Bible Text: Matthew 1:18–25 | Preacher: Rev. Dr. Christian Preus
Our Advent midweek series this year is Joseph and the three estates. The three estates are the home, the state, and the church. God instituted these three “estates” and each of us lives our lives within them. We’re all born into a home and family, we’re all born in a country, a state, and all of us here were born again in Christ’s Church.
We’re going to focus on Joseph for a couple reasons. The first being that the Gospel of Matthew focuses on Joseph, very emphatically. Luke focuses much more on Mary, but take a look at Matthew and you’ll see it’s Joseph who’s taking the initiative, he’s the one the angel appears to, he’s the one given instructions on the name of Jesus, he’s the one who names him, and when Herod tries to kill him, it’s Joseph again the angel warns and Joseph who brings Mary and baby Jesus to Egypt. He’s the leader of his home. The second reason is that Joseph gets neglected. I had a student the other day refer to Joseph as the third wheel. Because the attention if it’s not on Jesus, is usually on Mary, and understandably, she is the mother of God. But this neglect of Joseph corresponds in our day to the disparaging of men in general, which is about as dangerous a thing a society could possibly do. Today men who want to take the lead, express convictions, and provide for a family get accused of “toxic masculinity.” But the fact is that God made man to take the lead in the home, and in society, but to do so in love. And that’s what Joseph teaches us to do. Joseph is a great man. A godly man. And as he leads his home, there isn’t a trace of toxicity. Young men would have a hard time finding a better role model than Joseph.
Joseph isn’t Jesus’ father. God the Father is. Jesus was born of the virgin Mary without the aid of male anything, by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus has no human father at all (and that by the way is what makes the virgin birth sui generis, in a class of its own, even after the advent of in vitro fertilization has made it possible for a “virgin” to conceive: in Jesus’ case, there is simply no biological father at all). So Joseph is NOT Jesus’ father. But Joseph is Jesus’ father in the truer sense of the term. The term the Church has traditionally used is Guardian. Joseph is the Guardian of the Lord. But all that means is that Joseph acted like a father to Jesus.
Being a father isn’t a matter of biology. Biological dads can be totally absent, can conceive and leave, never raise their child. That’s toxic masculinity. There’s a huge push among conservatives, whether in politics because of immigration and a low-birth rate in the United States, or in the Church, a huge push to have children, but we always have to keep in mind that it’s not just about having children, it’s about raising them, and that means the father being a real father. Real masculinity is to lead in love. To be a true father, a true dad, is to be there raising the child, leading the home, supporting the wife. And in that sense, Joseph was a wonderful father to Jesus.
Jesus had no need of a biological father. He did have need, as a human being, of a human father. And God raised up Joseph for that task. And this is extremely important. It shows how much God values marriage and father and mother raising children together. Jesus is the Son of God. He is divine. As God He needs nothing. All things need Him, but He needs nothing. But for us men and for our salvation He became a man. And He humbled Himself, and took on our weakness and our infirmity. He had human needs. He needed to learn to be a man. He grew in wisdom and strength. And God wanted Joseph to lead in teaching him, just as He commands every father here to lead their home. That’s how important fatherhood is to God. Even Jesus as human needed a father in the home.
Before Jesus ever went to church (to Temple), Joseph prayed with Him and for Him. Jesus learned the Bible from Joseph before He ever amazed the priests in the Temple at age 12. Joseph was also His protector. He saved the almighty God, who was a helpless baby, from the clutches of the maniacal Herod. That’s what good men and fathers do. They lead their home in the Word of God and prayer and they provide for and protect their children.
Good fathers are also good to their wives. You can’t be a good dad if you’re a bad husband. The way you treat your wife and the mother of your children passes down to the children. It’s the main way a father teaches them to be men and women, as they see how their dad treats their mom. You can say all you want, Be loving to your wife, lead the home in love, lead with God’s Word, but if you aren’t doing it yourself, the children will do as you do and not as you say.
The Holy Spirit gives us a beautiful look into how Joseph treated Mary. Even when he thinks what any man would think if he found his betrothed with child, he wants to treat her honorably, to deal with it quietly, give her back to her father and explain why he can’t marry her. And then when Joseph is corrected with the Word of God, he takes it, obeys, and loves and cares for his wife. Humanly speaking, Jesus grew up seeing that. And as strange as it sounds, because Jesus couldn’t sin, He was and is God, as a human, he learned what it meant to do good and be a man from Joseph. That’s how important fatherhood is.
But Joseph was also a sinner. So was Mary. Joseph wasn’t the perfect father, Mary wasn’t the perfect mother – they both had to confess that Jesus was THEIR Savior (we’ll sing Mary’s words here in just a little bit). Joseph in doing his fatherly duty and naming Jesus, Jesus, was also admitting that he was a sinner and needed this baby to save him from his sins. Jesus means the Lord saves. And that is the greatest confession a father can make!
God put His Son into the family because He wanted to show us that He came to redeem the family. It’s in our family that we sin the most. You see in this beautiful scene of Jesus, the Savior, being born in Bethlehem, you see even there the horrible word “divorce” raise its ugly head, which has done so much harm to families throughout history and in our day. And the Holy Spirit records that for a reason too.
We sin the most in our families. Even the best of husbands, the best of wives, the best of children. Husbands sin against wives, either being too harsh or giving up the responsibility of leading because it’s too hard; wives against husbands in not giving them the respect they need so they can lead the home with confidence. Fathers are too slack with their children or too harsh; mothers are too controlling or too naïve to their kids’ faults. Children disobey, are lazy, disrespectful, bicker with one another. We take the most beautiful institution God could possibly give us, what should bring so much happiness and blessing, and we use it for our selfish gain and we cause pain to one another. However you have offended God in this, repent.
Jesus redeems the family because He redeems all of creation, and the family is at the head of all creation. The greatest treasure a family has is Jesus and the forgiveness He won by His perfect life and His bitter sufferings and death. He bore our sins, our family sins, all our sins, on the cross. He loved us perfectly. He was and is our perfect Brother and gives us the perfect Father who loves us as if we were His only Son, because we are joined to His only Son in our Baptism. Jesus becomes our perfect Husband and lays down His life for His Bride and clothes us with His own righteousness, so that we are beautiful in His sight. We become the family of God, and that family is perfect, with Jesus at its head, and His righteousness flowing down on us.
And it is this love and this forgiveness that brings blessing on our earthly families and unites them together and erases sins and reconciles spouses and inspires them to love and respect one another.
Joseph led his family first and foremost by handing this word down to them. God bless us and especially fathers to lead our families with this same Word of God. Amen.