Did you know there’s a company called “The Alibi Agency.” This London based agency’s slogan is: “We serve those who stray.” Here’s what’s on their web site: “With the pressures of modern life many of us have occasion to stray from our long term partners & dally with a brief sexual relationship with a third party, this is often a short term affair, inconsequential to our long term plans & relationships, but with modern communications, and media, it has become increasingly difficult to be able to carry on such a temporary dalliance, without risk of detection.. The Alibi Agency was established to provide a way out of this situation, we offer a Service which can help to protect your loved ones from undue anxiety, & help ensure the stability of a long term relationship by offering secure and professional handling of "Alibi’s" for you.
For instance: - we can provide you with invitations to corporate events, to cover your absence, we will provide telephone answering so that if someone tries to contact you, our receptionists will handle the call in the manner which was pre-arranged with you, as maybe a hotel receptionist, or a golf club secretary, she will offer to call your room, or have you paged, giving recognition to the fact that you are actually resident in the facility..” It goes on but you get the picture.. It’s a very expensive service costing some $10k. But in the last 2 months they’ve received 1800 requests for their services, 33% of those from women. God has a better way! One that’s a whole lot cheaper and much less stressful - it’s called faithfulness! It’s called doing exactly what God wants you to do.
It is a Judeo/Christian tradition for us to use biblically based seasons of the year for times of reflection, contemplation and personal change. By next week some of you will be thinking about the coming New Year. It will be a whole lot more effective for you in the making of New Year’s resolutions if you do it from the perspective of this message today.
The story of Jesus birth is recorded by both Matthew and Luke in the New Testament, yet they approach the story very differently.
Luke emphasizes Mary's role. In Luke's Gospel, the angel appears to Mary and tells her about the child that she is to bear. Mary goes to visit Elizabeth, and Elizabeth says wonderful things about Mary's baby. Mary sings a song of praise that is beautiful poetry. In Luke's Gospel, we hear almost nothing about Joseph.
Matthew's Gospel is just the opposite. Matthew's Gospel starts with Jesus' genealogy –– traced from Abraham through Joseph, not Mary. The angel appears to Joseph –– not Mary.
Matthew describes Joseph as a righteous man (1:19) –– meaning that Joseph tries to live according to God's law –– tries to do what God wants. But Matthew also portrays Joseph as a kindly man who wants to avoid subjecting Mary to public disgrace (1:19). In other words, Matthew portrays Joseph as righteous, but not self-righteous.
In Luke's Gospel, Mary is mentioned eleven times in the first two chapters, but Joseph only three times. In Luke's Gospel, Mary occupies center stage.
But in Matthew's Gospel, Joseph is mentioned nine times in the first two chapters, and Mary only four times. In Matthew's Gospel, Joseph occupies center stage.
The reason for these differences is simple. Luke was a Gentile writing for Gentiles, but Matthew was a Jew writing for Jews. Jews took great pride in tracing their lineage to Abraham, and the genealogy that we find in Matthew's Gospel would have been very important to them. They lived in a patriarchal world, and wanted a Jewish boy to trace his lineage to Abraham through his father.
Here are the words of Matthew as he tells the story:
“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, "Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: "The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, "God with us."
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.” Matthew 1:18-25 NIV
What you will see over the next few minutes is that Joseph was always faithful to what God wanted. It is incredible when you think about it. The Catholic Church has a theology that allows them to draw a halo around Mary’s head in much of the nativity art. This signifies their belief that she deserves a divine status.
We teach that only one in the drawings of the nativity deserve the mark of divinity and that would be Jesus the Son of God. I make this point to simply say that Joseph often gets overlooked as some necessary bystander to the whole story yet I believe that his story is just as important as any other in this narrative.
What we will learn about Joseph is what I would hope every one of us in this room today desire that others will say about us. What makes Joseph worth studying or thinking about? What makes him the focus of our attention today?
This one statement: Joseph always tried to do what God wanted him to do.
Matthew tells us that Joseph –– not Mary –– is to name the baby (1:21). Why is that important? It is important, because by naming the baby, Joseph claims the baby as his own. Joseph is not the baby's father, and he knows it. The angel tells him that the real father is the Holy Spirit –– but the angel also tells Joseph to marry the girl –– and to name the baby –– and to assume the public role of father. Those would not have been easy things for a righteous man to do, but do you know what Joseph did? Joseph did exactly what the angel told him to do. He married the girl –– and named the baby –– and assumed the public role of father. He did exactly what God wanted him to do.
That was just the beginning. Later, the angel told Joseph to take Mary and the baby to Egypt to escape Herod's wrath. Matthew tells it this way. He says, "Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod" (2:14-15). In other words, Joseph did exactly what God wanted him to do.
And then, when Herod died, the angel told Joseph to take mother and baby back to Israel. Matthew tells the story this way. He says, "Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel" (2:21). In other words, Joseph did exactly what God wanted him to do. He was always faithful.
And then, when Joseph was trying to figure out where to settle, God warned him in a dream not to settle in Judea, because there was a bad king there. So Joseph took his family to Galilee, far to the north. In other words, Joseph did exactly what God wanted him to do. He was always faithful.
And then there is one more thing that Matthew mentions in the last verse of our Gospel lesson. He says that Joseph "had no marital relations with (Mary) until she had borne a son" (1:25). Even after they were married, Joseph and Mary lived in abstinence until Jesus was born. Matthew doesn't tell us why Joseph did that, but it was surely because he thought that was what God wanted him to do.
All of which is to say that Joseph was a really fine man –– a Godly man.
We don't know much more about Joseph. We do know that he was a carpenter, because when Jesus spoke at his hometown synagogue, the people asked, "Is not this the carpenter's son?" (13:55).
Luke also tells that Joseph and Mary took Jesus to Jerusalem for the Passover when Jesus was twelve years old (Luke 2:41 ff.).
And that's it! That's all we know about Joseph! Joseph has no speaking role in the Gospels. He never says a mumbling word. We hear nothing more about him after the trip to Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve. We assume that he died while Jesus was a teenager.
But we know that Joseph was faithful to God –– and that made all the difference. It made all the difference to his family –– and it makes all the difference to us. God used faithful Joseph as a hinge on which to swing the door of history. Without a faithful man like Joseph, none of this Jesus-stuff would have happened. There wouldn't be any Christmas. There wouldn't be anyone to save us from our sins (1:21). God needed a Godly man and a Godly woman to carry out his work. Joseph was the Godly man. Mary was the Godly woman.
We can all learn something from Joseph's faithfulness. In every instance that Joseph is mentioned, he is doing what God wants him to do:
The Bible portrays its heroes honestly. It deals with David's adultery right upfront. It deals with Samson's foolishness right upfront. But it has only good things to report of Joseph. Joseph was a faithful man. In every instance, he tried to do what God wanted him to do.
It doesn't matter who you are –– boy or girl –– woman or man –– the world will be a better place if you follow Joseph's example –– and your life will be better too. The quality of your life will start getting better the day you get serious about doing what God wants you to do –– and it will keep getting better as long as you continue doing what God wants you to do. That doesn't mean that you won't have problems, but it does mean that God will be right there with you –– guiding you –– giving you strength –– helping you to get past those problems.
Stephen Beck told about crossing a narrow bridge on a country road. When I read his story, I knew exactly what kind of bridge he was describing. I haven't seen one in years, but I used to see them now and then. They were narrow, one-lane bridges on country roads. Two cars could not pass each other on those bridges. If there was a car on the bridge when you got there, you had to stop and wait for it to finish crossing before you could go. If you and another car got on the bridge at the same time, you would be nose-to-nose and one of you would have to back off the bridge.
So Beck told about coming to one of those bridges and seeing a Yield sign. After he crossed the bridge, he happened to look back and noticed that there was a Yield sign on that end too. He was curious enough that he stopped to check and, sure enough, there were Yield signs on both ends of the bridge.
When I read that story, I thought of Joseph, because whichever way Joseph was going, he always yielded to God. He never insisted on doing it his way. Once he knew what God wanted him to do, he did it. He was always faithful.
This is the call of God for all of our lives. This is the message that is most often delivered from this platform. This is the message that I would most want you to hear as a pastor of this church body.
A lot of the pain and hurt in people’s lives can be traced right back to this subject today.
In 1948, my father asked my mother to marry him and she ran away and didn’t talk to him for several days. They were living in dorms on a small college campus and it must have been a tough time. In the book of Ruth in the Old Testament, there is a story of a woman named Naomi and her daughter in law Ruth who was also a widow. Naomi suggests that she go back to her people but Ruth gives what is now a classic answer because she feels called to stay and take care of her mother in law.
She responded to Naomi’s suggestion with these words: “Don’t ask me to leave you and turn back. Wherever you go, I will go; wherever you live, I will live. Your people will be my people, and your God will be my God. 17 Wherever you die, I will die, and there I will be buried. May the LORD punish me severely if I allow anything but death to separate us!” Ruth 1:16—17 NLT
Those were the words my mother wrote in a note and slipped into my father’s hands a few days after he asked her to marry him. He carried them in his wallet for years until the paper disintegrated.
In 1948, a Swiss mountaineer named George de Mestral was walking through the woods and was very frustrated by the burs that clung to his clothes. While picking them off, he realized that it may be possible to use this principle to make a fastener to compete with the zipper. Velcro was inspired by the natural sticking properties of burrs.
If you look at a velcro strip, you’ll notice that it has two parts to it: a strip that has a web of tiny hooks; and a strip that has a web of tiny interwoven hoops. These two strips are a match for each other and when you join them together the hooks "catch" the loops and they become meshed together in a very strong bond.
I call you today to faithfulness. Joseph did whatever he thought God wanted him to do.
God lays out a plan for daily living in His word and we all have the choice to follow it or ignore it. A lot of us try to live somewhere in the middle between following God’s word and picking and choosing isolated pieces of it.
The call today is holiness and holy living. It is surrender to God of our lives, our loves, our priorities and our pursuits. It is the call to faithfulness.