The Redeemed Family
Text: Matt. 1:18-25
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Families can be their own unique type of situation—we might even daresay challenge—especially around the holidays. It’s no secret that TV shows and movies around this time of year have gotten a lot of mileage out the idea. That’s because it has some basis in reality. This is what happens when you have a lot of different personalities who are very familiar with each other spending lots more time together than usual. It’s just part of the experience.
And yet, it’s the family, with all its quirks and joys and challenges, that’s precisely how our God has chosen to come into the world. He could have come into it through any number of ways. He could have simply descended from on high in thunder and lightning and fire, like He did at Sinai. He could have willed Himself into a form of His own choosing, without parents or ancestry. He could have simply appeared, fully formed as an adult Messiah. But none of those would do, not for what our Lord had planned. So St. Matthew tells us: “Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.”
This alone would have been a miracle in itself—the eternal infinite Son of God being born an infant to a virgin mother. But this mystery goes even deeper. It was not enough for our Lord to take on a flesh and blood body and have a mother. He also would have an earthly father as well. “And her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.’…When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him: he took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son. And he called his name Jesus.” Notice that Joseph is given an active role in the life of the Son of God come to our mortal sphere. He’s responsible to care for this child and it is Joseph who calls His name Jesus. Our Lord, when He comes to save His people from their sins, would have a family.
Why was it so important for Jesus to have an entire family in His mission of salvation? There are some practical reasons, to be sure. He was born an infant and would need care and protection, which Mary and Joseph provided in their unique ways as mother and father. From Joseph, He would learn a trade to get by in this world that demands labor to survive. As one who is born as one of us, He would need what all people need from their parents and guardians in each stage of life. But there is a much more important reason that He takes on a family—and it involves more than Mary, Joseph, and Jesus. It involves all of us.
Jesus takes on a family for the same reason He takes on a body and a human nature. He does it to redeem the family. For when our Savior came into this world, it was His intention to redeem—to buy back and make holy—everything He touched. So when He took on a human nature, He redeemed human nature, sanctifying it and making it good and noble to be human. When He took on a body, He redeemed our bodies so that they would be rescued from sin and death, so that they would be resurrected to live eternally as they were meant to, body and soul united as God created us. And when He took on a family, He redeemed the family, that first institution created by God in Eden. He blessed the family, all families, to be a source of life, a place where the faith is handed down from one generation to the next. He sanctified and blessed this foundational building block of human society and civilization.
That’s not to say that they will be perfect now. We know that’s not how it works with anything else that’s been redeemed by Jesus but is still waiting to be perfected when He returns. Just as we, who have been saved, still sin as individuals; just as our redeemed bodies still bear the crosses of living in a world corrupted by sin and its effects; so too our families will have their sins and hurts and marks of living in a broken world. But this is precisely why redemption is needed. This is exactly why Jesus took on a family. He rescues it from its sins and hurts. He heals its brokenness. He provides the home to become a place of protection and growth, instruction in the way of the Lord, of joy and forgiveness.
That’s the real reason Jesus came, after all: forgiveness. That’s what the angel told Joseph: “He will save his people from their sins.” What is that saving besides forgiveness? So the Lord purifies, blesses, and sanctifies all that He touches. He cleanses us from our sins with His touch when He takes on flesh and blood and touches our human nature that way. He covers our homes and loved ones with His grace and mercy when He becomes part of a family, extending that grace and mercy to our families, to all families. He forgives and teaches us to forgive. He teaches parents and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, by doing all things well and for our benefit. He lives in the same places that we do so that He would bless those places with His presence. So we learn to see His hand at work in our homes. We learn to be forgiven and then, having received that forgiveness, we learn how to let it overflow from us to those that trespass against us. We learn what it is to be someone who has been saved from their sins, who’s surrounded by others who have been saved from their sins as well—in our homes, in our church, in our world. We rejoice that our Lord has come not to save us as self-contained individuals, but as people who belong to something bigger, something that the Lord is saving and redeeming along with us. We praise our Savior for making us part of His own eternal family, with whom we will sing praises for eternity when He comes again in glory. In the name of Jesus, who redeems all that He touches. Amen.
