This is pretty much my mind’s eye picture of Christmas. There is Mary with her newborn son while
Joseph stands close by looking down on her with eyes of love. Shepherds are kneeling close by with
expressions of wonder and joy on their faces.
Cattle and sheep are lying quietly nearby watching all that is going
on. Then I add to that the Hallmark
moment scenes of a loving family all gathered around the beautifully decorated
tree and the Folgers coffee moment of the sister waiting up for her brother and
mom and dad quietly coming down the stairs watching as their daughter says that
her brother is her gift this year. My
eyes tear up and I want those moments, but I wonder if this is an accurate
depiction of that first Christmas? I
wonder if that is how Joseph and Mary felt or if it was more like Indiana Jones
in the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Indiana stood on the edge of the cliff with
seemingly no possible way to get across and retrieve the Holy Grail to save his
father from death. Let’s look at the
story.
Luke 1:26 In the sixth month of Elizabeth’s pregnancy, God
sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a village in Galilee, 27 to a virgin named
Mary. She was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of King
David. 28 Gabriel appeared to her and said, “Greetings, favored woman! The Lord
is with you!” 29 Confused and disturbed,
Mary tried to think what the angel could mean. 30 “Don’t be afraid, Mary,” the
angel told her, “for you have found favor with God! 31 You will conceive and
give birth to a son, and you will name him Jesus. 32 He will be very great and
will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne
of his ancestor David. 33 And he will reign over Israel forever; his Kingdom will never end!” 34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this
happen? I am a virgin.” 35 The angel
replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High
will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called
the Son of God.
Let’s freeze frame that moment and talk about Joseph and
Mary at that moment in time. The Bible
says that she was engaged to be married to a man named Joseph . So how did that moment in time look to Mary
and Joseph.
When a Jewish young man wished to marry a particular young
woman, it was customary for the prospective groom's father first to approach
the girl's father with the proposal of marriage. The two men would discuss this possible union
including the price offered by the groom for the bride. If the girl's father agreed to the suggested
amount, the two men sealed the agreement with a toast of wine.
At that time the potential bride then entered the room
whereupon the prospective groom proclaimed his love and asked her to be his
bride. If the young woman wished to be
his wife, she accepted his proposal at this time. The validation of the agreement made by the
engaged couple was the presentation of a gift by the groom. He offered it in the presence of at least two
witnesses. As he gave the gift, usually
a ring, he said to his intended bride, "Behold you are consecrated unto me
with this ring according to the laws of Moses and Israel."
The young man prepared a marriage contract (or covenant)
which he presented to the intended bride and her father. Included in this was the “Bride Price
", which was appropriate in that society to compensate the young woman's
parents for the cost of raising her, as well as being an expression of his love
for her.
To see if the proposal was accepted, the young man would
pour a cup of wine for his beloved and wait to see if she drank it. This cup represents a blood covenant. If she
drank the cup she would have accepted the proposal and they would be betrothed.
The young man would then give gifts to his beloved but before leaving the young
man would announce, “I am going to prepare a place for you and I will return for you when it is ready." The usual practice was for the young man to
return to his father's house and build a honeymoon room there. He was not allowed to skimp on the work and
had to receive his father's approval before he could consider it ready for his
bride. If asked the date of his wedding,
the groom- to- be would have to reply,
"Only my father knows."
Meanwhile the bride would be making herself ready so that
she would be pure and beautiful for her bridegroom. During this time, she would wear a veil when
she went out to show she was spoken for and that she has been bought with a
price. The betrothal was binding and could only be undone by a divorce with
proper grounds, such as the bride being found not to be a virgin.
When the wedding chamber was ready the bridegroom could
collect his bride. He could do this at
any time so the bride would make special arrangements. It was the custom for a bride to keep a lamp,
her veil and her other things beside her bed.
Her bridesmaids were also waiting and had to have oil ready for their
lamps. When the groom and his friends
got close to the bride's house they would give a shout and blow a shofar to let
her know to be ready.
The typical Jewish
wedding took place at night. As soon as
any members of the wedding spotted the moving torches signaling the groom's
approach, their cry echoed through the streets, "The bridegroom is
coming." The Wycliffe Bible
Encyclopedia tells us, "Mirth and gladness announced their approach to
townspeople waiting in houses along the route to the bride's house." Upon hearing the announcement, the excited
bride would drop everything in order to slip into her wedding dress and
complete her final personal preparations for marriage.
So on the day the angel appeared to Mary what was Joseph
doing? Joseph was preparing to be
married. Joseph was engaged to
Mary. Joseph would have dreamed of their
wedding day just as any young man looks forward to their wedding day. Mary and Joseph were engaged so the bride
price had already been set and paid.
Mary and her Father had accepted the bride price and signed a contract
of marriage. The only way the contract
could be broken would be if the young woman was no longer a virgin and then the
punishment by the law was death by stoning.
Joseph was a carpenter so I am sure he immediately went back to his
father’s house to work preparing a place for Mary and him to live and begin
their family. Because Joseph was a
carpenter, I am sure he took extra pride in the room that he was
preparing. Each cut of the saw measured
not once but twice. Each new board
placed with precision. Maybe he
fashioned their bedroom set. I wonder
how many times he went to his Father and asked if he could go and bring Mary to
the home he had prepared. I wonder if
his friends came by to check out his progress and to ask how soon the
celebration would begin.
Now Mary had told him she was pregnant. Matthew
1:19 says “Joseph, her fiancé, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her
publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.”
On this day Joseph
did not believe the story that Mary had told him. He probably felt hurt, disappointment, maybe
a sense of betrayal. His reputation was
destroyed. He was now being asked to
raise a son that was not his. How his
heart must have broken. I wonder if he
was angry. It was within the law for him
to have Mary, the one he loved and was preparing a home for, stoned to
death. Joseph stood on the brink of
disaster.
And what about Mary’s feelings on the day Gabriel appeared
to her. What were her dreams for her
wedding day? The bride price had already
been paid – she was betrothed. I wonder
how often she took out her wedding dress and looked at it – tried it on –
thought about her wedding night. I
wonder if she imagined her new home with Joseph and what he was preparing for
her. I wonder if her heart beat with
excitement as she thought of hearing the shout and her bridesmaids gathering
their torches as she went out to meet Joseph.
I wonder if she thought about her life with Joseph and the family they
would raise together, but now she was pregnant and the child was not Joseph’s
child. When she told him, Joseph had
left her alone. Mary was standing on the
cliff saying this is impossible.
Joseph and Mary both
stood on the brink of what seemed to be disaster. It was the end of their hopes and
dreams. The end of the life they had
thought they would have, BUT that is not the end of the story.
Joseph took a leap of faith.
Matthew 1:20 As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him
in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take
Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Think about this.
Joseph was not a prophet who was used to having God give him
dreams. Joseph was not a priest. Joseph was your everyday Joe – a carpenter. But he took a leap of faith.
Matthew 1:24 When
Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took
Mary home as his wife.
Mary took a leap of faith.
Luke 1: 38 Mary responded, “I am the Lord’s servant. May everything you
have said about me come true.” And then the angel left her.
So what do you think about the first Christmas – manger or
Indiana Jones? Maybe Christmas is not so
much like the beautiful nativity set where everything is neat and tidy and
everyone looks peaceful. Maybe the first Christmas was never meant to make us
think that life would be filled with beautiful Hallmark moments, but rather
heart stopping leaps of faith that would change the world.
Maybe the Christmas story is meant to give us hope when we
stand on the edge of our life cliff and we look at the future and we say there
is no way possible to move forward. If
you are not standing on the cliff today you probably have in the past or you
will in the future or you know and love someone who is teetering on the
edge. I encourage you to share the
Indian Jones Christmas story this year.
When we step out in faith God will make a way and change us and the
world in the process.
