And she says, “no, no, no, it’s the Holy Spirit who made this happen.” Would you believe her?Ģ. And your fiancée goes away for three months to another part of the country, and she comes back with a baby bump. You’re engaged to someone who was probably very young-in her teens-and you yourself might be fairly young, perhaps 18 or so. But at this point, what Matthew strongly implies is that those closest to Mary had a really hard time believing her story. The significance of this virgin conception will be drawn out and explained by Matthew later in verse 22. All that Matthew tells us is that this child was from the Holy Spirit. Matthew doesn’t tell us all the detail here that we know from Luke’s gospel: about the angel’s announcement to Mary and her reaction to that message.
She was “found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” Now Matthew tells us the big “how.” Mary was pregnant before she was married because “that which conceived in her from the Holy Spirit” (v.
You weren’t yet married to them, and you weren’t yet supposed to live together or be intimate together, but you were pledged to them in such a way that they were already considered to be your husband or wife.Īnd in that stage in their relationship, Mary is found to be with child. Back then you made legally binding agreement where you pledged yourself to marry this other person. “Betrothed” basically means “engaged.” But engagement or betrothal in the 1 st C was a much bigger deal than it is today. In terms of “when,” verse 18 tells us that when Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found to be with child. For Mary, this was a majorly significant event because of when and how this discovery unfolded. She’s “found to be with child.” Now for a woman to be found to be with child man or may not be a significant event. The first episode or event in this passage is found in verse 18: Mary is found to be with chid. And those five stops are going to be our roadmap this morning as we walk through this passage and learn what we can. Four of those are episodes or events, and one of them is a comment that Matthew makes to explain those events. And we’re going to see that there’s five basic sections in Matthew’s story. So we’re going to dig in and follow along this morning. So Matthew’s story is very much a part of the world of what we might call the Old Testament, and is framed in patterns and language that was deeply familiar and deeply significant to God’s people. Angels showing up to make announcements, revelations through dreams, righteous men being told in advance about a birth-this is all familiar territory in the story of God’s people. Readers of Scripture will be familiar with childless women like Sarah and Rachel and Hannah who were given children through a miracle of the Lord. One of the striking features about Matthew’s version of the Christmas story is how it feels like what we might call an Old Testament story. And what he has to say might appear to be less dramatic than Luke’s story, but I think we’ll find that there is just as much drama, just as much feeling and meaning and significance in Matthew’s story as anywhere else. He’s reporting on different facets of the story. After all, our passage today-Matthew 1:18-25-is about “the birth” or, more literally, “the genesis of Jesus Christ.” Matthew has a very different focus than Luke. I have nothing against Luke and his account, but I feel like Matthew’s account gets lost in the mix sometimes. “In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered…And in the same region there were shepherds out in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night” (Luke 2:1, 8). Whatever the setting, my guess is that when we think about the “Christmas Story,” the particular words which come to mind are those of Luke chapter 2.
Maybe it’s memories from your childhood where you were forced to wear a bathrobe or sheep ears and recite lines in front of your church which you had barely memorized. Maybe it’s curled up by a fireplace with your family on December 25, reading from the Bible together. “The Christmas Story.” I’m not sure what comes to your mind when you hear that phrase.
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