Vineyard Church of the Peninsula
December 13, 2020

The Risk of Joseph
The next person in the Christmas story had a similarly challenging series of hurdles to clear as did Mary. The angel’s announcement threw Joseph’s quietly devout Jewish life into a panic, the likes of which he’d never before known. And that was merely the introduction to what would come to be defined as the ‘new normal’ of the rest of his days. It would be easy to imagine his frenzied anxiety over the unseemly interruption of his engagement to Mary; the equally tormenting thought process about how best to shield Mary from public disgrace; add to that the dismaying obligation of taking his bride on the arduous journey all the way to Bethlehem, away from family and all that was familiar, so perilously close to the end of her pregnancy. We too rarely focus on how great was the cost of the first Christmas to Joseph, how great an example he set for us, how deep he had to dig to reach the faith resources rigorous enough to withstand the intensity of the story for which God had been preparing him.

Matthew 1:18-25, 2:13-15, 19-23

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Begin to rejoice in the Lord, and your bones will flourish like an herb, and your cheeks will glow
with the bloom of health and freshness. Worry, fear, distrust, care - all are poisonous!
Joy is balm and healing, and if you will but rejoice, God will give power.
- A. B. Simpson (1843-1919)
If you have no joy, there’s a leak in your Christianity somewhere.
- Billy Sunday (1862-1935)