Thoughts on Matthew 1 and Joseph

Having been very anxious after I decided to take up blogging how to begin, it occurred to me that some thoughts I had written down at the outset of another of my summer projects, reading the Gospel of Matthew in Greek, were wholly appropriate, proper to a beginning in context and content, however much they may want for eloquence and insight.

In reading the first chapter of Matthew I was struck at what the specific mission given to Joseph by the angel was; it was to name Jesus. This task is twice balanced with Mary’s role, which is to bear a son (verse 21 “τεξεται δε υιον και καλεσεις το ονομα αυτου Ιησουν…” and verse 25 “ετεκεν υιον και εκαλεσεν το ονομα αυτου Ιησουν.”) In this seemingly simple, and, as I recall the many Advent sermons I have heard, seemingly often overlooked task Joseph becomes the first person to proclaim the Gospel standing at the heart of the New Testament, indeed, of all scripture, that God is with us and is our savior from sin. This the angel makes clear: “you will name him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins.” (verse 21). And the name Jesus means “Yahweh saves,” that the God of Israel saves. Thus, in saying that his name will be Jesus because he will save his people from their sins, the angel has hinted, if darkly, that the child bearing this name will be the God of Israel. The angel makes this clearer when he offers Joseph the words of Isaiah “they will call his name Emmanuel, God-With-Us.” (verse 23). When Joseph, with a single act of obedience, names his child Jesus, he has proclaimed, albeit to a world (himself probably included) which cannot fully understand, the very core of the Gospel; he has said “this child, born of a young woman, I name God Saves, for this child will save his people from their sins; and in him will Isaiah’s prophecy be fulfilled, for he will be called God-With-Us.” To those of us who have the whole story, the meaning is obvious; to Joseph it must have appeared wondrous and cloudy. Yet Joseph preached the Gospel and confessed the glory of God’s great act without knowing he did so, and by his obedience and not so much his knowledge became a sure instrument in the hand of God to his glory.