Mary and Joseph, and You

In the trajectory of Jesus’s genealogy, we find that God doesn’t make mistakes when he’s writing your personal history.

If God had asked me, I would have recommended a different opening scene for the New Testament. I have learned in my work in writing and speaking that any good introduction will snag the attention of the audience. You see it with TV shows, movies, novels, articles, speeches, and sermons. Effective communicators start with some sizzle. But Jesus’s biography starts differently. God through Matthew started the biography of his Son, the opening scene of the New Testament, with a list of names. A geneaology. The genealogy covers starts with Abraham and moves down to Joseph. Seventeen verses.

It lists name after name after name after name: “An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Jesus Christ, the Messiah, is the promised fulfillment of God’s promises to Abraham and to David. The opening genealogy traces Jesus’ legal right to these promises, which come through his human father, Joseph. For thousands of years, God had been preparing Joseph’s history to bring Joseph to his destiny. Abraham married Sarah, and she finally had a son named Isaac. Isaac gets married to Rebekah and they have two sons, Jacob and Esau. Jacob has all sorts of family drama, and one of his sons, Judah, is the son of the kingly lineage. And so on down the line, through immigrants and prostitutes and adulterers and good kings and bad ones, God prepares the way. Finally one day a guy meets a girl and they get married, and they have a son named Joseph. Joseph grows and gets engaged to a girl named Mary.

The rest is the Christmas story.

In the trajectory of Jesus’s genealogy, we find that God doesn’t make mistakes when he’s writing your personal history. Your family drama, your messed up decisions, your heartbreak and failures—God has brought you through your history in order to prepare you for his purpose, your destiny. Your history is actually his story, and your destiny is for his glory. Sometimes that word “destiny” gets abused by preachers and self-help gurus talking about “Living Your Best Life” and taking control of your circumstances. I’m using it in a different way. I’m talking about God’s plan for the story of the world and God’s plan for the story of you.

God has uniquely crafted you, with your quirks and and eccentricities. You have been made a certain way and God has written your history to become a part of his story for his glory. For Mary and Jospeh, that part of the story was mother and father to Jesus.

You have your part.

Without you, something is missing, and it isn’t what it’s supposed to be. A couple of years ago on a family retreat, my wife and kids spent hours on a large puzzle we found in our rented cabin. I got into the fun, and in my section I couldn’t seem to find a certain piece. I figured it would turn up. But it never did. When the puzzle was finished, we had one jagged hole in the otherwise completed picture. The picture was great, but it wasn’t quite what it was supposed to be without that piece. The one missing piece was obviously just that—missing. Maybe that piece got thrown away as unneeded. Maybe it decided to find itself in Europe and abandon its community. Maybe that piece didn’t think it was important. That piece though didn’t exist for itself. It existed to complete the bigger picture. It was a small but critical part of the picture. When God painted the portrait of the story of the world, he crafted you to fit into a small but significant corner. He has made you exactly how you are supposed to be so that you can fit in exactly where you’re supposed to fit in.

For me, he said wrote the story like this. A man named Jeff met a girl named CeCe and they fell in love and got married. They had a little baby boy and named him after a song by Kenny Loggins called, “Danny’s Song.” But when Danny was only two years, they went to a Bible study and heard about Jesus and became Christians. So Danny was born in a pagan home, but grew up in a Christian home. They told Danny that God loved him, and Danny became a Christian when he was a kid. They told him that there was nothing more important that doing what God wanted. Danny could not just be whatever he wanted to be. He needed to follow what God wanted him to be. So when Danny told them he wanted to go to seminary to become a pastor, they were nothing but encouraging. In seminary, Danny met Laura, who was from Florida. After seminary, Danny and Laura moved to Florida, where he was the pastor of a church for almost ten years. They had three kids and felt like God wanted them to plant a new church. So they did. Now they’re a few pieces of the puzzle called Cross United Church, which is another piece in the puzzle of what God is doing in the world.

What is your piece of the puzzle? The Bible says God determines the times and places of our lives (Acts 14). God didn’t make a mistake when he determined who your parents would be, where you would live, what language you would speak, what school you would go to, what life experiences, good, bad, and ugly, you would experience. He has written your history for the purpose of preparing you for your destiny. Your history is his story and your destiny is for his glory.

How has God shaped your history in a unique way? How has he uniquely prepared you to be a small but significant player in the story he is writing about the world? How has he uniquely shaped you as a person? What are you good at? What do you enjoy?

Your History and Destiny: Spiritually

God created you to glorify him and enjoy him forever. God is calling you to follow Jesus and to take it seriously. What step do you need to take?

Your History and Destiny: Family

God created you to be a member of a specific family. Whether by biology or adoption, blood or marriage, you have a family that God has called you to. Like God chose a human family for Jesus, he designed the world to be built on the family. What is your role in that family? You probably have several. I am a son, a brother, a husband, and a dad. I am a nephew, an uncle, and a cousin. What about you? How can you walk in faithfulness in each role? You will need to plan for it. Take it seriously. Commit to it.

Your History and Destiny: Church

God created you to be a member of his forever family. Now, I put this third after earthly family, but that’s actually the wrong order. When we become Christians, the church becomes our forever family. Think of someone in a context where they are disowned for becoming a Christian. They have to choose Jesus and his church over their earthly family. Thankfully, most of us don’t have to make that choice. By God’s grace, in fact, many of us have our earthly family as a part of our spiritual family. What a tremendous blessing that is. There is a tension here that I recognize, but we all need to think about what it means that the church is our forever family. What does it mean to prioritize the people God has decided we will be family with forever? It definitely starts with consistent presence. You will never grow spiritually apart from regular presence with your spiritual family of faith. This means more than just attending church on Sundays, but it doesn’t mean less. Commit to being there consistently, and inviting others in. What are the next steps in your church? Take them.

Your History and Destiny: Community

Where are you now? God created you to be a part of that nation, that community. What does it look like to be a faithful member of society? What kind of job should you have? How can you participate in the life of the community? I’ll give you one small example. A few years ago, Laura and I decided that we would prioritize community sports over church hosted sports. We moved our kids from church leagues to city recreation leagues. I started volunteering to coach all the sports. These are easy ways for us to be faithful in our context. What are ways you can invest in your calling to be a good citizen and member of the community?

God cast Mary and Joseph in their roles, and he’s cast you in yours. Play it well—because it matters.