This week, until 20 December, you can purchase No Ordinary Man (book 1) from Kevin Mayhew Ltd at a 10 per cent discount, using the code ORDINARY110 when ordering the title from the company’s website. With the book normally retailing at £24.99, that’s a saving of £2.50. Just type the code into the relevant box at the online checkout between the dates given.
Here, meanwhile, is the third of the sessions I’ll be posting this week from the book, to run alongside this promotion.
I DIDN’T KNOW WHAT TO THINK
Reading
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. Matthew 1:18-19
The meditation of Joseph
I didn’t know what to think,
not when she first told me –
my sweet innocent Mary, pregnant!
I suppose I should have been angry,
and I was later,
extremely!
But that wasn’t my first reaction;
it was shock, more like,
disbelief,
an inability to take it in.
You see, I just couldn’t see her playing around,
deceiving me behind my back –
not Mary.
Other girls perhaps,
but she wasn’t like them;
I’d have trusted her with my life if necessary.
So when she started chattering on about this angel,
about being with child by the Holy Spirit,
do you know what?
I listened!
No, honestly, I really did!
Maybe that does sound daft,
but I just couldn’t believe she was making it all up,
inventing an excuse to get her off the hook.
And, let’s face it, if it were an excuse it was a pretty lame one;
I mean, when’s the last time you saw an angel?
Precisely.
But if I took it calmly at first,
it wasn’t long before the doubts set in,
the questions that couldn’t be answered,
the niggling voices that wouldn’t go away.
And in no time suspicion had grown into something worse –
resentment,
bitterness,
condemnation.
I’d have called off the engagement,
there’s no doubt about that;
much as I liked the girl,
there was simply no way a man in my position
could countenance going through with it,
not if I wanted to keep any semblance of respectability.
She was tarnished, according to the Law anyway,
her purity soiled;
and if I took no notice
the village gossips would soon put their heads together
and decide I had done the tarnishing –
too impatient to wait until the goods had been paid for.
So that was it.
My mind was made up.
It was just a question of finding the right words and the right time,
breaking it to her as gently as I could.
Only then I had this dream,
almost a vision you might say it was, looking back,
so powerfully did it speak to me.
Suddenly it was me seeing angels, not Mary,
it was me hearing the voice of God instead of her;
and it was the same message,
the same story –
this child she carried,
born of God,
his gift to humankind,
the one who would at last redeem his people.
Did I believe it?
Well, I suppose I must have done, in a way.
I married her after all,
despite the snide remarks,
the wagging tongues.
Maybe, of course, I wanted to marry her anyway,
or just didn’t want to hurt her.
Maybe I simply liked the thought of being a dad,
and wanted to believe that story of hers,
incredible though it seemed.
To be truthful
there were probably all kinds of reasons behind my decision;
yet perhaps it’s through such things as those,
our everyday thoughts and feelings,
just as much as through dreams and visions,
that God chooses to speak to us.
Perhaps through those most of all.
Prayer
Living God,
there are times in our lives,
all too many,
when our prayers don’t seem to be answered.
There are times when
for all our striving
we do not hear your voice
or understand your will.
Yet you do respond,
if only we have ears to hear and eyes to see –
through the people around us,
through the events of life,
through the voice of conscience.
In a whole variety of ways
you prompt us,
not dictating our every step,
not mapping out the future,
but inviting us to share
in the work of your kingdom
and the fulfilment of your purpose.
Living God, help us to listen –
help us to hear.
Amen.