At the request of Evan Reich '26, our assistant organist, receive the Gift of Music! Evan says, “This tune is called Rhosymedre (pronounced ROSE-m’deer). This is a classic organ prelude written by Ralph Vaughan Williams. In the 1982 hymnal, the words to this hymn express the centrality of God in our families, as a model of leadership and responsibility.” Thanks, Evan, for the suggestion.
We are still walking through the first Gospel’s earliest chapters as we ask what is Matthew trying to teach us about the Kingdom of God? Already we’ve seen that…
- Jesus’ birth is bringing a new Kingdom which we see in the visit of the Magi who hail Jesus as a young king.
- Jesus’ kingdom unsettles the kingdoms of the world which we see in Herod’s killing of the firstborn.
- Jesus’ life is a new Exodus which we see in Matthew’s use of Hosea.
- Jesus’ life is a new restoration which we see in Matthew’s use of Jeremiah.
What comes next? We get this quick and under-studied story of Joseph bringing his family back to Nazareth from Egypt. Matthew writes this in chapter 2.19-23 (here I’m borrowing a translation by the renowned biblical scholar NT Wright).
After the death of Herod, suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt. “Get up,” he said, “and take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel. Those who wanted to kill the child are dead.” So he got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.
But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling Judaea instead of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back there. After being advised in a dream, he went off to the region of Galilee. When he got there, he settled in a town called Nazareth.
This was to fulfill what the prophet had spoken: He shall be called a Nazorean.
- You might think there’s not much here. From a narrative point of view, it’s the equivalent of Matthew saying “and then they went back.” But let’s look a little deeper at three things:
1. The character of Joseph
2. The historical locations of the passage
JOSEPH (the blog’s namesake)
Joseph's been a big part of this story, even though we haven’t talked about him. In fact, people often say that Matthew tells Joseph’s side of Jesus’ birth while Luke tells Mary’s. Matthew says early in this story that Joseph is a “righteous man.” (1.19) This is an important point because Joseph actually doesn’t do what a lot of ancient Jews would have said a righteous man should do.
When he finds out that Mary is pregnant, he doesn’t seek the force of the Law against her. He doesn’t have her turned over to the authorities or call for her stoning. He simply chooses to end their engagement (which would have required legal action) quietly, attempting to preserve her dignity in the village. This is in fact a decision not to follow the Law to its uncompromised end.
Joseph comes to light then as a paragon of mercy, of compassion, of softheartedness. This, Matthew suggests to us, is righteousness. How much more righteous is he then for the fact that he took upon himself the leadership of this young and unorthodox family.
What a model of righteousness this is for men: a man who sacrificed the legacy of his own concept of a family in exchange for the family that God had ordained. In a world where children who bore the name of their father were proof of a life well-lived, Joseph gave up great deal of what being a righteous man seemed like in order to be the righteous man whose name is written down for us in the first Gospel.
HISTORY
Look at the names that crop up in these few verses: Herod & Archelaus. These are names that are attested elsewhere in the annals of history. Who are they? Why are they here?
Herod is, again, Herod the Great. The builder-king of Judea who died in 4 BCE. Archelaus is his son who took over a territory that included Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and Idumea - about half of his father’s kingdom. Archelaus would go on to rule that territory until he was deposed by Augustus in 6 CE. Why mention them here?
Matthew is trying to tell us that the history of God’s salvation really is the history of the world. The Kingdom of God is not some floating idea far away from the real world. No, the Kingdom and Salvation of God are not theories, not otherworldly, not of no consequence. The God of Jesus Christ is at work in the same world and in the same story as the mad and murderous kings — both ancient and modern.