December 14, 2022 A+D

St. Luke 12:26-38, Isaiah 7:10-15

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The angel Gabriel announces to the virgin Mary that she is to be the mother of the Messiah. Nothing is impossible for God. Mary is taken by surprise. She wasn’t planning on this. She was engaged to be married. In hindsight, it is pretty obvious that the Mother of Our Lord needed to be married. She would need a husband to raise the Messiah. The Messiah would need an earthly father in order to be properly protected, provided for, and educated.

I don’t think that is what we usually think about when we hear that the virgin will conceive and bear a Son. We don’t think about her being married or the Messiah’s need for an earthly father. We focus on the miracle of conception within virginity. Perhaps this was also the way Mary had thought about the prophecy of the virgin conceiving and bearing Immanuel.

Mary was unmarried when she conceived, but already then, at the annunciation, she was betrothed. That was a much more significant and legally binding commitment than our engagements. She was physically and legally a virgin and she was not married, but by the betrothal the Father had provided an earthly husband for Mary and an earthly father for Jesus. Joseph is not named in Luke 1:26-38 but he is more than a background character. He is central.

What I am suggesting is that Mary probably hadn’t thought through how the mother of the Messiah would need a husband and how the Messiah would need an earthly father, even as I suspect we haven’t thought that much about it. And since she was engaged to be married, betrothed, she didn’t think she was a candidate, which is why she says to Gabriel, “How shall this be since I am a virgin?”

She knows Isaiah 7. There it was clearly foretold that the Messiah would be born of a virgin. I don’t think she is doubting the prophecy that a virgin will conceive or asking for information about the mechanics. I expect she is surprised and has framed the question poorly. What she is really asking is what does this do to my marriage? Will Joseph still have me if I am pregnant with someone else’s baby? Will this destroy my marriage before it even begins? I do not know a man, but I intend to.

In any case, the angel’s answer is meant to say that the Messiah isn’t merely a true man, flesh of our flesh; He is also true God. Joseph will respect and honor this because he loves God. The Holy Spirit will come upon Mary and cause her to conceive without the aid of Joseph directly, but Joseph will be involved. He will be involved every day of the pregnancy. He will be there for the delivery in a stable, he will care for them through exile in Egypt and back to Nazareth. He will not be the Messiah’s biological father, but he will be His father, His real father. The child that is to be born will be Holy as the Holy Spirit is Holy and called the Son of God. Yet He will learn the faith from Joseph as a son from his father.

Of course this is not news to us, but if the Messiah needs a father in the home, so do we. Fathers are not background characters. The Messiah comes to reconcile us to our true Father and to set the solitary into families.

Nothing is impossible for God. Not virginal nor barren conceptions, not God becoming Man to make Himself the Savior of the nations, nor adopting fathers being real fathers. We thank Goid for the faith and steadfast character of Mary and Joseph. We ask that He would enable us to imitate them. Nothing is impossible for God. So we too can have faith and we can have functional families. Perhaps, though, we need to look more closely at families by adoption, in the way of Joseph. It is not just the adoption of children. We need to see the Church as a family conceived by the Holy Spirit where we are adopted brothers and sisters, adopted aunts, uncles, and cousins, and remember always that the word “adopted” means “real.”. Nothing is impossible for God.

In +Jesus’ Name. Amen.