Matthew 1: Love stands with

Lieutenant Matthew Stone reminds us that, like Joseph, we have the choice to accept God’s will.

Key texts

• Matthew 1:18-25

‘This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about’ (v18). It is a story that most, if not all, of us have heard countless times in a variety of ways. As we journey through Advent, we will have already heard and engaged with parts of the story again. 

As someone who loves God’s word, it is encouraging when people hear something new and share how they have sensed God through the familiar verses. Sometimes, however, familiarity can tempt us to switch off or skim over. In The New Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Matthew, William Barclay comments: ‘There is much more in this chapter than the crude fact that Jesus Christ was born of a virgin mother.’ In The Voice translation, verse 18 reads: ‘So here, finally, is the story of the birth of Jesus the Anointed (it is quite a remarkable story).’

Pause and reflect

• Read and re-read the study passage, exploring different interpretations. Meditate on what God draws to your attention.
• What stands out to you?
• Which character have you connected with?
• What detail or word has jumped out at you?

Our reading can inspire all kinds of questions. What was the relationship between Joseph and Mary like? They are described as engaged, but then the author writes about husbands and wives and divorce. Most commentaries and study Bibles will, in some way, unpack the cultural dynamics of betrothal, engagement and marriage. For example, once a couple had gone public in their engagement, they could separate only by divorce. 

What about Mary? What is the Gospel writer telling us about her in their use of Isaiah 7:14 and their translation of the Hebrew word al.mah as ‘virgin’ in Matthew 1:23? Again, commentators highlight that what is often translated as ‘virgin’ could also be understood to mean ‘young girl’. What implications would that have for our understanding of these words? 

Reflecting on our study passage, I am mindful of Michael Green’s warning in his commentary The Message of Matthew on these verses: ‘It would be a pity if all [the] questions which arise in modern minds were to rob us of the main significance of this marvellous chapter. The Father loves us enough to send his Son.’

Pause and reflect

• How have you encountered Immanuel – God who is with us – in what you have read?
• What have you sensed of his love for us through Jesus?

William Barclay suggests that, if we looked at these verses with fresh eyes, as if for the first time, then it would be the involvement of the Holy Spirit that would capture our attention. That was what stood out for me in reading these words as I recognised how God, who is love (see 1 John 4:16), stands with us through his Holy Spirit – God’s active and creative moving towards us amid the questions and promise of life with him.

In reading the Life Application Study Bible commentary on these verses, I came away reflecting on how we have a choice about whether we stand with God and his will for us. 

Despite Joseph wanting to separate from Mary, God showed him that there was another option – the Life Application Study Bible encourages us that: ‘God often shows us that there are more options available than we think.’ Joseph chose to stand with God, which meant standing with Mary despite the stir it would cause. 

Joseph would associate the Holy Spirit with the prophets, who were equipped with God’s will and truth through the Spirit. Today, as we recognise God’s love standing with us through the Holy Spirit, we are also able to discern his truth and his will for whatever we are experiencing. Then, having discerned how God is speaking into what life looks like, there is the invitation to respond like Joseph.

Pause and reflect

• Even though culturally and socially we are expected to do something different, how might God be inviting us to stand with him?

Consider the creativity that is breathed into our being when love stands with us through the Holy Spirit – a life-giving creativity that creates and re-creates and enables us to embrace a way of life that we could not dream up for ourselves. It is a love that enables us to love and stand with others, even when it would seem right and kind to go our separate ways.

Faithful and righteous people like Joseph would have been familiar with Scriptures that tell us about the Holy Spirit’s presence at the creation of the world (see Genesis 1:2; Psalm 33:6), as well as the Spirit’s ability to renew and breathe new life into lifeless situations (see Psalm 104:30; Ezekiel 37:1–14). 

Tony Horsfall, in Knowing You, Jesus, writes that Joseph ‘knew that the Law was clear about [Mary’s] apparent misbehaviour, yet his love for her cried out for a merciful response’. 

Under the Law, Mary should have been stoned to death (see Deuteronomy 22:23 and 24). Joseph, however, had settled on a quiet divorce. Yet through God’s creative and life-giving Spirit, there was more in store for both of them. Out of this seemingly lifeless situation and through the Trinitarian presence and action of God, we can all be encouraged that God has more in store for us.

Pause and reflect

• Where is the creative and life-giving presence of God standing with you in what might seem to be lifeless and inert situations?

How might God want to breathe new life into you and me? How might God want to breathe new life into the places where we live, through his Spirit standing with us, changing our attitudes and working through us?