Thank You, God, for Joseph, Who trusted Your good plan. He took Mary to be his wife. He was a faithful man. Thank You, God, for Joseph, Your precious Christmas gift. —A Christmas Prayer
“He was a faithful man.” That’s quite the understatement, isn’t it? We know Joseph is a good guy even before an angel visits him. The woman he’s engaged to is going to have a baby, but they’re not even married yet. Of course, we know Mary didn’t do anything wrong. She did everything right. It’s God’s baby.
But Joseph, not yet privy to this information, decides to divorce Mary quietly. Matthew even hints that Joseph is only divorcing her in order to follow the law. Still, he must’ve been hurt, must’ve felt betrayed, must’ve thought all of his life’s plans were ruined. Yet he doesn’t want to embarrass Mary with a public divorce. He still chooses to put Mary’s feelings first. He sounds like the perfect man for the job.
God has known the quality of Joseph’s character all along.
In fact, God has been planning this whole thing for a long, long time. The prophet Isaiah foretold hundreds of years earlier that Jesus would come from David’s line, and guess what? Yup, Matthew 1 tells us that Joseph is twenty-eight generations after King David, who is fourteen generations after Abraham. So it’s no huge surprise, knowing what we know, that when an angel speaks to Joseph in a dream and tells him to take Mary to be his wife, Joseph obeys. God had planned it all along.
And Joseph, like Mary, sacrificed his own personal plans for God’s omniscient, perfect plan.
