Advent: A Marriage in Jeopardy

Only Matthew’s Gospel captures something of Joseph’s heartache when he received the news concerning Mary’s unexpected pregnancy.

We know from Luke’s Gospel that the archangel Gabriel had spoken to Mary about conceiving a child by the miraculous overshadowing of the Holy Spirit, and that her postmenopausal relative Elizabeth was already miraculously pregnant.

The Birth of Jesus Foretold

In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary.  And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be.  

The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David.  He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” 

Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” 

The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.”

Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.”

Then the angel departed from her.

Luke 1:26-38 (NRSVUE)

A Three-Month Visit with Elizabeth

Soon after speaking with the angel, Mary traveled south from Nazareth to a town in the Judean hills near Jerusalem, where Elizabeth and her husband Zechariah lived. Who knows what Mary told her parents, but they seemed to have been willing to let her go on that long journey.

In Elizabeth Mary found someone who understood completely what was happening to her.  Mary must have used those three months that she stayed with Elizabeth to think and pray through her feelings about her own circumstances. Because, unlike Elizabeth, Mary’s pregnancy was not going to seem like a miracle. Even though this was God’s doing, God’s incalculable blessing to Mary, her pregnancy was going to seem like a disaster to her family, and to her betrothed. Technically, she might even face being stoned to death.

Death by Stoning for Adultery

If there is a young woman, a virgin already engaged to be married, and a man meets her in the town and lies with her, you shall bring both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death, the young woman because she did not cry for help in the town and the man because he violated his neighbor’s wife. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Deuteronomy 22:23-24 (NRSVUE)

After Elizabeth gave birth to John, Mary said her goodbyes and headed back to her family homestead in Nazareth.

And it was not long before her baby bump began to show.

Now, everyone in her community would have known that Mary and Joseph were promised to be married. And it was the custom that up until the actual signing of the ketubah—the betrothal contract—either person always had the option of backing out, and their families could make new arrangements with other families. There might be disappointment, but there would be no shame in that. But once the legal ceremony called “betrothal” was performed, the couple exchanged absolutely binding vows. To back out now would require a divorce. 

During the betrothal time there would not be much contact between the bride and groom, each would live with their own families, and for sure there was to be no physical intimacy between them. The betrothal period usually lasted about a year to prove the bride’s virginity and to give the groom time to prepare their new home.  When the time was right, something which only the father of the groom could determine, the formal wedding would take place, and the groom would take the bride to his family home to begin their married life together. 

But, now Mary was pregnant, and the baby was not Joseph’s

Matthew was careful to explain that all the names in Jesus’ genealogy were fathered by the name before them, until you get to Matthew 1:16. Joseph, the husband of Mary, did not father Jesus. 

A Relationship Ruptured

Joseph did not yet know that the Spirit of God was at work, and the Son of God even now forming within Joseph’s intended bride. Joseph had a big problem. He was a righteous man. If the baby had been his, he would not have hesitated to take Mary as his wife. Instead, Joseph was troubled. A first century Jewish man would have been horrified and repulsed to find out that his betrothed was pregnant by some other man. Certainly, Mary’s own family would have disowned her by this point, because it seems no one believed her story.

Joseph was also a kind man. He didn’t want to expose Mary in public disgrace. But also Joseph did not want to marry her and raise another man’s child. So, Matthew wrote, Joseph decided to “send her away secretly.” In other words, they would have a quiet divorce, he would be free to marry someone else, and she would be free to raise her child, and possibly even marry the man who had fathered her baby.  

Everyone’s heart was broken during the tense period of time when all of these things unfolded.

From Mari

“Jesus’ conception in Mary caused a strain on her relationship with Joseph, even before they were married. Joseph eventually accepting that Jesus was the result of a miracle rather than unfaithfulness on Mary’s part would not erase the pain of not being believed. Beyond their own relationship, Mary and Joseph would also not be able to hide that the timeline was off with Mary’s pregnancy. Even though Jesus was a wanted and an anticipated pregnancy, the timing of his arrival put a significant strain on Mary’s and Joseph’s lives. Mary, and even Joseph, would certainly have been subject to ridicule, ostracization, and cruelty from her community, even though they had not gotten divorced after Mary’s pregnancy.”

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Mediations for Advent

So, I have prepared an Advent Devotional that will take the reader through each of the four weeks of Advent, beginning the Sunday after Thanksgiving, with a special reading for Christmas day. I wrote it this way so this devotional could be read in any given year

The first part of this devotional pairs Hannah’s Prayer with Zechariah’s Prophecy, and the names of the Son of God that come out of their prayers.

Hannah’s Prayer

Hannah was the mother of the prophet Samuel, who was the last of the Hebrew Judges and the first prophet to anoint a king of Israel. It was Samuel who anointed King David, recognizing in the young shepherd boy that God does not judge by what the world sees, or by the world’s standards, but rather God looks in the heart. The heart and soul are what matter to God for eternity.

Zechariah’s Prophecy

Zechariah was the father of John the Baptist, who was the last of the Hebrew Prophets, and the Hebrew prophet who heralded and baptized Messiah Jesus, the King of all kings and Lord of all lords. John the Baptist was able to identify the Messiah in the unassuming carpenter and stonemason by God’s direct revelation in the form of a dove resting above Jesus’s head. Israel was looking for a royal king but God intended to save the world for eternity.

The second part of this devotional pairs Mary’s Magnificat with Jesus’s Beatitudes, and the names of God the Son which arise.

Mary’s Magnificat

Mary was the birth mother of Jesus, the first to experience the extraordinary reality of God’s very life growing within her. As any mother might do, Mary surely sang lullabies to her baby, and taught Him the scriptures and stories of His people as He grew. It was Mary who heard her Son’s first word, and rejoiced over His first step. It is no wonder she “pondered these things in her heart.”

Jesus’s Beatitudes

As His ministry grew, Jesus’s teaching became famous, and His Beatitudes continue to engage us thousands of years later with the wonder of the Lord’s wisdom.
As you and I meditate on these words, let us think about the names all heaven and earth gave to this tiny, vulnerable baby Who is God the Son. From eternity into our world and then returned to the glory from whence He came, Jesus now opens the way for you and me to be with him in glory forever.

Lamp photographs from the Getty Museum (Menorah lamp) and the Metropolitan Museum (Chi-rho lamp), public domain.

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