The Courage to Cooperate

As we journey through the season of Advent, this season of waiting, of breath-holding, of lighting candles against the encroaching dark we arrive today at a story that feels familiar, yet holds depths we might easily miss if we rush past it to get to the manger.

Today, we are looking at Matthew’s origin story. And I use that word “origin” deliberately.

If we look at the very first verse of Matthew, it reads, “This is an account of the origin of Jesus the Messiah.” In our reading today, verse 18 begins almost exactly the same way: “The origin of Jesus the Messiah was like this…”

Matthew is doing something clever here. The Greek word he uses is genesis. For the early Jewish listeners, that word would have rung like a bell, taking them all the way back to the very first book of their scriptures. Matthew is connecting the dots for us. He is telling us that something as momentous, as earth-shattering, and as creative as the first Creation is happening right here, in a small town, with a carpenter and his betrothed.

Unlike Luke’s Gospel, where we hear the Magnificat and see the story unfold through Mary’s eyes, Matthew invites us to stand in Joseph’s shoes. And frankly, it is an uncomfortable place to stand.

The text is blunt: Mary is pregnant, and they are not yet married.

We have to strip away the stained-glass sanitization of this moment to feel its weight. In the first century, this wasn’t just a complicated situation; it was a catastrophe. It brought immense shame to both families. According to the strict letter of the law and societal expectation, Joseph had every right to be angry. He had the right to expose her to public disgrace.

But here is where we see the first glimpse of what Matthew calls being righteous.

We are told Joseph decides to dismiss her quietly. He chooses to save Mary and her family from public humiliation. Note that he decides this before the angel visits him. He doesn’t need a divine intervention to be kind.

This is profound. Joseph’s righteousness isn’t defined by a rigid adherence to religious purity codes or punishment. His righteousness is defined by compassion. He chooses mercy over judgment. He chooses people over protocol.

But then, the dream comes.

Joseph is visited by an angel who tells him not to be afraid and reveals that this child is conceived by the Holy Spirit. The angel gives Joseph a command: “You are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

Let’s pause on that name. Jesus.

In Hebrew, it is Yeshua, meaning “Yahweh saves” or “God is salvation.” It was a common name at the time, as common as “Michael” or “David” might be today. But it carried a heavy hope. During the Second Temple period, the Jewish people were living under the thumb of colonizing empires, first Babylon, and in Jesus’s time, the crushing weight of Rome.

When the angel says Jesus will “save his people from their sins,” we need to be careful not to read 16th-century theology back into a 1st-century text. This isn’t necessarily about penal substitution, the idea that God demands a sacrifice to appease wrath. Matthew is drawing on the Old Testament theology of reward, punishment, and collective restoration.

The people were crying out for deliverance. They were crying out to be saved from the calamities of their time, from the systems of oppression and their own participation in the brokenness of the world. The name Jesus was a political and spiritual manifesto wrapped in a swaddle: God is coming to liberate us.

So, Joseph wakes up. And he does something incredibly brave.

As biblical scholar Eugene Park notes:

“In this story, Joseph gives a name to the child of his wife, and by doing so, he symbolically, if not formally, adopts him as his own. That is, in the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus is a natural son of God and an adopted son of Joseph.”

By naming the baby, Joseph makes Jesus a legitimate Son of David. He weaves this child into his lineage, into his protection, and into his heart.

Chelsey Harmon reminds us that we don’t know much about Joseph. He never speaks a word in the Gospels. But his actions scream of his character.

He is righteous, defined by his mercy.

He is obedient to the call of love.

He demonstrates gentleness and humility.

He does not hold a grudge.

Think of the risk Joseph took. To accept Mary and this child was to accept the side-eyes of his neighbors and the whispers in the marketplace. It was to cast aside his own dreams whatever aspirations he held for a quiet, normal life to participate in a story much bigger than himself.

This brings us to the heart of the matter for us today. Joseph is a model of cooperation.

God initiated the plan, but just as God needed Mary, God also needed Joseph. God needed a human being to say yes. God needed someone to provide a home, to give a name, to offer protection, and to provide the saviour of the world with a positive role model.

Joseph didn’t just passively receive a miracle; he actively participated in it.

So, this Advent, as we wait and prepare for the coming of the Christ child, I wonder: What does it look like for us to cooperate with God?

Where are we being asked to set aside our own perfect plans to make room for a messy, holy interruption?

Where are we being called to redefine righteousness, moving away from judgment and toward a quiet, radical mercy?

How can we, like Joseph, participate in the genesis of something new in our community?

We likely won’t be visited by an angel in a dream tonight. But the call is the same. We are invited to trust that God is working in the unexpected. We are invited to adopt the vulnerable, to name the holy in our midst, and to play our part in God’s grand, redemptive tapestry.

May we, like Joseph, have the courage to wake up and say yes. Amen.