Matthew 1:18-24
There are those moments where life just really knocks you for a loop. Something happens that is just so unexpected, so out of the ordinary, that all you can do is go "Whoa." Not so much a lazy kind of whoa, like whoa dude. More the kind of thing where "Whoa" is about all you can manage because that's about the only sound you can make when the wind's being knocked out of you. And you sit there stunned, wondering what just happened. Your mind goes on the blink because trying to really process it all is just a bit much to ask at the moment.
I'm thinking Joseph had a bunch of those all pretty much right together. When you think about it, you wonder how he got through it all because when these kind of things happen, I'd think it'd be almost impossible to not be shell shocked, kind of going through life for awhile as a vegetable. And maybe he did, who knows?
That first "Whoa" moment maybe didn't come right around all the others. It's not one that you really think of so much when you read the account, and maybe I'm stretching things to even suggest it happened. I mean, I really don't know the guy, who could really say they do? All we have are assumptions. Funny... it just struck me that here I am writing my take on things that happened in the Bible as if I'm some sort of expert when that's the furthest thing from the truth. It dawns on me that right now I'm putting my mouth (or typewriter in gear) before really knowing much. The truth is I know very little about life, lifestyles, attitudes, or anything of the sort from that time. We tend to think that they all thought like we think today. I can't help but think that maybe they'd be really offended if they knew how we thought and how we saw things today that we would suggest that they were anything like us. Maybe not. Seriously, I have no clue. That's always the problem when you try to think what someone from then must have been thinking.
I mean, start with betrothal. In 21st century America we really have no concept what that was like. We date, fall in love (or so we think) and choose our mates. We shudder at the thought of arranged marriages because we want a say in the matter. So that leads us to think that people then would have been resentful of being forced into marriage. But then, for the most part the concept of choosing one's spouse was totally foreign to them. If that's not even a frame of reference, then maybe the resentment never comes to mind.
Having said all that, I think that's where the first whoa moment came in. Here's a couple of assumptions I'm making. I do believe that Joseph was a pretty Godly man. Something about his responses to things leads me that direction. And I believe Mary was an incredibly Godly woman, that being in the position she was in, well, it just goes to follow. The thing is, when thinking about a companion for life, you think about compatibility, right? Okay, so here I am reverting back to my own way of thinking, but I think about when I was getting out on my own and I had all these ideas that the ideal spouse would be a Cornhusker fanatic who also loved baseball, music by Chicago (while also enjoying cranking up some good old classic guitar rock), and had a pretty warped sense of humor.
I doubt Joseph was a big Lynrd Skynrd fan, though maybe with him having a good Hebrew heritage he might have appreciated the lack of vowels in their name. But I can't help but think that some things are timeless, in that whether marriage is arranged or your spouse is chosen, having something in common means something. I remember having a kind of whoa moment as I got to know my wife. Granted, she's a bit apathetic about Nebraska football, though maybe she'll come around. But there comes this time when it all really dawned on me what an amazing gift I had in her. That's a good kind of take the breath out of you whoa. I really believe that somewhere along the line, as Joseph began to recognize the kind of woman Mary was, he had to have had that kind of Whoa moment.
Think about it. A Godly man is going to have Godly things as a pretty high priority. Character becomes pretty darn important. You have to wonder, was it something he saw in Mary all along, or was there just this time where it just struck him just what kind of character she had. Now this is one of those moments I know he'd be pretty offended by my ascribing my attitudes to him, because I was getting ready to say that he'd be ready to say, Holy Crap am I a lucky guy. I don't think the guy was totally perfect by any means but maybe that kind of phrase might have been a bit blasphemous in his eyes? (What's scary is, he's probably right.) Anyway, from his mind set, discovering who was about to be his wife must have been like hitting the lottery. I get to marry HER? WOOOHOOO!!!!
After all, woohooo is pretty close to whoa, right?
And then there's the next whoa moment. This one, maybe not so good. I mean it was, but I'm sure it didn't feel so good when it happened. Again, it's all assumptions, and as mentioned before it's not very accurate to put my own thoughts in his head, but I just know that if it were me and I was beginning to realize the incredible character and faith of this woman I'm about to marry it all seems to be too good to be true. And yet, it dawns on you it is true. And maybe just when you come to grips with the fact it is true and life is pretty awesome, you find out she's pregnant.
And you know it isn't your child, for pretty obvious reasons. Even two thousand years ago they knew what had to happen for there to be a child on the way, and, well, that didn't happen.
Speaking of frames of reference, Joseph didn't exactly have two thousand years of the church celebrating the virgin birth. All he knew was, Mary was pregnant. Did she tell him what this was about, what happened? You would think so. Truth is, we have no idea what happened. Did she tell him directly, or was it something her parents had to inform his parents, was it something heard through the grapevine? We really have no clue. Still, knowing the kind of woman she was and finding this out, well, this time the whoa isn't so great a feeling.
But it's bad enough she's pregnant. But at a time when God has been pretty silent for a long time, for her to say this was a God thing... it had to seem like crazy talk. No, we can't assume Joseph thought like we do, but I think this is another of these universal things: You're engaged to be married, your fiance ends up pregnant, and says God is the reason? `Whatever mindset you have, that just doesn't add up.
But we go back to that thing about Mary's character, godliness and faith. THAT has to be what really would have set his head spinning. There are those who are not the type, and then there are those who are really not the type, and he knew she was the latter. I think he knew her well enough to know deep down that it's not like her, first of all not like her to go and get pregnant, but also not like her to come up with a doozy of an explanation like this. (I'm afraid to go back and count how many times I say "you have to think" or "you can't help but think") I can't help but think that you can't help but think that somewhere deep down Joseph believed her, but at the same time was faced with the sheer impossibility.
Talk about your head spinning. If I were to ever doubt anything about this account it would be the part about the angel appearing to him in a dream. Not that that couldn't have happened, it's the dream part. What I mean about the dream part is, dreaming kind of requires sleeping. How did he manage to sleep when trying to process all this? Granted, that kind of sleeplessness can only last so long though. Eventually he had to drop off.
Maybe it's a good thing it happened in a dream. The previous whoa was enough of a shock on his system, so who knows if he could have taken the next one being awake. I've never had an angel speak to me, unless it was one of those unaware deals. Definitely nothing obvious like this. It's one thing to hear all this from Mary. But now to have an angel say hey dude, it's for real. Maybe it wasn't as much a whoa thing as I thought, after all I did just speculate that maybe he knew deep down that Mary was telling the truth. Maybe this wasn't so much a shock to the system as that kind of sigh of relief whoa. A peace at last kind of whoa. An it's all coming together kind of whoa. There's something much more going on. It's not too good to be true that I have this amazing woman by my side, she really is pregnant, she really is a virgin, something pretty amazing's going to happen and this is still too much to take in but yeah, it all is starting to make a bit of sense kind of whoa.
Like I said, I'm making a lot of assumptions. I guess we have to whenever we start thinking in terms of how anyone had to be thinking about anything. But the fact that Joseph was willing to consider her and not publicly shame her when he found out she was pregnant makes me think my assumptions were right about how he might have had that first whoa moment in realizing the treasure he had in her. He knew shaming her wasn't right. In that day and age, even with an angelic revelation and a miracle pregnancy and all that, the thought of going ahead with the marriage when you know how good people are at counting back 9 months cannot be an easy one.
I wish we knew more about Joseph. Someday, we will. But how he acted, how he responded to these whoa moments tells us an awful lot. Today we're splashing anything and everything onto our Facebook pages, while the little we're told about Joseph is only enough for a few tweets on Twitter.
It's pretty humbling that the few things written about Joseph speak far more, volumes more, of his character than any of the best things I could put down about myself.
Kinda makes me go Whoa.
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