Dear Amy,
Welcome back⸺and how lovely it was to see you face to face again after all this time! May the Lord grant you real rest over these next few weeks, and may you be revitalised and restored in his presence. ❤️
Now, have you ever been surprised to notice something afresh in a very familiar Bible story?
And isn’t the Bible truly amazing? I am continually finding such freshness, profound truths apparently plainly stated yet previously unnoticed or simply rediscovered. I came across one such only this week, in the oh-so-familiar Nativity story.
When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:
“Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call his name Immanuel”
(which means, God with us).
― Matthew 1:18-23
Before we get into what I noticed, let’s take a moment to be amazed once again at the whole Christmas story. I once read that of the incarnation and the resurrection, the incarnation is the greater miracle, and I am inclined to agree⸺God contracted to a span, incomprehensibly made man! Praise our Lord and Saviour!
Now, what is it that I noticed afresh in this passage? Simply this: Joseph son of David.
Parentage is important in the Bible. Notice throughout that characters are introduced as so-and-so son of so-and-so. Matthew tells that Joseph’s father was Jacob, so why did the angel address him as Joseph son of David, his ancestor of a thousand years? Here’s what I take from that.
God’s rescue mission in Christ was planned from the very beginning, in his glorious promise of defeat of Satan and rescue by Christ, the Son of God, and miraculously also a descendant of the first man and the first woman.
The LORD God said to the serpent …
“I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”
― Genesis 3:14a, 15
By addressing Joseph as son of David the angel is reminding both him and us of just how long in the making has been God’s plan of rescue and redemption, and of the prophecies that foretold of the Messiah coming from David’s line. How reassuring for Joseph to know that what was happening was part of a long established plan, intricately woven from strands of love.
And it is not entirely dissimilar for us.
For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
― Psalm 139:13-16
Remember this, Amy, that you are loved with an ancient love, and have been from the beginning! 🙏