to marry Mary. At this point in his narrative Matthew made his claim that this whole situation took place to fulfill what the prophet Isaiah had foretold. (Isaiah 7:14) "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son and they will call him Immanuel - which means ''God with us.''" After Joseph woke up he obeyed the words of the angel. He took Mary into his home as his wife. But, Matthew said, the couple did not have any marital relations until after the baby was born and after they had named him Jesus. It is interesting to compare Matthew''s account of the details of the relationship between Joseph and Mary, the pregnancy of Mary, and the messages from angels to each person with Luke''s account of the same situation.
(Luke 1:26-38) If we only had Luke to read, we would know that an angel named Gabriel visited a young woman named Mary in Nazareth and told her that she soon would be with child. Not only that, but the child was the Son of God! Joseph was only mentioned in passing as someone Mary was pledged to marry. In Luke''s account we learned how the angel''s visit and the messages affected Mary. In Matthew''s account a "quiet" divorce was something that Joseph considered. That might have happened if the angel hadn''t intervened to tell Joseph in a dream that the child conceived in her was of the Holy Spirit. In Matthew''s account we learned how each new revelation affected Joseph as the facts became known to him. I think this difference in perspective of Matthew and Luke illustrates how we are very blessed to have events such as these told through the eyes of the different Apostles. As we read this text it is important to keep in mind the important work of the Holy Spirit.
We know that our God is a creator God. In Genesis 1:2 we read "Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep, and the Spirit of God was hovering over the waters." The Holy Spirit was there at the beginning of creation on the earth. The angel told Joseph that the child within Mary was conceived through the Holy Spirit. Remember that we recite in our Apostle''s Creed, "He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit." We need to keep in mind how Joseph would have heard this message. The Jewish people ___________________________________ 1William Barclay, The Gospel of Matthew, Vol. 1 (Louisville-London: Westminster John Knox Press, Revised and updated by Saint Andrew Press, 2001), 22 2Meaning of name Joshua, www.
abarim-publications.com/Meaning/Joshua.html believed the Holy Spirit brought God''s truth to men and women. The Holy Spirit also enabled people to recognize truth when they saw it.3 When Joseph heard from the angel that the baby Jesus was conceived through the Holy Spirit he was confident that it was true. Therefore, the Holy Spirit was at work in two ways: first, so that Jesus would come into our world and second, to enable Joseph to believe what the angel was telling him. 3 William Barclay, id., 24.