Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife
Matthew 1:18-25
Grace to you and peace…
The message of God’s messenger isn’t much different today than it was 2000 years ago, but it is spoken into a very different context. “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife Joseph, for what is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit”.
In his context and in his culture, Joseph would have been very afraid -because in his culture, the sentiments expressed by Proverbs 22 would have been widely cherished: “A good name is to be chosen rather than great riches, and favor is better than silver or gold”. In Joseph’s day and in his culture, he would have grown up being admonished that “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” and that “knowledge of the Holy One is understanding”. On top of that, in Joseph’s day the fear of God’s wrath against sin was more than simply a wrath that is to come” — in fact his country and his people had experienced it many times throughout their history. God’s heavy hand against sin affected them in the “now” – and back then, you could get stoned for sins like adultery and for having any number of sins publicly exposed.
I. We live in a very different time.
The culture in which we live would think nothing of Mary’s being pregnant. There’d be no fear of repercussion or of any consequence for sin. That’s because most people in our culture have no true fear of God any more than they have any true knowledge of God…any more than they have any understanding that there are often unseen and unanticipated consequences for sin.
In our culture, you wouldn’t necessarily be afraid to take Mary as your wife – at least not simply because she’s pregnant. In our culture, what most people would be more afraid of is this message – not to mention the messenger! What they’d be afraid of is if this “God” who is so often conveniently regarded as being “far off” and as a God that really isn’t bothered by our sins – especially the ones we openly tolerate and even enjoy — would suddenly come near. What they’d be afraid of is if he would come and suddenly pull them, unexpectedly into the accomplishment of His plans and the exercise of His will. People are afraid of a mostly unknown God, coming and suddenly make His dwelling among us…of Him making Himself so near that He would enter your very body…of what it might mean if something similar were conceived in them of the Holy Spirit.
II.That’s not to say that there aren’t a lot of people that think of themselves as “spiritual”.
But it is to say that their “spirituality” is really carnality blanketed under the disguise of flowery emotions, thoughts and words. Their “spirituality” is of the un-excised spirit within, rather than of the Spirit above. So the Bible says that many of those that fancy themselves “spiritual“, in truth have no true fear nor knowledge of God. The “god” they think they know is conveniently very far off. He is not the ‘God with us’ or the ‘Immanuel’ but the “god” who conforms to “my will”…who blesses me with what I want and confirms how I think things should be…who doesn’t presume to correct or hinder me because that’s “not nice”. Their resistance to the Holy Spirit makes God’s Word simply go “in one ear and out the other”. And, if there has been anything conceived in them of the Holy Spirit, that poor life is often weak…dying…and malnourished because it’s been mostly left for dead.
Unlike Joseph, who was considering all these things for fear of what unseen consequences there might be if he continued his relationship with someone who sure seemed to be a “sinner”, people are resisting the Spirit today...afraid to give up control when their current arrangement “feels so right” and when it makes “such sense”. They’re afraid of what this new life might cost, and they’re afraid of a God who is also the “Lord”…who with the two-edged sword of His Word comes to be “God with us” that He might actually save us from our sins.
III. It’s in the context of all these fears that this Word to Joseph comes also to us
The messenger says the same thing to us as he said to Joseph: “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit”. God’s call to Joseph is the same as His call to you. It’s a call to trust that the new life that God begins surpasses any life that you could conceive for yourself. It’s a call to trust him — a call that comes to you in whatever context you find yourself and it says, “Yes, take Mary as your wife”…because the One who calls you has already fulfilled every promise that He ever made too you. He’s already done all that’s needed to save you. On account of His sacrificial death, your sins have already been blotted out before God. The punishment you deserve has already been exacted. Your enemy is defeated and now a new life free from fear is yours.
You should be running to embrace your wife with joy!
That’s why, with this call is the same call that God has always spoken to His people: “Come out, and be separate”. “Be ye in the world but not of the world”. “Leave your father and mother...leave the carnal and darkened ways behind and be united with your wife, that the two may become one flesh…that what is conceived in her might also be born to you”.
The Apostle Paul considered these kinds of things as he was writing the words we read in Ephesians five, and he rightly recognized, under the power of the Holy Spirit, how this text about Joseph’s encounter with the Angel still relates to us today. He summarizes it like this: He says, “I’m talking about Christ and the church”. And that’s what these words mean for us today: “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, Joseph”. “What is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit”.
IV. The church is the body in which the Seed resides.
It is she who has been scandalized before the eyes of the world because God has claimed her as His own. It is she upon whom the Holy Spirit has descended and in whom the living Word resides. He has captured her and made her an instrument of His will…even an instrument of His peace and it is about her that the Angel now speaks when he says, “Do be afraid to take her as your wife”.
Together, “You will call His name, Jesus” (meaning,“God saves”) – when you take this Mary as your wife…and in this the Word of the Lord is fulfilled: He has become “God with YOU” – Immanuel…and He will save His people from their sins”. So, you mustn’t be afraid to take her as your wife, because what is conceived in her has saved you from your sins.
What is conceived in her has taken your sins upon Himself. He has died for you and already suffered the just punishment for your transgressions of God’s law; your lack of trust; your frailty of flesh; your vainglorious pursuit of reputation; your fear of relinquishing control…that you might live and be united with Mary and with Him.
This is the great mystery…as Paul says,”that Christ is in you, the hope of glory”. And what hope Joseph must have had by faith, because as Matthew tells us, Joseph waited to know Mary carnally until they both could know and behold the Christ who’d been conceived.
Conclusion: We need to hear these words as we prepare for Christ’s coming. We need to hear these Words because we do live in a context in which, as the Apostle says, so many are “without hope and without God in the world”. They do not know, in an intimate way, the name “Immanuel” any more than they know the Name Jesus as the “God with us who saves”. That’s why He continues to call by the gospel. He continues to call by means of these words, even as we now live out our lives in the context of the hopeless and the godless. You are called to not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. You are called to be as one flesh with her even as what is conceived in her is born for you.
In her you are saved by the one who did not come into the world to condemn the world. This is your hope. God is with her. In her your Savior comes to you. Do not be afraid to take her as your wife.
In her, God is with us, who saves us from our sins; saves from fear; and saves us from the godlessness of our times.
In the Name of Jesus, Amen.