Isaiah 7:10-16 ; Matthew 1:18-25 It is good that we have a Sunday in Advent devoted to remembering Joseph. Joseph, the man who is the father – yet is not the father – of Jesus; Joseph, who doesn’t even get a mention in two of the four gospels; Joseph – the man who raised the Son of God. How he must have struggled with emotion in those early days. When he learns that the young woman he has chosen for his wife is somehow pregnant. And he knows it wasn’t him. How he must have fought down all kinds of feelings while he struggled to determine how he would respond to this news. He knew, of course, that the law would support him if he chose to have her publicly exposed and condemned as an adulterous woman. Because even though they were not yet married, they were betrothed to one another, something that was as […]
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Receiving the Kingdom
Mark 10:2-16 My friend Rachel was married when I first met her – and I thought her marriage was divinely happy. It looked like that from the outside. But it became awfully clear one day that this was not such a happy marriage, when Tom announced to her that he was planning to file for divorce. He did not love her anymore, he said, if he ever really had loved her in the first place. Rachel was heartbroken for a long time. This was an independent, intelligent, highly capable woman, but now it was like her whole life had fallen apart. Everything that she had believed and valued about her life was now in question. In our conversations during that period, she acknowledged that, yes, the marriage had been troubled but she had not wanted to accept that the troubles were that threatening. She had not wanted to believe it. Now, she had to accept it […]
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