Ep. 2: The Promise
CLICK HERE for the corresponding devotional in Yeshua Adored
MATTHEW 1:18-25, LUKE 1:26-80
The focus now moves from this insignificant priest to a humble unassuming family in the Galilee, simple ‘country folk’, with their awkward speech. If the Rabbis had been writing the script for what was about to come, the cast of characters would be very different and far more important! As it stood, the Messianic announcements came to a simple virgin girl from Nazareth and from the womb and mouth of Elizabeth, her relative, rather than the result of a learned investigation by priests or Rabbis. The world was being turned upside down, nothing is going to go according to acceptable plans and procedures. It is all going to be entirely new and strange. Edersheim describes it thus:
‘The design of the Gospels was manifestly not to furnish a biography of Jesus the Messiah, but, in organic connection with the Old Testament, to tell the history of the long-promised establishment of the Kingdom of God upon the earth.’
The drama switches to Nazareth in Galilee. This region was far from poor. It was cultivated to the utmost and thickly covered with populous towns and villages, the centre of every known industry and the busy road of the world’s commerce. We must not think of Nazareth as a lonely village. The great caravan route which led from Acco by the sea to Damascus divided as it split into three roads. One of them, the ancient Via Maris led through Nazareth. Men of all nations would appear in its streets bringing strange thoughts, associations and hopes connected with the great outside world. But, on the other hand, Nazareth was also one of the great centres of Jewish Temple life, housing priests when not on duty in Jerusalem.
Judaism, as practised in Galilee, had a greater simplicity and freedom than the tradition-strangled areas in the south. Homelife would be all the purer and weddings were simpler than in Judea. Money was less of an issue and widows were better looked after, being allowed to stay in their husband’s house. Such a home was that to which Joseph was about to bring the young lady to whom he had been betrothed.
At the time of their betrothal, although both were of the royal lineage of King David, Joseph and Mary were extremely poor. We notice this not because of his profession as a carpenter, but from the offering at the presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Accordingly, their betrothal must have been of the simplest and the dowry settled as the smallest possible. From that moment Mary was the betrothed wife of Joseph, their relationship was as sacred as if they had already been wedded. Any breach of it would be treated as adultery, neither could the marriage be dissolved except by regular divorce. Yet months might intervene between the betrothal and marriage.
Five months of Elizabeth’s confinement had passed, when a strange messenger brought first tidings to Mary, her kinswoman, in far-off Galilee. It was not in the solemn grandeur of the Temple, between the golden altar of incense and the seven-branched lampstand that the Angel Gabriel now appeared, but in the privacy of a humble home at Nazareth. The greatest honour bestowed on man was to come amidst circumstances of deepest human lowliness. How typical of our heavenly Father!
Teenage virgin Mary seemed to have dealt with the angelic visitation far better than her priestly relative. She was highly favoured and her natural humility chimed well with the message. As with Zacharias, she was told the name to give to the child, a name ‘Yeshua’ (salvation) that was going to define his ministry and purpose. Her response was not of trembling doubt, asking for a ‘sign,’ but rather to enquire for further guidance. The Angel then explained how she would be favoured, how the Holy Spirit will make his home with her.
Mary had a bit of explaining to do on returning home after her three-month visit with Elizabeth. What conversations these women must have had together! How different it would be trying to convey these events to Joseph on her return! For, however deep his trust in his sweetheart, only a direct Divine communication could have chased all questioning from his heart and given him that assurance which was needed in the grand scheme of things. His mind would have been in turmoil. Divorce? But we haven’t even consummated the marriage yet! He would have had to give her a letter of divorce in the presence of two witnesses. What a mess! He needed assurance and it arrived … in a dream.
The fact that such an announcement came to him in a dream was a good thing. ‘A good dream’ was one of the three things popularly regarded as marks of God’s favour and so general was the belief in their significance that there was a popular saying: ‘If anyone sleeps seven days without dreaming, call him wicked’. Thus, Divinely set at rest, Joseph could no longer hesitate. He was now on the team.
History was being played out and the script had already been written. The promise of a Virgin-born son as a sign of the firmness of God’s covenant of old with David and his house; the now unfolded meaning of the former symbolic name Immanuel (God with us); even the unbelief of Ahaz (in not listening to God’s promises), with its counterpart in the questioning of Joseph.
We end this chapter with the same man who opened it, Zacharias, with his song at the birth of his son, John. It was unbelief that had struck him dumb and the answer of faith restored speech to him. The first evidence of his dumbness had been that his tongue refused to speak the benediction to the people and the first evidence of his restored power was that he spoke the benediction of God in a rapturous burst of praise and thanksgiving.
The sign of the unbelieving priest standing before the awe-struck people, vainly trying to make himself understood by signs, was most fitting. Most fitting also that, when ‘they made signs’ to him, the believing father should burst in their hearing into a prophetic hymn. But far and wide, as the news spread throughout the hill-country of Judea, fear fell on all, the fear also of a nameless hope. The silence of a long-clouded day had been broken and the light, which had suddenly flickered into life, laid itself on their hearts in expectancy. ‘What then shall this child be? For the Hand of the Lord also was with him!’
This is an extract from the book, Jesus : Life and Times, available for £10 here (Finalist for Academic Book of the year at 2023 CRT awards)