Third Presbyterian Sunday Morning Bible Study - December 20, 2020

Below is the Bible Study written by Jim Rudiger for his Sunday School Class which meets at Third Presbyterian Church, Norfolk, Virginia. It's based on Matthew 1:18-25.

What does it mean to be “between a rock and a hard place”? There aren’t any good choices.  No matter what you decide to do will probably end up hurting you.  Have you ever been “between a rock and a hard place”? Most of my “rock and a hard place” decisions involve food. If I eat butter pecan ice cream, I’ll get fat, but will be happy.  If I eat celery I won’t get fat, but, I will hate myself for picking something healthy and boring - not something creamy sweet with big pieces of pecan in it. Or, whether to walk a mile or do fifty push ups. That’s when I add a third choice - laying on the sofa and flipping through the TV stations with the remote. It takes me a lot of rationalizing to pick laying on the sofa as my “hard place”

In today’s study, Joseph is between a rock and a hard place. He doesn’t have a butter pecan ice cream choice or laying on the sofa choice. Let’s see how Joseph handled his “rock and a hard place” problem.

There are two Gospels which start with the actual birth of Jesus.  And, it is good that there are two because one, the Matthew account, the one we are studying today, tells the story from the Joseph point of view and the Luke account, from Mary’s point of view.  Now-a-days, the Luke account is the most popular, but when the New Testament was put together in the fourth century AD, Matthew’s book was the most popular Gospel.  There is a lot about the Gospel of Matthew that has a home in our culture today.  Have you ever used or heard somebody else use these phrases: “the blind leading the blind,” “burning of the midnight oil,” “salt of the earth,” “casting pearls before swine,” “ wolves in sheep’s clothing” and “not letting the left hand know what the right hand is doing which seems to be goal of serving in congress?”  All of these popular sayings were first used in the Gospel of Matthew.  So the next time you hear one of these phrases or use one yourself, remember that you or the person saying it is quoting directly from Matthew’s Gospel.

Here is what has happened as we start our study.  An angel, Gabriel, told Mary she was going to have the son of God and she accepted that task.  Gabriel told Mary that, although her relative, Elizabeth, was considered barren, she was pregnant and would have a son too.  Mary went to see Elizabeth and as soon as Mary walked into the house, Elizabeth’s baby leapt in her womb signaling that Elizabeth was pregnant just like the angel had said which meant that Mary having God’s son was true too. Mary spent about three months with Elizabeth - until John was born - and then went back home.  By then, she’s three months pregnant and maybe is starting to show. So, she sat down with Joseph, her betrothed, and tells him what had happened. What will Joseph do when he hears the news? Lets see how today’s scripture describes Joseph’s reaction.

Matthew 1:18 Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. 19 Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly.

Before we get into Joseph’s story, there is something interesting in the verse 18.  What does Matthew tell us happened?  “Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.” The word translated “birth” can be translated as “in the beginning”.  Matthew may have been emphasizing not a normal delivery of a baby, but the beginning of the Messiah’s human presence on this earth.  If this was Matthew’s purpose, then vs 18 reads,”Now the beginning of Jesus the Messiah took place this way.”  This is similar to how Mark starts his gospel.  Of course, John’s gospel goes back to the beginning of the universe.

Back to poor Joseph.  You knoow.  Joseph is almost the forgotten man in our nativity scenes.  When you see a nativity scene, what or who stands out?  In my manger scene, front and center, is Mary, the baby Jesus and an angel.  The three wise men are gathered around the manger holding gifts although they really didn’t show up until months later.  There is a little shepherd boy and one sheep.   My poor one sheep only has three legs having lost one leg over sixty years ago in some packing away accident.  He kind of leans against the shepherd boy in order to stand up.  I just don’t have the heart to replace that crippled little sheep.  You see, this crippled sheep is my own personal Tiny Tim.  There is a donkey, a cow and a camel too.  If you search through all the people and animals, there - in a far dark corner of the manger - stands Joseph.  He could be the mailman for all anybody cares.  Well, today Joseph steps out in front and gets his due.

For us living in 2020, the condition of Mary and Joseph’s relationship appears to be a little strange.  Here we have a couple who are engaged and not living together and scripture refers to Joseph as Mary’s husband.  Not only that, but, even though they are only engaged and not living together, Joseph is planning on divorcing Mary.  Sounds like a show for HBO doesn’t it?  So what is happening here?

Just so we are all on the same page, lets review this relationship between Joseph and Mary.  It wasn’t some nutty religious sect kind of thing.  Actually, it was quite normal in the first century Jewish culture.  In those days there were three steps to getting married. It’s kind of a three strikes and you’re out thing.

(1) There was the engagement.  A lot of time the engagement was made when the couple were just children.  The parents or a professional match maker decided on who and when a marriage would take place.  Many times the kids scheduled to get married didn’t even know each other.  The thinking was that marriage was too important a step to be left to some dopey goo-goo eyed kids.  You know what?  I think they were on to something.  Jackie and I would pick out the perfect guy or gal for one of our children.  But, if we ever told our son or daughter about this sweet girl or nice boy, it was the kiss of death for that girl or boy.  Even if she looked like Catherine Zeta Jones and had the personality of Debbie Reynolds, she was Marjorie Main in our son’s eyes. 

(2) There was the betrothal.  The betrothal was when the engagement arrangements were ratified.  In other words being engaged didn’t necessarily lead to marriage.  It was a conditional contract that had to be ratified at a later date.  You see, if the girl said, “I  wouldn’t marry Julius if he was the last man on earth.”, then the deal was called off.  Poor dopey guys didn’t get the same choice.  Once the betrothal was agreed to, then it was like it was cast in concrete.  It was an absolutely binding contract.  Now the betrothal lasted for a year and during that year the boy and girl would be known as husband and wife even though there was no living together and consummating taking place.  If things didn’t work out, the only way to terminate the betrothal was to get a divorce.  Now here's something strange.  If the boy died before the year was up, the girl was called “a virgin who was a widow.”  As our study begins, Joseph and Mary are in the betrothal stage and were known as husband and wife. 

(3) The final stage was the actual marriage.  This took place after the one year betrothal.  This is the part of the marriage routine that Mary is facing. She was surprised and scared when she met Gabriel.  Mary was called to accept what God had planned for her and she agreed.  Joseph was another matter.  Put yourself in Joseph’s place.  You are engaged to this nice little Jewish girl and you are looking forward to a normal family life.  Mary returns from visiting Elizabeth and recognizes that she is beginning to show, so she has to tell Joseph what had happened to her right now.  That must have been a hard thing for Mary to do.  Remember, she was just a child, maybe thirteen years old, while Joseph was probably about thirty.  Gabriel told her that she was going to have a baby by the Holy Spirit.  There is nothing about Gabriel counseling her about how to tell her Mom and Dad or her fiancé.  Mary was on her own for that.  After she built up enough nerve, she sat down with Joseph and told him that she was expecting a baby. 

Joseph is shocked when he finds out that Mary is going to have a baby.  He knows that he isn’t the father but he obviously had some tender feelings for Mary.  He doesn’t want to make Mary an outcast by exposing her pregnancy.  His plan was take her out of town and quietly get a divorce in Pungo.  I remember when I was in school, there would be girls who were called “easy” girls.  All of the sudden we were told that the “easy” girl was visiting an aunt in another city.  The funny thing about these visits was that they always lasted for nine months.  Being dumb as posts, we guys never seemed to figure it out and settled for it being a coincidence.  Oh, I would hear my aunts mention something about the Florence Crittingham Home, but, I thought that it was an old folks home where they were scheming to send Grandmomma.

Matthew’s brief story of Joseph tells us some things about his character.  What is the first thing Matthew tells us about Joseph?  He was a righteous man.  What is a righteous man, at least in Jewish terms?  He was a good Jew.  He followed the Law.  He probably made all the sacrifices and ritualistic cleansing that he was suppose to at the Temple.  He observed all of the religious celebrations. He went to all of the Bible studies.  To sum it up, he was a just good Jewish man.  As a righteous man who followed the law, what do you think he should have done about his fiancé showing up pregnant?  The law wouldn’t have condoned marrying Mary  which left him with one choice under the Law - to divorce Mary. This is Joseph’s “between a rock and a hard place” moment. As a righteous man under the Mosaic law, he would have to drag Mary through a public trial accusing her as having committed adultery.  Do you know what the Mosaic law for Mary’s punishment would be if she was convicted of adultery?  Death by stoning. Death by stoning started with the Mary being thrown off a high ledge and if that didn’t kill the her, to have huge rocks tossed down on her prostrate body. This meant that Mary and her unborn child would probably be killed.  And guess who had to throw the first stone?  The fiancé - Joseph. He would come away from the stoning considered by all of his Jewish friends as a righteous Jew.  Everybody would have admired him for doing the right thing. Is this the course Joseph took?  No, and that brings up the second trait we learn about Joseph.     

What does Joseph decide to do?  Dismiss her quietly.  What does "dismiss her" mean?  Divorce her.  Why quietly?  To save Mary from being disgraced or even sentenced to death.  Here is how Joseph could quietly divorce Mary.  All he had to do was to simply present a bill of divorce to two witnesses, probably two close friends, who he was sure wouldn’t blab it all over town.  He would not even have to disclose the reason for the divorce, but, it wouldn’t be long before Mary’s condition would be known to everybody.  So, Joseph is righteous but righteous with compassion and kindness.

Matthew 1:20 But just when he had resolved to do 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 as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. 21 She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." 22 All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:

23 "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel," which means, "God is with us." 

Joseph had it all planned out.  I’m sure he told Mary about his plans.  Everything was set and Joseph was just about to put his plan in action, when all of the sudden who shows up? An angel appears to him in a dream.  How does the angel address Joseph?  As the son of David.  In other words, there is no doubt that Joseph’s ancestor was King David.  Why is that important?  You see, it was important to establish Joseph as being in the line of David because the prophets had said that the Messiah has to come from the line of David. But Joseph isn’t Jesus’ biological father, so why is it so important that he be from the line of David?  Back then, if a child was adopted it was as if he was the natural born child of the husband and he was accepted as inheriting all of the father’s ancestors.  So, as far as the Jews were concerned, Jesus would be Joseph’s son which meant that David was his ancestor.  Does Matthew tell us the angel’s name?  Who do you think it was?  It probably was Gabriel.  Who the angel was, was not as important as what he said.

The angel confirms that Mary is going to have a baby and then he blew Joseph’s mind by telling him that the pregnancy was caused by the Holy Spirit.  Remember, up to this point Joseph knows Mary is pregnant.  He doesn’t know and doesn’t want to know who the father is.  That's what drove him to seek a divorce.  Further more, the angel tells Joseph that this is a special baby and Joseph should call off his plans to divorce Mary.  What does the angel tell Joseph he should name the baby? Jesus, the Greek form of the Jewish name, Joshua, which means “Jehovah is salvation.”  Joseph does what the angel tells him to do.  This means that not only will Mary get flack from the town’s busy body women, but, Joseph will be held up by the guys in the town as a sucker who is marrying damaged goods.  By Joseph going along with this, tells us a lot about the character of Joseph.  He was willing to sacrifice his standing and reputation in the community for doing what God wanted him to do.  Definitely not a “me first” kind of guy.

We just talked about the fact that Joseph wasn’t the biological father.  But, there is another thing happening here.  In the Jewish culture men married women from the same tribe.  It was the Jewish Law.  This was done so that the uniqueness of the tribe wasn’t lost.  Any Jew back then reading this account would immediately recognize that Joseph and Mary both came from the same tribe, meaning that they had a shared ancestry.  This means that Mary was as much a descendant of David as Joseph was.  So, Jesus actually did have David’s blood through Mary.

 If we study these verses carefully, we see that the stress is not so much on the virgin birth of Jesus, but, on the fact that the baby was result of the Holy Spirit.  What does the angel clearly tell Joseph?  “The child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”  Matthew is underlining this fact.  Here is why Matthew believes this fact is important for the Jews to understand about Mary’s condition. In Jewish teachings, the Holy Spirit had some very definite duties. Joseph was a simple man, but, he knew his Bible and knew what those duties were.  So what were the duties of the Holy Spirit?

(1) The Holy Spirit was the being who brought God’s truth to men.  He was the one who told the prophets what God wanted them to say and do.  So, Jesus is the one person who personifies God’s truth to men.   How does he do that?  Jesus is the one person who let’s us see God and know what God is like.  Before Jesus came to us, people had only vague idea’s about just who and what God was.  He was a booming voice on a mountain.  A burning bush.  He was pillar of fire leading the Israelites out of Egypt. He was all of these things, but, people didn’t or couldn’t see God.  Even Moses had to turn his face away so he didn’t see God.  That all changed with Jesus.  Jesus tells us, “He who has seen me has seen the Father.”  No beating around the bush - not even a burning bush.  No equivocating.  Just the facts, ma’m. 

(2) The Jews believed that not only did the Holy Spirit bring God’s truth to men, but, he enabled men to recognize the truth when they saw it.  It is one thing to be told something is the absolute truth, but, it only becomes our truth when we can accept it.  And that comes when we see the proof of the truth.  I saw a show on the Learning Channel a while back that said there was a guy in Europe who was born without eyes and yet he paints beautiful pictures.  I was thinking, “Oh, yeah.  Like the monkey who throws paint at a canvas and some dopey art critic swoons over the monkey masterpiece.”  The monkey didn’t do anything but play with paints.  He had no idea about form, color or plan.  I admit that I couldn’t accept the truth of the monkey critic so it wasn’t a truth to me.   It was with this cynicism that I approached this show about the blind painter.  But this blind guy was for real.  He planned all of his pictures in his head and then used his fingers dipped in paint to construct the scene he saw in his mind.  There was an ocean scene with boats on the water and sea gulls swooping down.  All done with brilliant colors.  A scene he never saw as we do, but, one he saw in his mind.  How did he see them without eyes?  He has been drawing from an early age constructing in his mind what his hands had felt, his ears heard and what nose had smelled.  The truth of this man’s gift was one that I could accept as my truth because there it was for me to see.  It was a truth that had been tested and passed the test.  That is how Jesus effects us.  When he comes into our lives we see things differently.  Sometimes religious things that we doubted become our truths through Jesus.

Matthew 1:24 When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife, 25 but had no marital relations with her until she had borne a son; and he named him Jesus.

In Luke Mary was called to accept.  In Matthew, Joseph was called to act.  Three times the angel told Joseph to do something and he did it.  In today’s study, the angel told him to marry Mary and what does he do? He marries her. Even though he marries Mary, what doesn’t he do? No martial relations until she had delivered Jesus. Why did he restrain himself? He recognized that Jesus was special - holy - and he didn’t want anyone to ever consider that he was physically the baby’s father. That Jesus was the son of God, not the son of Joseph.  It is implied that after the baby was born, he had normal relations with Mary. Why add this fact? While they had participated in the birth of God’s son, they were ordinary people doing God’s will, but they were a married couple.  They did what married couples do.  They didn’t have to be 100% perfect because salvation came from the son, not them. 

Now with Jesus’ birth, Mary and Joseph can be a normal old married couple.  Does that mean that their problems are over?  No! Mary and Joseph, like other parents will have to raise Jesus in a hostile world.  I think that during their quiet time, Joseph reflected on that special moment when the angel brought God’s word to him in a dream. God called Joseph to act and he did.  I think that earns Joseph the right to stand up front in every nativity scene.

So, are you “between a rock and a hard place”? Before you complain about your choice between butter pecan ice cream and celery think about what Joseph faced. He could have taken the easy way out and washed his hands of Mary, but he was righteous and that means in Paul’s definition of righteous.  Joseph did what was right with God. If we want a role model for dealing with "being between a rock and a hard place", we have to look no further than Joseph. 

Prayer: Father, thank you for giving us an example of facing unpleasant problems.  May we use him as our model for making the right decisions, the decisions that please you.  Amen.