Get Up and Do It

The Sunday morning message given in the United Methodist churches of the Wheatland Parish on Sunday, December 10, 2023.  The Bible verses used are Matthew 1:18-25.

Several years ago we conducted a tournament to see who the favorite Bible character of the parish was.  Mary, Jesus’ earthly mother, won the tournament.  Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father, got knocked out a couple of rounds in.

            And that’s kind of the way we think of Mary and Joseph.  Mary gets all the publicity.  There’s way more in the Bible about Mary than there is about Joseph.  Joseph is around for the first couple of years of Jesus’ life, and then he’s never mentioned again.  Oh, there’s that story about Jesus at age twelve being left behind at the temple and his parents looking for him, but Joseph is not named in that story.  Mary is, but not Joseph.  

That’s really how the Bible tells the story.  Mary is the main parent of Jesus.  Joseph is just kind of an afterthought.  The gospel of Mark does not even mention him.  The gospel of John only makes a couple of references to “Jesus, the son of Joseph”.  

And here’s another thing.  Remember last week, when we talked about Mary?  We talked about a quote from Mary, what Mary said in response to the angel telling her she would be the mother of the Savior.  That’s not the only quote from Mary in the Bible.  In fact, later in Luke there’s an entire song from Mary.  You know how many quotes there are from Joseph in the Bible?  Zero.  None.  We are not given one sentence, one word, not even one syllable uttered by Joseph.  For all the Bible tells us, Joseph might never have said a word in his entire life.

But here’s the thing.  We may not know anything Joseph said.  But we know several things Joseph did.  And every time we’re told something Joseph did, Joseph obeyed God.  He did not hesitate.  He did not ask questions.  He simply did what the Lord told him to do.

Look at our reading for today.  Joseph finds out that Mary is going to have a child.  He’s trying to decide what he should do.  An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him to go ahead and take Mary for his wife.  And we’re told, “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife.”

Joseph heard from an angel a couple of other times.  When Herod is trying to have the young Jesus killed, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream again and tells him to take Mary and Jesus and go to Egypt.  And we’re told, “So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt.”

And when Herod died and it was okay for them to return, an angel again appears to Joseph in a dream and tells him to go back to Israel.  And we’re told, “So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.”

We’re never told anything Joseph said.  We’re never told anything Joseph thought.  We’re never told anything Joseph felt.  But we are told what Joseph did.  And each time, what we’re told is that Joseph was obedient to God.

I have to think that there were times Joseph really did not want to do what the angel was telling him to do.  It could not have been easy to take Mary for his wife.  Even assuming he loved Mary, it was still not going to be easy.  Unmarried women having children was not commonly accepted back then the way it is now.  There were still going to be all the questions, all the rumors, all the gossip about the two of them.  Joseph was going to have to put up with that, just like Mary was.

It could not have been easy to take Mary and Jesus and go to Egypt.  Think about it.  They were leaving behind everything they owned other than what they could carry.  They were going to a place where they probably did not know anyone.  They may not even have known the language.  Would they be accepted there?  What were they going to do there?  How would Joseph make enough money to take care of his family?  Where would they find a place to live?  This was quite a thing Joseph was told to do.  And he got up and did it.

And it could not have been easy to go back to Israel, either.  We’re not told how long they were in Egypt, but people think it may have been up to two years.  Think about that.  They’d probably gotten established in Egypt by that time.  Joseph may have even had a good business for himself as a carpenter.  And now, here they are, having to leave everything behind again.  Yes, they were going home, but it had been a long time since they’d been there.  Would they be accepted when they came home?  Would Joseph be able to re-establish his business?  Were they going to have to find a different place to live, again?  But again, Joseph did not let any of that stop him.  An angel of the Lord told him to do something, and he got up and did it.

Joseph did not know what was going to happen when he did all these things.  The angel did not tell him the future.  The angel does not say that after Jesus is born they’ll need to go to Egypt, and they’ll be there a couple of years, and then they’ll be able to come home again.  In fact, the angel does not give him any assurances at all.  The angel never says, “Don’t worry, God will protect you.”  The angel never says, “God will reward you for your faith.”  The angel never even says, “God will be with you wherever you go.”  The angel just tells Joseph, “Do this.”  And Joseph gets up and does it.

And when you think about it, what we get up and do is really the bottom line of our faith.  It’s not about what we say.  It’s not about what we think.  It’s not about what we feel.  It’s about what we do.  Faith is acting in obedience with what the Lord wants us to do.  And acting that way without knowing what the result of our obedience is going to be.

Now don’t get me wrong.  Our words are important.  But if our actions don’t back up our words, our words are meaningless.  Our thoughts are important.  But if we don’t put our thoughts into actions, our thoughts are meaningless.  Our feelings are important.  But if our feelings are not translated into actions, our feelings are meaningless.

This is what the apostle James was getting at when he made the statement, which I’m sure many of you have heard, that faith without works is dead.  It’s important to have good thoughts and good feelings, but if we stop there, our thoughts and feelings are worthless.  They don’t do anyone any good.  Our thoughts and feelings are only worth something if they’re translated into actions.

You’ve probably noticed that I often pray for God to lead us and to guide us.  But I also, often, pray for God to give us the courage to go where God is leading us to go.  I do believe that God wants to lead us and guide us.  But God leading us won’t do any good if we don’t follow where God is leading us.  God guiding us won’t help if we don’t go the way God is guiding us to go.

It’s not always easy.  It was not always easy for Joseph.  It’s not always easy for you and me, either.  It takes a lot of faith to truly put our lives in God’s hands.  It takes a lot of courage, sometimes, to do the tough things God sometimes asks us to do.  It takes a lot of trust to go wherever God wants us to go, to do whatever God wants us to do.  

Joseph followed where God led him.  Joseph went the way God guided him.  And these were some incredibly important things God was leading Joseph to do. 

 Think about it.  Just like we said about Mary last week, Joseph does not appear to have been anyone special or powerful or important.  And here he was, this ordinary, common man, trying to protect his family.  Protecting the life of the Savior of the world!  And who was he protecting them from?  Common, ordinary Joseph, this one guy, is protecting his family from King Herod.  A powerful king with a big army who would’ve had Joseph killed without even thinking twice about it.

The Bible appears to treat Joseph as an afterthought.  But if you think about what Joseph did, you can see that he was not an afterthought at all.  God chose Joseph to be the earthly father of Jesus.  God put every bit as much thought and care into the selection of Joseph as God did with the selection of Mary.  The obedience of Joseph, the faith of Joseph, were incredibly important in the story of Jesus.  Joseph’s faith, expressed through his actions, is every bit as amazing as the faith of Mary that we talked about last week.

There are things that God wants you to do.  And there are things God wants me to do, too. We may not always know what they are, but a lot of times, we do.  We probably don’t know our entire future, just as Joseph did not know his entire future.  But a lot of times, we do know what the next step is that God wants us to take.  The question is what our response would be.

Once Joseph found out the next step, he got up and did what God wanted him to do.  May we have the faith, and the courage, and the trust, that Joseph had.  May we be obedient to God.  May we see what God wants us to do, and may we get up and do it.