This week, on the last Sunday of Advent, the last before Christmas, we are invited to think about the challenge which God brought to Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, and in the light of that about how we respond to God in our turn. So let’s listen to today’s Gospel reading from bible:Matthew+1:18-25.

Can you imagine being in Joseph’s shoes when Mary came to him to tell him she was pregnant? They were engaged to be married, which in those days was a very solemn commitment. Sex outside marriage was just not something you did, and Joseph knew well enough that the child she was now carrying could not be his. How would you respond in his place? Shock? Incredulity? Horror? Anger? Bitterness? All these and many more would be appropriate responses, humanly speaking. Matthew doesn’t record Joseph’s immediate reaction, only that after thinking things over he resolved to break their engagement quietly, without making a scandalous example of Mary, exposing her to public disgrace. Humanly speaking that was a generous response, which we would applaud in similar circumstances. But God was asking for a response from Joseph which would be still gracious - to accept her strange story that her child was not the result of sexual intercourse, to marry her and adopt him as his son, and to care for him as if he were his own. And eventually Joseph did so.

So what inspired him to that big-hearted response. Immediately it was a dream vision. But what made him accept that dream as guidance rather than seeing it as a nightmare? Matthew tells us that it was because God was fulfilling a prophecy from hundreds of years before, from Bible:Isaiah+7:10-16, which he quotes in his comment on Joseph’s dream, before telling us that Joseph married Mary.

Almost certainly those words originally applied to a different child, born within the palace of king Ahaz, whom Isaiah said would be a sign of God’s protection of the nation of Judah. A young woman (for the Hebrew word means no more than that) gave birth to a son, naming him Emmanuel, meaning “God is with us”. Whenever Ahaz saw him he would be a reminder that God was with Judah, and before he was three the threat of attack from the nations Israel and Aram, of which Ahaz was in dread, would be ended. That prophecy was fulfilled in Ahaz’ time, but like many OT prophecies it came to be seen, at least by Christians, as open to a further fulfilment in the coming of the promised Messiah. Matthew seems to suggest that it was the fact that Joseph was immersed in the message of the bible which led him to be open to God’s guidance in this singular case. That is the challenge which I receive from this extraordinary incident and from Joseph’s graceful, generous response.

Joseph was confronted by circumstances in which he naturally made a humanly speaking generous response - to break his engagement to Mary. But further reflection and a sense of God guiding him differently, led him to accept her humanly speaking impossible story, to trust her and God, and to act at a level of grace far beyond the humanly sensible. That led to his blessing and to ours. It was his immersion in scripture that prompted this response of grace, as Matthew interprets it, with the implicit challenge to us to respond likewise to God and to our circumstances.

What can we learn about guidance from Joseph?

1. Absorb the message of the bible so it informs your thinking.

2. Be open to God asking of you what is humanly speaking unreasonable!

3. Consider prayerfully what the bible says to every circumstance.

4. Deliberate what is the most gracious response you can make.

5. Examine your motive in each decision you make - is it godly love?

This is going to still mean sometimes that we have no certainty that we are acting aright. Joseph cannot have had any. But we are called constantly in the bible to live by faith, and that means taking risks. In fact little in life is certain - employment, health, the right choice of life partner or none, finances. We constantly must make decisions which require a measure of hope and trust, of faith, and that is equally true where God is concerned. We cannot even, ultimately be 100% certain of God’s existence, or of the truth of Christianity. Although we have masses of evidence to point us in that direction, in the end we have to make a decision to trust God and the message of Christianity, a response of faith. St Paul reminds us, “we walk by faith, not by sight.” (2 Corinthians 5:7) Or again: “the only thing that counts is faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:6)

Joseph stepped up into the realm of faith when his circumstances brought him God’s challenge, and we need to do the same. We must cultivate an attitude of faith, like him, so we respond aright to his call to put our trust in Jesus, and in every circumstance to be people of positive faith.