Put Yourself in Our Shoes
“Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.” Matthew1:18-19
As the old song says “It’s the most wonderful time of the year”. The Christmas season is here once again. I really love this time of year. For all the meaning and pageantry associated with it. I love seeing how excited my kids get. The songs, food, and fellowship. It’s really easy to lose our focus on what matters. I mentioned this in my previous post. Today I want to take a different route. I want us to look at Mary and Joseph. I want us to consider what they went through during this time. I want us to consider what it would have been like if we were in their shoes.
We often read the Christmas story as nothing more than a story. The people we read about are often considered as only characters and not real people. We don’t consider their feelings, trials, and temptations. We don’t often think of how hard it was for them. It’s just a story.
When you consider the time that Mary and Joseph were living in, the culture, and traditions, you will see that they both took a massive leap of faith to go along with God’s plan. In their day, for a girl to be pregnant outside of marriage was VERY frowned upon. In fact, the girl and the family were often shunned by society. Not to mention the child once he/she was born. This shunning would carry to the extreme often times. The local community could refuse to do business with the family. This would affect the livelihood of Mary’s family. All because of the assumptions of people. The Bible doesn’t say, but I can imagine that Mary had very few people that believed her story of how she became pregnant. It was probably so bad that I could see Mary refusing to discuss the situation because she knew that she was not going to win anyone’s approval. Mary was probably the topic of a lot of gossip. The source of many jokes. I could see her losing friends and family over this. In Mary’s day, to give birth to an illegitimate child was very serious.
What about Joseph? Here is a guy, who is engaged (espoused) to who he thinks is the girl of his dreams. He is so excited about their future lives together. He is busy preparing to become a husband. He is probably in the middle of building their future home in his spare time. Then all of a sudden, his world comes crashing down. He finds out his beloved Mary is pregnant and he knows the child is not his. Not only that, but Mary insists that she has not been with another man and that this child is God’s? Who would dare believe this tall tale? Joseph was embarrassed. He wanted out. And who could blame him? He could see and hear all the people whispering as he walked by. He heard thejokes. He heard what was said about Mary. He probably received countless nuggets of advice from everybody he knew. In his mind, he was probably wondering “What did I do to deserve this?”.
What would you have done? If you are female, put yourself in Mary’s shoes. If you are male, try putting yourself in Joseph’s predicament.Would you have been willing to make this type of personal sacrifice? Would you have been willing to put a giant bullseye on your back for all your so-called friends to take shots at? Would you have the faith in God to trust that it was going to all be worth it? We, as people, often have a hard time seeing the whole picture. We get so caught up in the here and now that we can’t see how great it will be later. There’s a reason why patience is described as a virtue, it’s because very few of us have any.
But here’s another thought. What if you did live in the time of Mary and Joseph, and God is looking for a man and a woman to carry out his glorious plan of salvation. Are you a person that God would approach and want to use? Ladies, are you a modern-day Mary? Guys, do you have the integrity of Joseph? Could God use you? Is your relationship right with God? The Bible describes Joseph as a “just man”. It describes Mary as “highly favoured” by God. Would you meet either of these descriptions? If you were the last man or woman on earth, could God carry out His plan as He did? Are you a man or woman that God could use? Are you a man or woman that is willing to be used? It’s something to think about.