Edisto Beach State Park, Edisto Island, South Carolina
When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him. Matthew 1:24
I’ve attended church nearly every Sunday since before I was born. I’ve never heard anyone preach on Jesus’ father, Joseph. I’ve often wondered why, and when the opportunity arose several years ago, I did my own study. I’m pleased to say, that today, finally, someone saw merit in Joseph’s life. Just as I discovered. Oh, there’s not a lot of information available, but you know the phrase, “Actions speak louder than words.”? This is how you get to know the kind of man Joseph was. The kind of man God Himself chose to raise His Son.
Today we worshiped with the wonderful people of the Edisto Baptist Church on Jungle Road (Ha! I just think the road name’s funny! 😊) It’s a beautiful old, wood-paneled church, decorated with greens for Christmas. We sang carols! Real, honest to goodness, ‘old-fashioned’ carols! And the people were welcoming. They currently have an interim pastor serving. To quote him, “They’ve been through a difficult time recently and I’m here to prepare them for their next pastor.” They are also blessed to have an excellent pianist/worship leader/choir director, who seems to have put together a community choir for a few concerts. One of which is tonight. We were looking forward to that, especially after hearing the 11-member choir this morning. And there was lots of laughter. Always a good thing!
There are a number of stories and jokes I could share from this morning, but I think it’s time to get to the message.
By all accounts, Joseph was an ordinary man. Ordinary, as in, not famous. Not a King, or a leader of any particular importance. But God rarely chooses the famous to do extraordinary things. In fact, I Corinthians 1:27 tells us that God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
So why was Joseph chosen for one of the most important tasks ever assigned – that of raising the Son of God?
- He came from the right blood line. Matthew Chapter 1 presents the genealogy of Jesus on Joseph’s side. There were a lot, and I mean a lot of prophecies pertaining to Jesus. One of them was His heritage. Beginning with God’s promise to Abraham that all people would be blessed through him (Genesis 12:1-3), and then the promise to David that his kingdom will endure forever; his throne will be established forever (II Samuel 7:16). But this in and of itself isn’t enough. After all, we’re talking thousands and thousands of people who meet this particular criteria.
- Joseph was a righteous man. Matthew tells us that right up front in verse 19. To understand this, we need to get a handle on the word ‘righteous’. Here’s how my Student Bible Dictionary defines it: Rightness by God’s standards. Justice, fairness. Matching life with God’s commandments, love, and purposes. Action based on love for God and a relationship with God. Back then, it meant observing all of The Law (the 10 Commandments, plus all rest of The Law God gave to Moses). Another way to phrase it would be that Joseph was observant of The Law. He did what the Jews expected a Jewish man to do and believe and act. And Jesus would have grown up under that tutelage.
But again, thousands of men qualified. Although I daresay many didn’t have the right heart attitude as Joseph did. By The Law, when Joseph discovered Mary was pregnant, he would have had the right under The Law to have her (and her family) publicly shamed for her infidelity and then have her stoned to death. But he had already decided to ‘divorce her quietly’ instead. This shows compassion and love – traits of a truly godly man.
- Joseph was obedient. He always did exactly as he was told by God’s messenger. This is the trait that set him apart from other men. God chose him because He knew that Joseph would do exactly what he was instructed to do, and do it immediately and without question. There are few men (or women) like that.
So you might be wondering what Joseph did.
Well, the first thing was, he accepted that Mary was pregnant and yet remained a virgin. He was willing to look like he jumped the gun and had relations with her before they were legally wed, or at the very least, they moved up the wedding date. And he was willing to believe that this miracle baby was the actual, true Son of God. Can you imagine how that must have felt? To carry that burden of raising God’s Son? The Salvation of the World? I can remember the burden of just raising our sons to be godly men. I can’t even begin to imagine the burden Joseph and Mary carried.
Next, eight days after Jesus was born, when the family appeared in the temple for the requisite circumcision and naming of the child, Joseph announced that his son’s name was to be Jesus. This was highly unusual, as sons were almost always named after their fathers. But it was as God had instructed him.
Then there was the family’s escape from the clutches of King Herod, who had ordered all the boys in Bethlehem that were two years old or younger. Joseph fled with his family during the night, the moment he woke from the dream telling him to run to Egypt. Keep in mind, this was not just some jaunty joy ride over the border. This was approximately 800 miles of rugged, hard walking across the wilderness. It would have taken a minimum of 4-6 weeks, if they walked 20 miles every day. And again, even though they would have been established in Egypt, as soon as the angel of the Lord (in a dream again) told him to return home, they packed up and left for Israel/Judah.
And once more, when the angel told him to evade King Herod’s son and head for Nazareth.
In all these things, Joseph immediately and without question did as he was told by God. And this, as believed by today’s Pastor and myself, is why Joseph was chosen.
And if you study the prophecies concerning Jesus, all these things were told by the prophets long before – like hundreds of years before – Jesus was born.
So the next time you (or I) wonder why we aren’t more used of God, consider the heart of the matter. Do you (I) harbor reservations? Are you (we) willing to be obedient – – no matter what?
We began our day in the rain, even before church. And it was rain, rain and more rain all day and all night long, for a total of 3.03 inches of rain!! If I read the report correctly, it’s a new record for this day.
Days like this, spying on all our neighbors, make us really glad we don’t have a dog! They were all out walking their dogs in the pouring rain. And then, they have to take their wet dogs inside their little trailers/5th-wheels/small motorhomes. And find a place to dry their wet clothes. The people across from us? Four large red retrievers. Four! And they have long hair to boot! Yuk!
Not bad weather at 7:15am
We went out to the beach for an early morning walk before church, but then it started lightning and thundering all of a sudden just as we left the walkway, so we turned around and high-tailed it home!
The rain fell in torrents a good bit of the day, but it was never windy.
This is what we had by 8:15am.
By 4:30, we had a small pond, that just kept getting bigger.
We had thawed Porterhouse steaks for dinner, which Blaine was going to grill for us. Just as he was about to put the awning out so he could keep himself and the grill dry, the wind started. Our evening just kinda fell apart from there.
Dinner wasn’t great – broiled steaks just didn’t turn out well and were fairly tasteless, the only salad we had was some shredded dry cole slaw (which actually was pretty good with regular salad dressing on it), and microwaved potatoes (which for some reason had a hard spot).
And we rushed through dinner so we could get back to the church for the Community Christmas Concert by 7pm.
We left the dirty dishes, jumped in the Jeep and headed for the gate to the campground. The gate was locked, which wasn’t surprising, since they do that at 6pm. Blaine took an umbrella and tried in vain to work the combination lock keeping us in. I had offered to hold the umbrella for him, but the chivalrous man declined. So he’s out there trying to hold an open umbrella under his arm, or between his head and shoulders, and finally just threw it to the ground.
He gave up and backed up to try the entrance gate. It too, was unyielding. We were both irritated. We were really looking forward to that concert! As he struggled, Blaine had the thought that they probably changed the combination code the first of the month (actually yesterday) – – and neglected to update us.
Back home, Blaine called the number we had for the campground, but only got a recording telling us to call 9-1-1 in an emergency.
What constitutes an emergency?
By now, it was almost 7pm. We gave up on the concert, and watch recorded Christmas shows instead. Sigh . . . .
And then, about 8pm, the storm kicked up! Our home was rocking (24mph gusts I learned the next day), and we experienced torrential rain, brilliant lightning, and booming thunder! We turned everything off and just enjoyed the ride! In fact, it rained and blew so hard, some rain was forced in around our bedroom slide. Not much, but some. First time that’s ever happened.
The last time we were in a storm like this, we were at Holden Beach during a tropical storm!