Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!

[LittleBill 2,231]

Since it is Christmas time, and since I already posted one essay, here is another Christmas related essay I wrote a couple of years ago. I hope some of you reading this will find it edifying and educational.

As we approach the celebration of Christmas, the Christmas story is told again and again, both in the church and outside as well. Even those who are not believers know the story of the birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph. But most people do not know why these people were chosen. Who were Mary and Joseph, and why were they chosen by God to be the parents of our Messiah?

Throughout the Old Testament, God foretold of His plan to send a Messiah. While those who received the prophecies did not always understand them completely, we have an advantage. We have seen some of those prophecies fulfilled, and we have had thousands of years to study both what has happened and what is to come.

The earliest promise was made to Adam, and continued through to Jacob, and then to Judah. God’s plan follows a very specific plan through a very specific family. I will not take the time or space to include those references here, but I will pick up with the promise made to King David.

Toward the end of his life, David received a promise from God through Nathan the prophet:

‘Thus says the Lord of hosts, I took you from the pasture, from following the sheep, that you should be prince over my people Israel. And I have been with you wherever you went and have cut off all your enemies from before you. And I will make for you a great name, like the name of the great ones of the earth. And I will appoint a place for my people Israel and will plant them, so that they may dwell in their own place and be disturbed no more. And violent men shall afflict them no more, as formerly, from the time that I appointed judges over my people Israel. And I will give you rest from all your enemies. Moreover, the Lord declares to you that the Lord will make you a house. When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be to him a father, and he shall be to me a son. When he commits iniquity, I will discipline him with the rod of men, with the stripes of the sons of men, but my steadfast love will not depart from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away from before you. And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.’

2 Sam 7:8-16

The key portion of this passage is the last two sentences. “And your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.” God promised David that his lineage and his kingship would live forever. That is a pretty impressive promise. David trusted God, but for those of us who came later, it might seem that something went wrong and either God changed His mind, or was unable to fulfill His words. Neither of those are true. God was setting things up so that they could only occur in one way, under His terms and His timing.

Many of David’s direct descendants followed after him as kings over Judah. Some were good, but most were wicked. The wickedness of the entire nation finally got to the point where God punished them by sending them into captivity for 70 years in Babylon. As for the last king and his line, God had other plans. We read of his fate in Jeremiah 22:24-30.

“As I live, declares the Lord, though Coniah the son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, were the signet ring on my right hand, yet I would tear you off and give you into the hand of those who seek your life, into the hand of those of whom you are afraid, even into the hand of Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon and into the hand of the Chaldeans. I will hurl you and the mother who bore you into another country, where you were not born, and there you shall die. But to the land to which they will long to return, there they shall not return.”

Is this man Coniah a despised, broken pot,

a vessel no one cares for?

Why are he and his children hurled and cast

into a land that they do not know?

O land, land, land,

hear the word of the Lord!

Thus says the Lord:

“Write this man down as childless,

a man who shall not succeed in his days,

for none of his offspring shall succeed

in sitting on the throne of David

and ruling again in Judah.

After promising David his line would be established forever, God seemingly cut it off abruptly with His curse on Coniah and his descendants. There is no equivocation, no “out” that God leaves for Himself in this. No descendant of Coniah, and by extension no descendant of David’s line of succession would ever come to the throne of David and prosper. But the story does not end here, and God does not make promises in vain.

The tree of David’s lineage had been cut off at Coniah. It was now a stump, and no man would ever come to the throne through that route again. How could God possibly fulfill His promise without breaking His own word? We see another facet of God’s promise of the Messiah through the prophet Isaiah.

In Isaiah 11:1-5 we read:

There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse,

and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit.< /span>

And the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him,

the Spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the Spirit of counsel and might,

the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

And his delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.

He shall not judge by what his eyes see,

or decide disputes by what his ears hear,

but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,

and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;

and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,

and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt of his waist,

and faithfulness the belt of his loins.

Jesse, David’s father, is depicted as a stump with no tree left, thanks to the sins of David’s descendants. But the promise is given of a branch coming from that stump. God would provide a way for the Messiah to take the throne of David, and at the same time assure us that no pretender could try to do the same. He did this through a miracle, setting things up so no one could possibly doubt that Jesus was who He claimed to be. Isaiah gives us an indication of this as well.

Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel. Isaiah 7:14

Something would happen which could not happen. A virgin would give birth, having never had relations with a man. This is impossible as far as men are concerned, but with God, nothing is impossible.

Now, we fast forward to the Gospels of Matthew and Luke. Both of these men, working with the Holy Spirit, thought it important enough to include Jesus’ genealogy. Matthew starts out with it in the very beginning of his book. Luke writes it out in Chapter 3. There is only one problem when we compare these two. Almost none of the names match up. Unbelievers will laugh, and point to this as evidence that these men were so foolish and so divided among themselves that they could not even get something like a simple genealogy right. These are usually the same people who accuse the writers of the Bible of conspiring to fool the rest of humanity as they wrote it over a period of approximately 1600 years.

There is no problem with either of the lists of names in Jesus’ genealogy. Matthew shows us his lineage through his adopted father Joseph. We see the father to son relationship traced all the way back to David, and even back to Abraham. We see Coniah (Jeconiah) mentioned in verse 11 of chapter 1.

“…and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon…”

Joseph was not just a carpenter. He wasn’t just some righteous man who God thought would make a good father for Jesus the Messiah. He was the legal King of Judah, and even of all Israel. He was and is, the direct descendant of King David. So why was he pounding nails into boards and building stuff? Remember that curse? There was no throne, and there was no way to come to it even if there was. So the man with legal title to the throne of David was living his life as a common carpenter.

What about those other names in Luke? If you look at it, it looks like those are Jesus’s ancestors through his adopted father Joseph as well. But they are a different set of names altogether. Once we get past Joseph, all the names change until we get to David again. This is Jesus’ lineage through his mother, Mary. Women did not get listed in genealogies back then, so Jesus’ father Joseph’s name was substituted in her place.

As in the case of Joseph, Mary isn’t just some righteous woman who God decided to bless out of the blue. She is very important for a very specific reason as well. She and her husband Joseph, are both direct descendants of King David. In her case, is she was not of the noble line. In other words, her line could not come to the throne legally. But she did have royal blood, a requirement for any King.

So now we have two people coming together in God’s plan. One has legal title to a throne he cannot assume, and the other had royal blood in her veins as well. God’s timing has arrived, and the stage is set. The Holy Spirit does a work in Mary, causing a baby to form and grow. That baby is the human form of the Second Person of the Trinity, Jesus Christ. Through the miracle of the virgin birth, God bypassed His own curse, a curse designed to prevent pretenders, as well as show His divine providence in providing a Messiah as only He could.

Through His mother Mary, Jesus traced His lineage back to King David, and through His adopted father Joseph, He gained legal title to the throne. God brought His plans to fruition at the right time and in the right circumstances, and in the process blessed not only these two people, but all those who He would call into His Kingdom.

But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.

Galatians 4:4-7

It is my prayer that if you do not know Jesus Christ as your Savior God will open your heart to His word the Christmas season, and that you too might experience the blessing of His Son, and His work on the cross for the forgiveness of your sins.

[fordtmacrae 21]

Thank you for sharing the true Christmas story. Merry Christmas!

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

[LittleBill 2,231]

Thank you for sharing the true Christmas story. Merry Christmas!

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

Merry Christmas to you too!

[Robin Weinrich 6]

Well appreciated! Merry Christmas!

[LittleBill 2,231]

Well appreciated! Merry Christmas!

Thank you, and Merry Christmas to you too!

[Newme17 3,444]

Amen to TRUTH! Merry Christmas!!

[LittleBill 2,231]

Amen to TRUTH! Merry Christmas!!

Merry Christmas to you too!