The Birth of Christ Announced to Joseph (Matthew 1:18-25)

After Joseph found out about Mary’s pregnancy, his head began to swim, we must imagine. He who was one of the righteous among his people, had kept his vows to abstain until marriage. But his betrothed wife, Mary, apparently had not. Questions of why and whom filled his grief-striken mind. Yet Joseph loved Mary and couldn’t embarrass her in public. To make a spectacle of her would seem to be an act of revenge and that he could not do. So, he had in mind to divorce her privately. That’s what they considered it back then. Their marital agreement wasn’t just an engagement. It was virtually marriage with the ceremony and what follows left to await the right time, when all was prepared.

Joseph was to prepare a place for Mary, in his father’s house. There, they would live and have a family. When he was done, at the agreed to time, he would lead a procession to receive his wife unto himself. They would enter the marriage ceremony and he would take her into their marital chamber and then they would become man and wife. But no longer! Everything was ruined, Joseph thought.
Still, the details could wait until morning. Joseph was tired, physically and mentally. He needed rest and so he drifted off to sleep.

During his sleep cycle, Joseph was disturbed by a vision inside of his head. An angel appeared to him in a dream saying,

“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name JESUS, for He will save His people from their sins.”

When recording these things, Matthew, one of the Lord’s disciples, stated that these things were written to fulfill that which was spoken by the prophet. Then quoting from Isaiah 7:14, he wrote,

“Behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a Son, and they shall call His name Immanuel,” which is translated, “God with us.”

Then Joseph, being the man of God he was, was not intimate with his wife Mary until after the birth of the baby Jesus.

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