Advent 3 mid-week 2018
19 December 2018
Characters of the
Nativity-Mary – Mother of our Lord
Matthew 1: 18-25
The circumstances regarding the Savior’s birth point to the fact
that Jesus was born in time and space. There were circumstances involving His birth
– there were persons who witnessed His nativity.
It was probably sometime after Mary returned to Nazareth that “she
was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1:18). Joseph,
being a just but also kindly man, planned to divorce her quietly, rather than
expose her to public disgrace, but was reassured by the message of an angel,
given in a dream, that Mary’s child was conceived by the Holy Spirit.
Joseph was instructed, as Mary had already been (Luke 1:31) to
call the baby’s name Jesus (“Jehovah is salvation”), “for he will save his
people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).
Immediately Joseph took Mary to his home as his wife, but had no
union with her until after the birth of Jesus (Matthew 1:25).
If we had only Matthew’s account, we would have thought Joseph and
Mary belonged to Nazareth, but Luke makes it clear that the birth of Jesus
occurred in Bethlehem only because of the census, which brought his parents to
their ancestral home town. Matthew and Luke bring Bethlehem into the picture to
make the record fulfill the prophecy of Micah 5:2.
A census was taken in the Roman world every fourteen years, so one
would have occurred about 8-7 B.C.,
and it may have been somewhat delayed in Palestine. In a census in A.D. 104 people in Egypt were required
to return to their own town for enrollment. When Quirinius was appointed
governor of Syria in A.D. 6,
it was his second such appointment; he may well have been an additional
governor at the time of an earlier census. There seems no valid reason, therefore,
to reject Luke’s clear statement about the circumstances of Jesus’ birth.
The census would account for the shortage of accommodation in
Bethlehem. The “inn” (katavluma), probably was a simple lodging place, and of
course, with no reservations in hand the inn was full. Somewhere nearby,
perhaps in a cave, Jesus was born and laid in a “manger” (favtnh)—not a stall,
but a feeding trough for animals.
Joseph and Mary stayed in the environs of Jerusalem until two
further requirements of the Jewish law were fulfilled. For every first-born
child, a redemption price of five silver shekels, about $3.65 in American
money, or ten days’ wages for a working man, had to be paid to the Temple a
month after the birth (Numbers 18:16). Then, forty-one days after the birth for
a boy, the ceremony of the mother’s purification took place (Leviticus 12:2-4).
For convenience, these two ceremonies were commonly combined in
one visit to the Temple, as was the case here. The offering for a mother’s
purification was a lamb and a turtle-dove or a young pigeon. Joseph and Mary
offered the alternative permitted to a mother too poor to afford a lamb, of two
turtle-doves or pigeons (Luke 2:24)*
Luke tells us (Luke 1:26-38) that the angel Gabriel announces to
Mary that she will be the mother of Jesus through the Holy Spirit. This
messenger from heaven comes to a young girl in Nazareth to tell her that she is
to be the mother of the Messiah. Joseph was a son of King David. By physical
nature Jesus was a son of David. He was also the Son of God and his kingdom is
eternal. This is all God’s work; the child would be the product of the Holy
Spirit. Humbly and submissively, Mary consented to be God’s instrument in
bringing His Son on earth as a human being.
The only question Mary will ask is “how will this happen?” When
Mary receives the news of her coming motherhood of the Messiah, she asked a
sensible and normal question, “How?” Since she is unmarried, how could she
become a mother? In this twenty-first century, not every girl would need to ask
that question! How is this miracle to be performed?
The answer is in the Holy Spirit who would be the Father of God’s
Son. The question, “how?” was vital to Mary, but to Christians there are more
important questions about this child. Who is He and why is He coming?
The circumstances surrounding Mary turn the impossible and the
improbable into our reality. This is an impossible situation! A birth without a
father, a peasant girl becoming the mother of God, and God becoming a person!
Nothing is impossible with God! Christmas is God’s work and action! He comes to
us in the person of Jesus Christ. He chooses Mary. He produces a life by the
Spirit. Because Christmas is of God, the impossible becomes possible.
*Zondervan Pictorial Encyclopedia of the Bible, “The Birth and Infancy Narratives” Grand
Rapids MI D. G. Stewart editor
Lectionary Preaching Workbook Series B John Brokhoff © 1981 CSS Publishing, Lima,
OH pp.22-23
