Hello, my “Walking with Jesus” friends on this Friday after Christmas,
I hope you are having a wonderful Christmas week and these days of preparation for a new year ahead! For Joseph and Mary in busy Bethlehem, I have to believe these were very stressful days trying to move out of that smelly stable and into something more suitable for a newborn baby, especially considering that baby was God incarnate! I wonder how many times Joseph found himself alone in that busy town crying out to God asking for God’s help in providing even the most basic needs for his young wife and baby.
No doubt, for Joseph this entire experience of being husband to Mary in her miraculous pregnancy and now this unique baby, must have been something none of us can begin to even imagine!! What a huge responsibility and yet I assume Joseph so often felt all alone in the challenge. No other man could possibly imagine or understand what Joseph was attempting and this unique path of life for Joseph was not the brief “Christmas story”! Oh no my friends, Joseph would live this unimaginable role of adoptive father to Jesus for the rest of his life!
Have you ever thought about that, especially if you are facing difficult life challenges, especially parenting or grandparenting challenges?
In addition to all the practical needs Joseph felt the burden of providing for his family I wonder how often Joseph felt the burden of God’s expectations that Joseph guide, protect, teach and train child Jesus from infancy, through His teen years, to young adulthood? Have you ever thought about that? In truth I imagine that mentoring role far outweighed the basic provider role Joseph had for young Jesus. These days following that first Christmas all pointed forward to a very significant next experience Joseph knew awaited them.
I find it Luke 2:23 “Joseph and Mary took Him to Jerusalem to present Him to the LORD. (As it is written in the Law of the LORD, ‘Every firstborn male is to be consecrated to the LORD.)” I’m sure Joseph, and every Jewish husband and dad, knew the story well. Way back when Moses was leading the Hebrew slaves out of Egypt, the final plague which set them free was the angel of death passing over Egypt and the death of the firstborn son in every family, including the Pharaoh, who had NOT believed God and therefore did NOT put the blood of the lamb on their doorpost! (Ex.12:21-23)
To commemorate that event and the role of faith in God and responsibility every Jewish husband and father had for their family, God had given this instruction to Moses: “Consecrate to Me every firstborn male. The first offspring of every womb among the Israelites belongs to Me… Redeem every firstborn among your sons.” (Ex.13:1,2,13)
Later, God gave even more specific instructions to His people about this matter of consecrating their firstborn sons to God: “You must redeem every firstborn son…when they are a month old at the redemption price set at five shekels of silver…” (Numbers 18:15,16) Firstborn sons in the God designed culture of His Hebrew people were very significant and God wanted parents of firstborns to take seriously their responsibility to raise those firstborn sons to understand God and His expectations of them and their role as firstborns both in their family and the community of God’s people.
The word “Consecrate” means parents were to dedicate their firstborn sons to God for His glory and commit themselves to raise those boys to know God, know God’s laws and help their firstborn sons live consistently seeking to honor God with every day of their lives! I don’t know if Joseph was a firstborn son, but Joseph knew God expected Joseph to model that consecrated lifestyle for child Jesus and train Him up to be a God honoring man!
In those days immediately after the birth of Jesus, we assume Joseph frantically set about not only to complete the census registration in Bethlehem, which was the original reason for which he and Mary had come to Bethlehem, but also to find housing, food and probably some work to provide for Mary and her miracle son. The stress of that was significant yet neither Luke nor Matthew gives us any insight into how Joseph handled the pressure of those days while at the same time feeling the burden of responsibility to develop both husband and parenting patterns which would model for little Jesus how to live a consecrated to God life!
As we prepare to close the 2024 story of our lives that we each have been writing, what lessons has God taught you and me that will enable us to live a more consecrated, God honoring life in 2025?
How is your marriage stronger and more God glorifying today than one year ago? How is your parenting or grandparenting more effectively developing the next generation of God honoring young people?
What new experiences is God planning for both you and me in 2025? I hope you’ll join me in taking extra time in these last days of ’24 for self-evaluation, so we’ll be ready for living God honoring, consecrated lives in ’25. No doubt the oceans of life we’ll try to navigate in in ’25 will require God guiding us, especially when the waters get choppy and waves start crashing, so I found a song to help us reflect on preparing, probably just as Joseph did…
Today’s Scripture: Luke 2:22,23.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
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Pastor Doug Anderson
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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