“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah was as follows: when His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be pregnant by the Holy Spirit. And her husband Joseph, since he was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her, planned to send her away secretly” (Matthew 1:18-19 NASB).
What does it take to be a righteous person? I wonder if Joseph would have wanted Matthew to describe him in that way? From these texts, we understand a few things about Joseph: 1. If Mary told him about the origin of her pregnancy, he did not believe her; 2. Joseph did not plan to marry someone who had presumably been unfaithful; 3. He did not want to shame Mary publicly. The key word here is “want.” Joseph did not want to ruin Mary’s life. He wanted to do the right thing. A righteous person can still misinterpret events or not believe something that is in fact true. Both Joseph’s motivation and his actions displayed his desire to do the right thing in the eyes of God. God understands that humans make mistakes, righteous or not. I’m sure we’ve all experienced a time when we tried to do something good and it turned out very bad.
When Ryan and I were taking some classes together before we started dating, I offered to pick up his textbooks from the bookstore because he didn’t have time before going to his next class. The line wrapped around the entire store and took at least 20 minutes of waiting. Unfortunately, the cashier informed me that my credit card had reached its maximum limit (I was still on a low limit joint account with my parents). Extremely embarrassed, I had to leave everything with the cashier and interrupt Ryan’s class to tell him I had nothing. I wanted to do something nice but fell flat on my face.
Thankfully Joseph did not end up embarrassed like me. God spoke to him in a dream explaining the whole situation, and Joseph decided to change his mind. He wanted to do the right thing, and though it might make him personally look bad, he married Mary anyway. Those who are righteous will always want to do the will of God, even if they might make a few mistakes along the way.
Dear Lord, especially throughout this advent and Christmas season, please guide me in all of my decisions leading me down the path of righteousness. Amen.