Matthew Chapter 1 reads:
“This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother, Mary, was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son and they will call him Emmanuel—which means “God with us.” When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife, but he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.” (Matthew 1: 18-25)
Look again at those underlined words: “righteous man.” In Hebrew, they are the single word “TSADIQ.”
Joseph was a tsadiq. What this means is that Joseph was known for his devotion to the Torah of Jewish scriptures (today the first five books of Christian Old Testament). A tsadiq had the Torah memorized and obeyed whatever it said. So Joseph didn’t eat unclean foods. He didn’t hang out with the wrong kinds of people. He didn’t keep his carpentry shop open on the Sabbath. Nobody invited him to eat ham sandwiches with tax collectors and prostitutes on the seventh-day of the week (or any day of the week, for that matter).
People looked up to Joseph. The status of “tsadiq” was something to be desired because it came with admiration, influence and respect. It’s the same way that, in our culture, a businessman wants to be a CEO, a politician wants to be governor or president, an athlete wants to be an All-Star, a New England Patriot wants to be a Dallas Cowboy (yes I'm a Cowboys fan).
Joseph was a Tsadiq. But he was a Tsadiq with a big problem because he was engaged, his fiancée was pregnant, and he wasn’t the father.
And the Torah has very clear instructions about what to do in that situation.
If a woman pledged to be married were sexually unfaithful (Deuteronomy 22) she was to be stoned.
Mary was to be stoned to death.
And so Joseph’s whole understanding of righteousness, as well as his reputation, was on the line. Everybody assumed they knew what he was going to do.
But Joseph makes a surprising choice. He takes Mary as his wife and Jesus as his son. He chooses radical love over strict obedience to the law.
And in doing so he exchanged his status as “tsadiq” for the responsibility, along with Mary, of teaching his son how to talk, walk, read, fish and all the other things parents teach their children to do and be.
So who are you loving this season?
I hope you are loving God fully, spending time with him and responding appropriately to his promptings.
And I hope you are loving those people in your life who are easier to love—your family and your friends. Love them really well this season.
But I also hope you are loving people who may be harder to love this season.
Jesus said one time that if you just love people who are easy to love it’s no credit to you. Even the mafia, even al Qaeda does that.
I say this because there’s a good chance that over the holidays, you are going to hear about someone in need or be sitting around a table with a person who is “harder to love.” And you can choose to pick up a stone. You can pass judgment if you want to.
Or you can hear God’s invitation to love, and remember the love that came your way when you deserved judgment.
Joseph and his son, Jesus, grew up embracing this radical love, loving people that nobody else would love.
And it's a call for us to do the same.
(Scot McKnight has a book called Jesus Creed that caused me to think about this whole topic.)
