What would you do if your engaged wife-to-be came home one Christmas to tell you that she is pregnant with someone else’s baby? The only way to get a real understanding of the meaning of Christmas is to understand the man who received this message, the step-father of the Son of God born in a manger, the man Joseph, the fiancé of the Virgin Mary. ~ “Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just [man], and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 1.18-20).
The Story of a Family
God, the Creator of heaven and earth, is the Father of Jesus; Joseph is the father of Christmas and for good reason. The Christmas story is a perfect picture of the one and only true family, the family of God, the genuine family which the human family is supposed to depict. For over 1600 years, the greatest theologians have agreed that it is infinitely more noble and holy for a man to father an adopted child than the seed of his own flesh. The Christmas story is ripe with profound imagery, revealing to the enlightened eye the working of the Holy Spirit on that first Christmas night so long ago. ~ “And they came with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the Babe lying in a manger” (Luke 2.16). The real message of Christmas is powerful. All Christians have to do is tell it the way it is. The world would be a different place if Christians viewed the offspring of the divine seed the way Joseph did.
A True Husband
Most men completely ignore or go so far as to try to kill the spiritual offspring their wives bring home by the Holy Spirit, when they come home and announce that God has given them a child ꟷborn of the Spirit. ~ “Jesus answered, ‘Most assuredly, I say to you, unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit’” (John 3.5,6). Joseph is a real man, a true father, not an abortionist. Instead of giving first place to his own carnal seed, the product of the dead flesh, Joseph recognizes and esteems the divine seed born of the Holy Spirit and quietly takes his place as a ‘virgin father,’ or a foster-father of baby Jesus, supporting his wife as she rejoices and nurses her new spiritual offspring to spiritual maturity, nursing the precious child of God day-by-day on the pure, unadulterated milk of the Word. ~ “As newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby” (1Peter 2.2).
Spiritual Maturity by the Word
Every child born of the flesh has a physical mother, so every child born of the Spirit of God, like the Virgin Mary, has a spiritual mother, who is a member of the Church, and a spiritual step-father who supports, helps, and cares for his house (the church). The Bride of Christ, promised to wed the Messiah at the wedding feast1 of the Lamb is the Church, comprised of individual members, who give birth by the Spirit to every born again child of God. ~ “But you have come to Mount Zion and to the…church of the firstborn, which is the mother of us all” (Hebrews 12.22,23; Galatians 4.26). Christmas is a story of a family; Joseph, Mary and Jesus. It is the story of a man giving God and the only true family first place in his life, putting God’s spiritual progeny before his own carnal vanity and dreams. It is the story of a pious man, called Joseph, the father2 of Jesus. No man should father carnal children until he has successfully fathered spiritual children, until he has auspiciously added people to the number of the saints and raised them up to spiritual maturity through the word. ~ “For everyone who partakes [only] of milk [is] unskilled in the word…but solid food belongs to those who are of full age”(Hebrews 5.13,14).
The Baby in a Manger
If you want to encounter Christmas in your home, it’s not about decorating a tree or eating turkey; it’s about sewing the seed of the word of God into the heart (spirit) of those who God leads you to until Christ (the seed of the word) is formed in them. Notice how Mary conceives the Word of God, Jesus Christ. ~ “And the angel answered and said to her, “[The] Holy Spirit will come upon you, and…that Holy One who is to be born {–of you} will be called the Son of God. Then Mary said, “Behold the maidservant of the Lord! Let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (Luke 1.35,38; John 1.14). It’s time to go back to that first starry night, back to the cold and windy high plains of Bethlehem, back to the ‘Babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger,’ back to Jesus the Word of God,3 merry Christmas!
Galatians 4.19
My little children, for whom I labor in birth again until Christ is formed in you.
Notes
1. Revelation 19.9
2. Luke 2.48
3. Revelation 19.13
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© L. Jonathan Blais 2022 All rights reserved. Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission.