As this is the time of year when a third of the world is focused on the birth of Immanuel, and many believe that Hannukah was the time of His divine conception, I wanted to spend a few weeks learning about the account that Matthew and Luke dedicated two chapters each teaching us. This week we will learn Joseph’s story in the Gospel of Matthew. What better time of year to become educated about the answer to so many Jewish prayers for so long?
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Hey there, this is Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and I just wanted to talk about what I am about to teach because I have had some unfortunate pushback. Advent is the time of year when most Christians prepare themselves for the celebration of the Nativity, generally in the form of Christmas, but not always. Truth is that we have no idea what time of the year our Savior was born but for me and my family, we believe that this is the time of year of His conception and so we choose to spend these weeks learning the nativity stories of Joseph, contained in the Gospel of Matthew, and Mary, shared in the Gospel of Luke. Both authors dedicate a whopping two chapters each to their treatment of this answer to Jewish prayers and both accounts are just chock full of context, character lessons, miracles, sadness, and most of all—joy. So, if the entirely heavenly host gathered to rejoice in the incarnation of Immanuel, God with us, then it is definitely something we should focus a few weeks on each year. The Advent and the Resurrection are both times of great joy, to all people whether they know it or not, and as the world is now focused on the birth of the Savior, what better time to be teaching it, in context, so that we have a fuller answer for those who ask us the reason for the hope within us?
Advent is the Old English word that means “the arrival of an important person, thing, or event” according to the Oxford dictionary. It comes to us from the Latin word adventus, with ad meaning to and venire meaning come. Certainly no greater arrival has ever occurred than the birth of Yeshua the Messiah, who you may know as Jesus or Yesu or Isa or many other iterations of the Name. So, over the next three weeks or four, haven’t decided yet, I will be pulling out my Matthew and Luke commentaries and diving into the Gospel accounts of one of the three most pivotal events in human and salvational history, namely the Advent of the Messiah. Although scholars and theologians understand that He wasn’t born in December, the truth is that all we can do is to come up with theories as to when He was born so now is as good a time as any to be learning about this. After all, most of the world in one way or another is focused on the birth of the Savior of the world. I have actually been studying angels lately and any event celebrated by angels, shepherds and possibly pagan sages just has to be the very definition of good news for the world. Of course, it was only the beginning but without a beginning there is no end—and without an end there can be no new beginning. Death requires birth just as surely as resurrection requires death.
I am going to take some artistic license and make some assumptions of things that are not spelled out in Scripture but I really want this to be impactful so that we can understand the larger story.
Hi, I am Tyler Dawn Rosenquist and welcome to Character in Context, where I teach the historical and ancient sociological context of Scripture with an eye to developing the character of the Messiah. If you prefer written material, I have seven years’ worth of blog at theancientbridge.com as well as my six books available on amazon—including a four-volume curriculum series dedicated to teaching Scriptural context in a way that even kids can understand it, called Context for Kids (affiliate link) and I have two video channels on YouTube with free Bible teachings for both adults and kids. You can find the link for those on my website. Past broadcasts of this program can be found at characterincontext.podbean.com and transcripts can be had for most broadcasts at theancientbridge.com. If you have kids, I also have a weekly broadcast where I teach them Bible context in a way that shows them why they can trust God and how He wants to have a relationship with them through the Messiah.
All Scripture this week comes courtesy of the CSB, the Christian Standard Bible, but you can follow along with whatever Bible you want. For those of you who got used to the ESV when I was teaching Isaiah and Mark, this is a good chance to get acquainted with another really terrific translation.
Let’s begin with the Advent in Matthew, which tells us the story of the birth of Yeshua from the point of view of Joseph. Joseph was a direct line descendant of the kings through Solomon which was cut off with the exile, leaving what Isaiah describes as the “stump of Jesse”. In chapter 11 of Isaiah, we see that a shoot, also called a branch, will rise from the stump of Jesse which is also later described as the root of Jesse—so the prophet is describing one who is not only the offspring of Jesse but also the source. This is clearly more than a man. He is not descended through Solomon because that tree has been cut down to a stump but He is the biological seed of David, the son of Jesse. David’s line is the stump of Jesse and so any shoot that would grow out of it (if you are familiar with how hard it is to kill certain kinds of trees) would be from the side and not from the site of the cutting. This is why Scripture gives us two genealogies—one in Matthew and one in Luke. Matthew’s genealogy gives us the line that goes through (almost) all of the kings of Judah (edited a bit in order to communicate to us the three groups of fourteen which represent the name of David) and Luke’s, which records the genealogy from David to Yeshua through his son Nathan. Nathan is the path by which the shoot or branch comes into being.
Because David’s royal line is cut off, the Messiah can’t be a descendant of all the kings biologically but as the Son of David, Israel’s King, and the Lion of Judah, he must have his biological roots in King David. As the adoptive son of Joseph and the biological son of Mary, Yeshua is strategically placed to be uniquely the only man who could ever be the heir to the throne of Israel, according to the prophets.
And so, Matthew chapters one and two give us the Advent through the eyes of Joseph, who totally rocks. I love this guy. We know from the Gospels that Joseph is a tekton, a builder of some kind—perhaps a carpenter or a stonemason who would have been able to make a decent living as a craftsman in nearby Sepphoris which was being rebuilt during his days. Artisans were looked down upon in a world where honor was achieved through being a landowner working their own land (or paying others to do it) or by being a priest and hardworking craftsmen like Joseph weren’t really thought very highly of. Just try hiring a stonemason or a carpenter cheap today, boy howdy, and it ain’t gonna happen! Nor should it. And he was engaged to a young woman named Miriam, a girl who was probably around fifteen. And, you know, Joseph is minding his own business, being a righteous man, and discovers that his young fiancé, who has been off helping her elderly cousin Elisabeth during the final three months of her pregnancy, has come home pregnant. Joseph is a good man and this had to be devastating news—and there was much to consider, living in an honor/shame society where young Miriam’s life was in danger even apart from the Torah commandments concerning adultery. How many men would have been so jealous—righteous or not—and would have chosen to publicly expose her to her ruin? In those days and even now, most. He was probably not in love with her, as few marriages were based on what we moderns would call love in those days, but what he did have was compassion—an amalgam of the fruit of the Spirit.
Putting his own feelings of betrayal aside, he decides to deal with this without wrath and without demanding satisfaction for the shame this would bring him, and he seeks some way to put her away quietly as they were not yet sharing a home together. To keep her would be to subject Himself to rumors that he seduced her and dishonored her father before the wedding but to cast her off publicly would be disastrous both for herself and the child. Joseph had quite the dilemma on his hands and I can assure you that he prayed about it endlessly while wrestling with this difficult situation. Can you say patience and self-control? Most people wouldn’t even wrestle but in the Bible, all great men and women do. In the dictionary, beside the word mensch, is a picture of Joseph—or there should be!
So, Joseph came up with a plan to quietly divorce her although how one would do that in such a small town as Nazareth in the Galilee is a mystery but he seemed determined to be both kind and faithful to her. And evidently, after seeing that he had made up his mind, Yahweh sent an angelic messenger to him in a dream, comforting and consoling him that he had no reason to fear taking Miriam to be his wife and that far from being betrayed, the child conceived in her was from the Holy Spirit. I ask you, would a man so gentle and loving that he was willing to protect Miriam when he thought she had been unfaithful, hesitate for a moment to take her into his home as his wife? Not a chance. I imagine that he was still troubled and confused but He obviously was trusted by Yahweh to fulfill an incredibly important role. Although the language is not obvious to us, when the angel informed Joseph that he was the name the child “Jesus” or more accurately, Yeshua, because He would save His people from their sins—that is something Joseph would have understood very well. You see, ancient law was a lot more decent about the adoption process than we see in modern times where it can be harrowing in the extreme. I know this personally. But in that time, all a man had to do was to take the child onto his knee and name him or her. Joseph was being given the privilege of being the adoptive father of the Messiah—and so Yeshua would 100% qualify as a potential heir to the throne of David in the eyes of the Jewish people.
People focus on the faith of Miriam and well we should but Joseph is often overlooked—and he shouldn’t be. He was chosen every bit as carefully by Yahweh as Miriam was. Joseph wasn’t just a random fiancé, meaning that whoever was betrothed to Miriam would step in and get the job done. Not all men’s characters are created equal. He was absolutely chosen and trusted to be faithful in his calling. And as for the language of saving His people? Joseph would be keenly aware that this must be the long expected Messiah—although he probably would have assumed that his son would be the military Messiah most everyone was looking for. But a man so pious, self-controlled, and trustworthy could also be trusted to believe that without turning his son into a brute—as I suspect Adam and Eve might have with Cain. Of course, that’s all just speculation. But as a righteous man, is it too much to think that the Spirit brought this verse to his mind? “Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign: See, the virgin will conceive, have a son, and name him Immanuel.” (Is 7:14) Joseph had the power over life and death for Miriam and her unborn child—believe me, he is no small part of the advent of our Messiah. If Immanuel, meaning God with us, was going to happen, Joseph needed to see to it that they were protected and safe. What other reason would a man travel with a very pregnant wife when he could have left her at home with the midwives?
So Joseph took Miriam into his home but had no marital relations with her until after the birth of the child. And, as commanded, Joseph took the boy from birth and named Him Yeshua, claiming Him as his own firstborn son.
After the birth of Yeshua, some wise men from the east (which is defined as anywhere to the east of the Jordan River) who had been watching the signs in the stars noticed what we call a cosmic event. Cosmic events were believed in those days to be the sign of a significant birth, death, calamity, or victory. In this case, for reasons that are not made clear, these men follow the star they saw to the land of Judea, at the edge of the Roman Empire. Believing that great men are born in palaces and having the social status to request an audience with the king, they approached King Herod and inquired about the child who was born the “King of the Jews.” They had seen the star when it first appeared and left home in order to bow down before the child, to pay homage to him.
King Herod, having murdered a bunch of his own kids, was privately terrified—being at this point in his life quite insane. As the story got out, the people of the city, the religious leaders and the mothers with babes in arm, the artisans, slaves, and priests, were whispering about this rumored new king. Could it be possible, had a child been born who would usurp the brilliant but unpredictable tyrant who had ruled over them for the last thirty years as the brutal puppet king of the Roman Empire? Would they have a Jew to reign over them again at long last? Would the Edomite dynasty end before Herod Archelaus would take his father’s place? Herod the Great was a terrible villain, but a villain they were at least familiar with and for all they knew his remaining sons would be even worse. Herod had killed all of the male descendants of the Jewish Hasmonean dynasty that had devastated the region through family infighting, atrocities toward the party of the Pharisees, and outright civil war. Some must have been asking, in hushed tones, if this might be the Messiah because everyone had heard the story of old Zechariah the priest who had received a visitation from Gabriel announcing the birth of a special child to his barren, elderly wife Elizabeth. That baby was born some time ago, but not in Bethlehem—the House of David, where everyone knew the Messiah would be from.
Herod called the religious leaders to his palace in Jerusalem and asked them one question: “Where will the Messiah be born?” And the leaders, being very smart, neglected to say something like—“Well, as King of the Jews we would expect that you had been in a synagogue at least a few times in your life and this is like common knowledge.” That would have been very bad. But instead, they replied, obviously not really thinking through the ramifications of their admission—” “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet: “And you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah: Because out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.” (Matt 2:6).
After all, what could go wrong in telling a man who killed at least two of his own kids already that a threat to his throne had been born and even where he would have been born. After dismissing the religious leaders, Herod quietly called in the wise men and asked them exactly when they had seen the rising of that star. After they told him, he pretended to be very excited and told them not only where to find the child but also to come back to let him know where he is so that he could go and prostrate himself before this mystery child as well. They bowed before the king and left his presence, very excited, and when the sun went down they looked to where the star was and followed it south until they came to the town of Bethlehem. The star that was leading them on stopped over the house where Miriam, Joseph and Yeshua were staying. They cried out and Joseph came to the doorway, shocked to see men in foreign garb approaching his home. After telling him their purpose, Joseph invited them inside and offered them the hospitality of his home after their long journey. Seeing Miriam with the baby on her lap, they prostrated themselves before the babe in adoration. When they were told to rise up again, they opened and presented the gifts they had brought from their homeland—gold, frankincense, and myrrh.
Joseph was taken aback—he had never seen gold this close in his life, except for that which decorated the Temple so abundantly. He knew the smell of frankincense from the offerings at the Temple, and frankincense and myrrh both perfuming the wealthy women in Sepphoris. These were the gifts that someone would reserve for the birth of a King, and these men obviously weren’t paupers. This was something that Joseph had only ever heard about in the synagogue in the stories of David and Solomon—these wealthy men were bowing down before the son of a common artisan and treating him like a king, paying Him tribute as the sycophants of Herod were famous for doing. They offered expensive gifts in order to court favor, but what favor could these mysterious men ask of his son? Joseph knew what the angel had revealed to him, but they were still a poor and powerless family who weren’t in the position to grant them anything. This was a gift for the sake of giving, it was a pure gift. Riches beyond what Joseph could even imagine.
Joseph was of humble means but he knew his responsibility to offer the men the protection of his home for the night, as well as food, and perhaps they remained but regardless of where they spent the remainder of the night—once they stopped asking questions about the miraculous birth and what had brought them to the house of this poor couple and their child—they had a dream that warned them not to return to their homeland by way of Jerusalem and Herod. We can only imagine their conversations on the way home, about the encounter with Herod that had led them to the home of Joseph and Mary and they would have talked with one another about the child, wondering how on earth such a child in that tiny town could ever rise up to become a king but that’s what the gods were like. They were very fickle, showing favoritism to whomever they desired. One thing they knew for sure, that they had been part of something very special, very mysterious, very strange, and quite wondrous. Perhaps, on their arrival back home, they proclaimed to all who would hear this strange story of a King who wasn’t born in a palace but to a teenage girl and a hard-working artisan.
As Joseph pondered the gift and undoubtedly hid it away, his home filled with the rich perfume of frankincense resin and myrrh gum from southern Arabia, he must have drifted off to sleep more puzzled than ever about this child of his wife Miriam and about his future fate if his beginnings were already so full of odd occurrences. But just as soon as Joseph drifted off the sleep beside his wife, his dreams were once again visited by an angelic messenger. The angel appeared to Joseph and said, “Get up! Take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. For Herod is about to search for the child to kill him.” (Matt 2:13) Immediately, he woke up Mary and they gathered what belongings they could as well as the gifts of the wise men and left town, traveling the trade route down into Egypt. Did they end up in Alexandria, where the large Jewish population had gotten permission from Jerusalem to build a second Temple? The Jews made up about a third of the city and so that definitely would have been a safer place than other cities. And God had provided the money they needed to get there and to find lodging, to eat and care for themselves. Could Joseph even find work? How long did they stay? We just have no idea.
Well the brutal and paranoid king Herod just flew into an absolute rage when the wise men never came back and he did a horrible thing—he ordered his soldiers to go down to Bethlehem and to kill all the babies in town. All of the children who were two years old and under were slaughtered that day. Out of the probably three hundred people who lived there, probably about twenty children were murdered—in fact, they were the first people to die for the sake of Yeshua. And it might seem hard to believe, but this was a man who, before he died, killed his favorite wife Miriamne, both of her sons, and one other son. The world was such an incredibly horrible place in those days that it wasn’t even important enough for historians to mention. It was just life—and Herod was such a terrible man that the Emperor Augustus said that it is better to be Herod’s pig than Herod’s son. I guess the only good that came out of it was that Herod and his sons all thought that the child born King of the Jews had been eliminated.
When Herod finally died, an angel appeared again to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, because those who intended to kill the child are dead.” And just as before, he got right up, and they left the land of Egypt and started on their way back home to the Promised Land. But, as they came to the Land, they heard that the wicked Archelaus had been made the ruler of Judea, so they moved to Miriam’s hometown of Nazareth and probably had enough money to find a place to live and Joseph was able to get back to work on rebuilding Sepphoris. And so ends the Advent story from the point of view of Joseph, the man who was incredibly faithful and good and must have made a wonderful father to Yeshua. He and Mary then had at least six more kids—and next week when we talk about Mary’s advent story, I will explain to you why it was so important that she had kids besides Yeshua.
Matthew told this story of Yeshua’s father in such a way that we see that Yeshua is the greater Moses and the Greater Israel, and throughout this Gospel, we see many parallels. Herod plays the part of Pharaoh, and the wise men sub in for the midwives. Yeshua is saved from death while other babies suffer the wrath of the Beast system that was the Roman Empire. Like Jacob and his family, they went down to Egypt to save their lives and returned when Yahweh called them back.
