Imagine you are a young man who is engaged to be married, and you find out your fiancé is pregnant. There is no chance the baby is yours. How would you feel? What would you do? Imagine, too, that you live in a small town at a different time, and soon everyone will know. At least, they will know what they see, and you’ll be implicated and hugely embarrassed.
This was what happened to Joseph who was engaged to Mary. She came to him one day and, probably trembling with fear, told him that she was expecting a baby. More than that, the baby was to be a miracle from God. Imagine his shock and his questions. And imagine his thoughts afterwards when he was alone.
Could Mary be deceived? She had never lied to him. She wasn’t the hysterical type. He thought through the options and made his decision: He would quietly end the engagement so that Mary would not be disgraced. His alternative under Jewish law would be to accuse her of adultery and cancel the engagement publicly. Joseph’s choice tells us a great deal about his character: his concern was for Mary rather than for himself.
He pondered this action—how would he do it and when? How could he protect her? We don’t know how long he contemplated this, but long enough for him to become so exhausted that he fell asleep. As he slept, God sent a messenger to him in a dream to confirm Mary’s account of the situation. What was Joseph’s reaction to that? He must have been reassured about the truth of Mary’s story, but he must also have wondered. Nothing like this had ever happened. His fiancé was to have a child, not fathered by a man, but by God. This was the shock of his life.
None of us will ever be shocked as Joseph was, but we are shocked from time to time, whether by personal tragedy or national catastrophe, whether it touches us individually or not. Life comes with shocks. Centuries before this event, another Joseph must have been shocked when his brothers threw him in the well and again when they sold him as a slave; Daniel must have been shocked when he was thrown in the lions’ den; his three friends must have been shocked when they were forced into the blazing furnace. And now Joseph was thrown into an unbelievably difficult situation. We could multiply examples from Bible history.
The crucial thing to understand about these crises is that they do not form our character; rather, they reveal the character we have built in quieter times. Character building is not the product of great crisis moments; it’s the patient work of our walk with God in the everyday world we inhabit. The young man Joseph apparently lived a faithful life. Matthew describes him as “a righteous man.” So when this great test came he was able to handle it. His day-by-day faithfulness stood him in good stead when the shock came. May God give us the grace to follow in his path.
Prayer: Lord, help me be faithful to You day by day so that when the crisis points come my responses will be what they should be. Give me faith like the young adoptive father, Joseph. May my faithfulness grow to a deep and lasting heart-commitment like his.
Author: Lindsay Hislop was raised in southern Scotland and southern Ontario and now lives in the southern United States. He worked in the engineering field for 15 years (mostly in Canada) before pursuing an academic career. He has taught for over thirty years at Columbia International University. He also serves as an elder in his church, where he teaches and preaches regularly. He is married to a wonderful wife Pam and has two terrific children, Holly, who lives in Canada, and Doug, who lives in Columbia. His four grandchildren, Isaac, Madeline, Lindsay, and Dolan, are also pretty special. He likes doing carpentry and odd jobs around the house.
