St. Joseph, Guardian of Jesus
Dear friends in Christ. In our Lenten reading, we will hear about the events in Gethsemane culminating with Jesus’ betrayal and arrest. We also just heard in tonight’s reading of our Lord’s escape as an infant from Herod’s wrath and sword into the safety of Egypt. These two events side by side like this show so clearly the truth of Jesus’ statements [John 10:18, 2:4]: No one takes [My life] from Me, but I lay it down of Myself; and My hour has not yet come. At just the right time, in His time, Jesus would lay down His life for the salvation of the world, to rescue us from sin, death, devil and hell and reconcile sinful humanity to the holy God.
Twice in our short Gospel reading, we have the phrasing: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet. Everything in our Lord’s life was according to God’s plan which He already laid out and told in the OT; nothing was by fluke or accident. In all these events our good and gracious Lord, our Savior, was in control—not His enemies.
Although our Lord’s enemies raged and like Herod, like the religious leaders, tried to kill our Lord, they could only do what the Lord allowed them to do—He was still in control of all things. Because it was not the right time, Herod was unsuccessful; because it was now the right time, the religious leaders could arrest Christ in Gethsemane. How can we be sure? Look at just one event in Gethsemane: when the temple guard came with Judas to arrest Him and they said they were looking for Jesus, Jesus said, I am, that is, Jesus was saying He is the great I AM, JHWH, the true God. By declaring Who He was, uttering His divine name, the guards drew back and fell to the ground. By this Jesus is clearly showing that it is the right time and that now He is willingly laying down His life—all in accord with prophecy; that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet—all for us and for our salvation.
To carry out this divine plan to save us from our sin, our good and gracious Lord allowed His enemies seemingly to “succeed.” He didn’t cause them to do evil; but He did allow their evil plans to succeed and He used them as His instruments to carry out His saving work.
The opposite is also true: He used instruments / means to keep His enemies’ evil works from succeeding. That’s what we see today as we remember St. Joseph, Guardian of our Lord. The Lord used him as His instrument to keep Satan and Herod from destroying the new-born Savior.
We do well to remember and honor the saints, like St. Joseph, Jesus’ Guardian. We do so, as our Lutheran Confessions point out, in thanksgiving to God because in them He has given examples of His mercy; secondly, in the strengthening of faith, when we see how His grace abounded toward them; and third, in imitation, of their faith first and foremost and of their other virtues.
The Holy Spirit, through the Evangelist [Mat. 1:19], describes Joseph as being a righteous man. Here we see the faith of Joseph. To be righteous means to have faith, faith that grabs ahold and receives the holiness and righteousness of God. God has, in Christ, in the Messiah, in Joseph’s case—the Savior who was to come, declared us righteous; and faith receives God’s pronouncement / believes it, as Scripture says of another OT saint [Gen. 15:4]: And he believed in the Lord, and the Lord accounted it to him for righteousness. Like us, Joseph was a sinner; but in faith he was looking for the Promised Savior and believed God’s promise to forgive him his sin for the sake of that coming Savior and in faith received God’s pronouncement: forgiven!
In the same way, we, dear Christian are like Joseph—righteous. Yes, we are sinners; yes, we sin daily and often; yes, in this Lenten season we especially take time to repent of our sin—but before God we are righteous. He has declared us so! No matter how many and great our sin, Jesus is our righteousness. He kept God’s holy Law for us in our place; His holiness/ righteousness is ours. Faith receives God’s pronouncement and Christ’s righteousness. The righteousness we lack because of sin, Christ has done for us; our sin that we commit, Christ has paid the price for. Like Joseph, we are righteous. We give thanks to our good and gracious Lord for His mercy to us. Remembering Joseph today, we remember God giving him grace and we remember He gives us that same grace in Christ.
As we remember Joseph today, we remember that God richly rewarded him in grace: He gave Joseph that great honor of being of being Jesus’ foster / legal father. Though Mary, too, is a descendant of David and Jesus received His human nature through her, St. Matthew traces Jesus’ human ancestry through Joseph, Jesus’ legal father. At Jesus’ birth, Joseph protects Mary and Jesus. When Jesus is circumcised and later presented in the temple, Joseph is there giving Mary protection as her legal husband and he too hears the words of prophecy from Simeon. When Jesus at age 12 is “lost” in Jerusalem, with Mary Joseph looks for Jesus. Certainly during His growing years, Joseph is raising Jesus in a godly home and teaching Him a trade. A great responsibility but also a tremendous blessing!
In our text, Joseph as head of the Holy Family, protects Mary and Jesus by following the Lord’s command and bringing them into the safety of Egypt. Even in this difficult/dangerous work, the Lord showed Him a great grace by using Him in a wonderful way to fulfill prophecy: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt I called My Son."
What a blessing / grace beyond measure that the Lord gave Joseph! The Lord not only gave Joseph that gift of faith, declaring him righteous, but in even more grace beyond that grace, entrusted him with the care of His Son. It wasn’t that in and of himself Joseph was so good and worthy, but in grace the Lord first blessed him with faith, declaring him righteous, and in grace “rewarded” Joseph’s faith and faithfulness.
Certainly we, too, are blessed by our Lord in grace. He has brought us to faith; He has declared us righteous/ forgiven us our sin. And He entrusts us with His Son—certainly not in the same way as He did Joseph, but doesn’t Christ dwell in our hearts by faith? Don’t we receive Christ and His body and blood in the Blessed Sacrament? Of course! And precisely here Joseph is our example. How he treasured Jesus and protected Him—in our text, from the wicked kings!
Let us this Lenten season in particular, look at our hearts and lives—are we treasuring Christ in our hearts by listening to Him as He leads us into a life of faith and good works? Are we treasuring and protecting Christ in our hearts by fighting against sin and sinful desires that try to expel Him from our hearts? Are we treasuring Christ as He comes to us with His body and blood in the sacrament by preparing our hearts for His coming to us by repenting of our sin and pondering this great mystery? Are we thanking Him for His superabundant grace?
Joseph is an example to us of living out our faith. Although our text is the harrowing account of the escape into Egypt to avoid Herod, if we consider what the Lord called Joseph to do, it was relatively ordinary. Earlier we read of the angel telling Joseph [Mat. 1:20]: Do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife. Joseph is called to live out his faith as a faithful husband to Mary and guardian / earthly father to Jesus. And Joseph lived out the work of his calling as husband / father / provider in relative obscurity in insignificant Nazareth in Galilee: he turned aside into the region of Galilee. 23 And he came and dwelt in a city called Nazareth, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophets, "He shall be called a Nazarene". This final verse of our text is the last time Joseph appears in Scripture. He, if you will, simply fades out; nothing else is said or known of him.
Joseph is a wonderful example of what it means for the 99% of us who are just ordinary people to live out our lives as Christians as faithful spouses, parents, workers. As Joseph was doing an ordinary, humble work that God had led and commanded him to do so, he is an example the Lord has given us ordinary day in day out Christians to imitate.
Our text: Now when [the Wise Men] had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him". What was Joseph’s response? When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt. And again: But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt, saying, "Arise, take the young Child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the young Child's life are dead." What was Joseph’s response? Then he arose, took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel. The point? Notice, not one word of Joseph is recorded in Scripture. His faith is that quiet trust in the Lord that showed itself in his work. It showed itself in humble obedience to the Lord in the work that He called him to do. Joseph showed prompt obedience; he always and without question shouldered the work God had called him to do / the responsibility of being Jesus’ legal father / guardian. May we give our Lord thanks and praise for the example of Joseph to imitate—simply obeying in the humble but glorious work of his calling. As the Lord strengthened and blessed him in it, so he will do the same for us in ours.
How Joseph is also an example and comfort to us as we see that he was not spared fear and difficulty but that the Lord was faithful to him and protected him in the work of his calling. Our text: Then he arose, took the young Child and His mother, and came into the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning over Judea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Joseph was being faithful and in faith followed God’s command and returned to Palestine—only to find that there was an equally wicked king on throne after the death of Herod who wanted to kill the baby Jesus. That was true fear for Joseph! He arrives with his family with which the Lord entrusted him and he is confronted with this problem before the Lord gives him direction. Here he is in the midst of his fears.
Here we take comfort from Joseph. If even he, who is so richly blessed and entrusted with protecting the Baby Jesus, is seemingly left “high and dry” without any instructions from the Lord, we shouldn’t be surprised when the Lord seems to have left us. Precisely in those times, that’s when faith comes to the fore and, like Joseph surely did, we then go to the Lord seeking His help and guidance. Even if we don’t / can’t remember specific examples from our own life of the Lord’s gracious help and guidance, let us remember how the Lord led Joseph step by step along the way and giving guidance and protection at just the right time, when help was needed; let us see that as Joseph was in the midst of his fears, the Lord directed him as before.
We have that same comfort that in some way and somehow the Lord will lead us the way He wants us to go. As He did with the Holy Family, so our good and gracious Lord holds His protecting hand over us. All these events were surely confusing to Joseph, but they were all part and parcel of God’s plan. Our comfort in the midst of the confusion in our lives as we carry out the work the Lord has called us to do: is that we do not know where the Lord may be leading us, but we can be confident that He will be with us and His plans are good for us!
May our remembrance of our Lord’s grace to St. Joseph today strengthen us in our faith to live the lives the Lord has called us to do.
In the Name of Jesus, Amen