By: The Rev. Canon Greg Goebel
Joseph is a good man, who wants to do the right thing. Yet he is a compassionate man and wants to do the right thing. He is torn. God, our creator, is compassionate and loves us. Joseph’s compassion was beautiful to Him. He sends His messenger to inform Joseph that the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.
Joseph believes God and is faithful to His word. He takes Mary as his wife and honors and protects her.
It might be easy to miss some of the implications of this passage of Matthew’s Gospel. Nestled in therewith the awesome miracle of the virgin birth and the dazzling appearance of the Angel is a simple, everyday miracle of life.
The child that was miraculously conceived in Mary is a normal human child.
Normal human children are conceived in the womb of a woman. There, they are protected and nourished until birth. Unfortunately, not all unborn children are healthy, and some do not make it to birth.
And yet all of them are alive, they are human beings just like Jesus was and is. God chose the womb of Mary to be the gateway through which the Messiah would be nourished, and then born into our world. This sanctified the womb, set it apart, and showed us clearly that it is a holy place. It always had been, but now we can see the womb as a cradle of life, blessed by God. And we see Mary as our mother too, as the one who bore Christ our Lord.
Every human life is sacred, and the fact that Jesus took on human flesh as an unborn baby settles that forever for us as Christians. As we journey closer to the Christmas season, let us pause here, with Joseph, and ponder the beauty and wonder of life in the womb, the life of a child of God being prepared to fulfill his calling after birth.