Looking Foolish, Following God’s Wisdom
As we approach Christmas, we will look together into the presence of Angels (Messengers of God) throughout the Christmas Story. Each of these Herald Angels comes with a message, and each of these messages tells us something of God’s will and agency in the world and in bringing about the Christmas Story.
So far, we’ve read passages from the Gospel of Luke, and the Angel has visited Zachariah and Mary, giving them each news of what their unborn babies would become.
This week, we switch from the Gospel of Luke to the Gospel of Matthew. The Christmas Story in Matthew begins with an angel visiting Joseph – and, throughout the story, the Angel will only visit Joseph.
Matthew, who was likely very well educated in Judaism before becoming one of Jesus’ disciples, believed his gospel’s purpose was to preach Jesus in Jewish communities of his time, so he references the Old Testament more than any other gospel author.
This passage offers us one such example, where Matthew follows the angel of the Lord’s speech with an immediate explanation of why the comments of the angel are so significant from the perspective of the Hebrew prophets.
Today, we continue our story with the first of the Angel’s visits to Joseph, the man who would become Jesus’ earthly father.
Matthew 1:18-25 – Joseph’s First Encounter with the Angel
The birth of Jesus took place like this. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. Before they enjoyed their wedding night, Joseph discovered she was pregnant. (It was by the Holy Spirit, but he didn’t know that.) Joseph, chagrined but noble, determined to take care of things quietly so Mary would not be disgraced.
While he was trying to figure a way out, he had a dream. God’s angel spoke in the dream: “Joseph, son of David, don’t hesitate to get married. Mary’s pregnancy is Spirit-conceived. God’s Holy Spirit has made her pregnant. She will bring a son to birth, and when she does, you, Joseph, will name him Jesus—‘God saves’—because he will save his people from their sins.” This would bring the prophet’s embryonic revelation to full term:
Watch for this—a virgin will get pregnant and bear a son;
They will name him Immanuel (Hebrew for “God is with us”).
Then Joseph woke up. He did exactly what God’s angel commanded in the dream: He married Mary. But he did not consummate the marriage until she had the baby. He named the baby Jesus.
(Matt. 1:18-25 MSG, Quoting Isaiah 7:14)
Commentary
We meet Joseph at the start of this passage in a time of distress in his life. Mary is “engaged to be married to” him, and he’s just discovered that she is pregnant – a horribly embarrassing discovery for him and a socially devastating one for her (if he chooses to make the news public).
Mary and Joseph’s betrothal to one another is not simply relational; rather, there are already legal contracts involved as was the custom of their day. Upon becoming engaged, a marriage contract would be drafted and signed by the parents, then later – months later, the marriage feast would be held and the groom would get to bring his bride home.
At this point, Joseph and Mary are in the in-between period, and because of her unexplained pregnancy, Joseph feels his only socially acceptable action is to divorce her. This was the conventional wisdom of the day. It is because of his noble character that he is seeking to divorce her quietly to avoid public humiliation.
But the Angel of the Lord comes to him, and tells him to do the exact opposite. The Angel tells Joseph to make a fool of himself – to go through with marrying a bride who is already pregnant – because Mary’s pregnancy is of God.
Then the Angel tells Joseph what to name this miracle baby: Jesus or “God Saves,” and Matthew gives us an aside explaining how this name and situation echo the words of the Prophet Isaiah.
A ‘virgin’ is with child, and that child shall be God with us.
That’s not the kind of news you can fact check. It’s not the sort of news you can easily make other people understand. It’s a story only a fool would believe. Yet it’s the story we tell each Christmas. And Joseph doesn’t need any further demonstration that this is true. He accepts it, and the story continues without delay.
Giving More Context: Was Mary a Virgin?
To answer this question, we must first recognize what we’re reading. Both birth narratives in the gospels, found in Luke and Matthew, are written centuries after Jesus’ death by men who were not present (or even alive) at Jesus’ birth. That is to say, they are both written based on stories passed down to them and the traditional narrative structure of the time.
Thus it is important to note that the story of Jesus was not the only ‘virginal birth’ story going around at the time. In the last few centuries BC and into CE, to say that someone was born from a virgin was a somewhat common rhetorical device. It was a way of saying that God had big plans for someone’s life – that God had been involved in their life from the very beginning.
Both Luke and Matthew may be emphasizing Jesus’ birth from a virgin as a way of mobilizing this rhetorical device – or more organically, the writings may simply reflect the way this rhetorical device had become an important piece of how people told the Jesus story by the time they wrote their gospels.
Yet Matthew emphasizes Mary’s virginity in his gospel more distinctly than Luke does – because he’s emphasizing that connection between his experience of Jesus and the words of the Prophet Isaiah.
There are two ancient versions of Isaiah, the one we find in our bibles is based off of the ancient Hebrew Scriptures and another found in a collection of scrolls called the Septuagint which feature the same passages, written centuries later in greek. They contain some (usually) minor discrepancies in their meanings, and scholars tend to refer to the Hebrew scriptures as the authority.
One big distinction between the Greek and Hebrew versions is in this passage.
The Hebrew says only that an ‘almah’, or young woman of marriageable age, will bear a son. The Greek reads that a ‘parthenos’, or virgin woman, will bear a son. Our bibles will vary depending which translation we read, but most all of them have a footnote to this point.
Matthew is quoting the Greek writings here and uses that word ‘parthenos’, which means that Matthew may be emphasizing Mary’s virginity in an effort to get the text to align with what he knows to be the ancient scriptures (and not necessarily because of its truth).
There is no way of knowing whether or not Mary was a virgin. There is some evidence to say that she was, as it is written that way in the books, but when the writings are held up to the culture of the time and the goals of the gospel authors, it can muddy the certainty of it.
There is, perhaps, no real need to question the truth of this claim, and frankly, it’s not really polite to ask people their virginal status anyway, so the Christian obsession with hers could be perceived as a little weird.
Still, I hope you found the scholarship behind the possible answers interesting. We didn’t even get into what Isaiah is actually writing in response to as he makes this prophetic statement. That’ll have to be a later post.
Today’s Questions
In this scripture, the Angels’ directives to Joseph are clear tasks. Have you ever felt like you received a clear directive from God? What does it feel like to you when God is nudging you to do something?
In this scripture, the Angel directs Joseph to do something that’s considered shameful in society, because there is something so very holy happening around and through him. Are Christians called to similar things today? Are there times where we may be called to act in ways deemed foolish or shameful by the world because there’s something holy happening around and through us? Can you think of any examples from your life?
On the subject of Mary’s virginity, we will not know the Truth in this lifetime, and the histories of the texts give us multiple possibilities, so we can choose what we believe about it. Tradition claims Mary’s virginity; does this matter to you? Do you care if Mary is a virgin or not? Is the truth of this claim integral to your faith? Or – dare I ask – do you prefer the idea that Mary was not a virgin? Why do you feel or think that way?
A Blessing for Your Week
Child of God,
When God nudges you to do something,
May you be steadfast enough to do it
If it’s scary, may you be brave
If it’s simple, may you be thorough
If it’s challenging, may you be patient with yourself
And if it’s slow going and a bit of a grind, may you persevere,
And Child,
As God calls you to things more and more unorthodox,
May you embrace God’s wisdom, which is folly to the world,
And may your heart swell with joy
As you become the biggest fool
for God
Amen.
Rev. Kelsey Sherazi 