Matthew 1:18 - Mary and Joseph in Modern Times

Matthew 1:18 "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."

One of the lessons about interpreting the Bible is to try and conceptualize what a verse, passage, or section of the Bible means in Modern times, so we can understand it.  The writers were writing to people of their time who would understand all their references, but we who do not live back then need to understand what they are saying in our times. This is one of the reasons for the big increase in paraphrase type Bibles. I would like to look at the Christmas story as if it occurred right now, in our world today.

Imagine if you will a girl with long dark hair and an oval face. She is young, perhaps just out of high school. She isn't little miss popular and she isn't a cheerleader. She is active in the church, going to every service and helping where she can. She is the girl who is always at youth group, always in the middle of prayer service, leading the school devotional club, and is considered to be one of those "religious freaks" but considering her family its understandable. After all, her cousin is married to the guy who was selected to be the head of the international church conference!  Mary is not beautiful, she is a homely girl, but she is active in sports and has a rather fiery temper. She is the one girl that everyone could really see as becoming a nun or a priestess, except that she is seeing an older guy and is even engaged to him.

Joseph, of course, is that older guy. In the Bible, he is referred to as a carpenter, which could also mean stone-mason. That means that in our world he would be in construction, and probably a specialist in framing and dry-walling. He is probably around 30 years old, drives an old model pickup, and is a bit scruffy around the edges. His beard could use a trim and his hair is probably tied back in a pony tail. His bluejeans are torn and paint-splattered and he never seems to button the top couple buttons of his flannel shirt. He, also, is a pillar of the church. He is the guy who comes in to change the light bulbs in the ceiling when they burn out and every Saturday when he isn't working he mows the church lawn. In fact he probably helped with the construction of the church without accepting any pay! He sings in the choir despite looking uncomfortable in those robes. He probably has a nice baritone voice which goes along with his laid back and easy going personality.

Now imagine that these two people - not so hard to imagine really - have just gotten engaged a couple weeks ago or so, but now there is a bump on Mary's stomach. She is pregnant! But Mary and Joseph aren't married, they are only engaged!  How would you react to this? We don't know that an Angel of the Lord actually appeared to Mary and told her that she had found favor with God and He had made her pregnant to give birth to a son, whom she would name Jesus and He would be known as the Son of Most High. We didn't know that God had told her that Jesus would be the messiah whose Kingdom would never end. (Luke 1:30-33) All we see is that this most observant girl, the head of the youth group is pregnant outside of marriage.  We also don't know that Joseph knows that He isn't the father and before an angel of God told Him what was happening he was going to separate from Mary (Matthew 1:20-21) All we see is that this odd couple is pregnant.  How would the church respond? How would you respond? How have you responded in similar situations in the past?

This week, lets look at how we deal with people who we think are sinners. Lets try to be more understanding of them, and do what we can to help them do better rather than shun them or come down harshly on them. We don't know all the details behind what we see of their life. We don't know how God is working in their life, and maybe He is wanting to work through you.