NL 116: Jesus as Immanuel

image: Christ Emmanuel, Christian icon with riza by Simon Ushakov, 1668. (Wikimedia)

Matthew 1:18-25

Initial Thoughts

  • Matthew 1:1-17 - Genealogy- a worthwhile sermon on God’s love:

    • Jesus had a very flawed family line: 

      1. Tamar - a gentile (impregnated by her father-in-law who then tried to burn her alive)

      2. Rahab - a prostitute

      3. Ruth - a foreign Moabite!

      4. “Wife of Uriah” (downfall of David)

      5. Uzziah (struck down by God for his arrogance)

      6. Manasseh - restored idol worship and worship of Baal and was the worst king

    • This is the family whom God chose to save the world and become incarnate within

      1. If God can save the world with this family- imagine what God can do with you

Bible Study

  • Birth narrative in Matthew is barely a narrative. 

    • There’s no manger or shepherds or angels or trip to Bethlehem.

    • 1-17 is genealogy

    • 18-24 is about Joseph

    • Jesus is born in a period in the middle of verse 25

      • “But he didn't have sexual relations with her until she gave birth to a son.  Joseph called him Jesus.”

  • Joseph’s Choice

    • Joseph has a choice!

      • Hard Choice - stay with potentially unfaithful fiance

      • Easy Choice - quietly break off the engagement 

    • Deuteronomy 22:22-27

“If a young woman who is a virgin is engaged to one man and another man meets up with her in a town and has sex with her, you must bring both of them to the city gates there and stone them until they die—the young woman because she didn’t call for help in the city, and the man because of the fact that he humiliated his neighbor’s wife. Remove such evil from your community!

But if the man met up with the engaged woman in a field, grabbing her and having sex with her there, only the man will die. Don’t do anything whatsoever to the young woman. She hasn’t committed any capital crime—rather, this situation is exactly like the one where someone attacks his neighbor and kills him. Since the man met up with her in a field, the engaged woman may well have called out for help, but there was no one to rescue her.

If a man meets up with a young woman who is a virgin and not engaged, grabs her and has sex with her, and they are caught in the act, the man who had sex with her must give fifty silver shekels to the young woman’s father.  She will also become his wife because he has humiliated her.  He is never allowed to divorce her.”

  • Joseph Disregards the Deuteronomic Law, and yet he is considered a “Righteous man” because of this kindness.

    • He is stuck between following the Law, and following his heart. His choice is to follow his heart.

    • Standing in tension that Jesus grows up to teach about time and again: “You have heard it said..., but I say to you…”

  • Joseph does not investigate whether Mary conceived in a field or not.  And he chooses not to search for the man either.

  • Also note that the adultery law only applies if the woman is engaged or married.  It says nothing about a married man having sex with a woman that is unmarried/unengaged.  

    • Marriage was a property exchange, and a way to determine the handing down of goods from Father to Son.  

    • Sex with a married woman throws into question the validity of the husband’s property line.

    • Also, marriage is required if a man rapes an unengaged woman, and the reparations are paid to the father.

  • “[Joseph] accepting Mary and naming the child makes him Jesus’ legal father. He not only cares for this new family, but also turns his life upside down for them: he moves to Egypt, then relocated from Bethlehem of Judea to Nazareth in Galilee, on their behalf” (Amy-Jill Levine, Women’s Bible Commentary, p. 468)

  • Mary

    • Most likely a teenager, “documentary evidence suggests that free women married for the first time between the ages of twelve and twenty” Ross S. Kraemer, “Jewish Family Life in the First Century CE”, The Jewish Annotated New Testament. p. 605.

    • A similar situation as Tamar - pregnant while in a committed relationship (Mary is betrothed and Tamar was a widow)

    • “When we read passages like Matthew 1:18-25, we should not overlook those whose voices are not heard and who have no agency whatsoever, like Mary. Joseph is allowed to make his own decision. Mary, however, is at the mercy of others. We know nothing of her suffering, except through the eyes of Joseph.” Michael Joseph Brown, “The Silence of Mary” side bar in “Matthew”, True to our Native Land, p.88.

  • Ultimately, this is about God’s action in the child that is coming.  

    • This birth is “of God.”  

    • The child will fall into the line of David.  

    • Neither Mary nor Joseph have any words in this narrative.  The only words are from the angel.  The only “action” is obedience.

    • “Although Joseph predominates in Matthew’s nativity story, feminine images encircle Jesus’ conception and birth. Mary conceived by the “Holy Spirit,” a grammatically neuter phrase in Greek but feminine in Semetic languages.” (Amy-Jill Levine, Women’s Bible Commentary, p. 468)

  • Two names of the child tells us about the nature of God:

    • Jesus, meaning “God saves”

      • Jesus is the Latin translation of Joshua

        • Jesus is presented as both the new Moses who will bring people out of the bondage of sin and the new Joshua who will bring them into the Promised Land- the Kingdom of God

      • Matthew makes it clear that Joseph named Jesus.  This is the ultimate act of him claiming the boy as his own, thus adopting him into the line of David. (Eugene Boring, The New Interpreters Bible v. viii Matthew, p. 136)

      • “Many Christians are uncomfortable with the expression ‘Jesus son of Joseph,’ because it sounds to them like a denial of the virgin birth.  For Matthew, it was essential that Jesus be recognized as truly the son of Joseph, because only so was he an authentic descendant of David” (Douglas Hare, Interpretation: Matthew p. 11)

    • Emmanuel, meaning “God is with us”

      • The meaning of the “virgin birth” is not to make great theological interpretations about things like original sin, or biological theories about DNA.  It is about simply “God is with us.”

      • The great mystery of Immanuel is that God is with us, and that is enough.

Thoughts and Questions

  • How often do we choose the easy choice because it is “right” within the bylaws or laws instead of the hard choice which may lead to persecution but embraces the love of God?

  • We often focus on Mary and what it was like to be a teenage mother- what about Joseph the teenage father of a child who isn’t his, yet adopts him anyway. In what ways are we like Joseph?

Year 1Eric FistlerMatthewComment