This is how Jesus the Messiah was born. His mother, Mary, was engaged to be married to Joseph. But before the marriage took place, while she was still a virgin, she became pregnant through the power of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, to whom she was engaged, was a righteous man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.
As he considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream. “Joseph, son of David,” the angel said, “do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. For the child within her was conceived by the Holy Spirit. And she will have a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”
All of this occurred to fulfill the Lord’s message through his prophet:
“Look! The virgin will conceive a child!
She will give birth to a son,
and they will call him Immanuel,
which means ‘God is with us.’”When Joseph woke up, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded and took Mary as his wife. (Matthew 1:18–24 NLT)
I took up knitting many years ago. It’s a fun, rhythmic, soothing activity that can produce beautiful results, as long as you follow the pattern. Patterns can be extremely complex or exceedingly simple, but the one thing all knitting patterns have in common is the first step – casting on – where the initial stitches are made. It can sometimes be a pain to get right, but without casting on, there can be no scarf, no hat, no socks. The end goal, the finished product, depends on the first step being taken. This is true with anything in life. The first step needs to be taken in order to reach a goal. Life would be simpler if we could snap our fingers and have a finished product appear, but the reality is every pattern has a beginning.
In Matthew 1:19, Joseph is described to us: he had in mind to divorce Mary quietly because he was a righteous man and didn’t desire to expose her to public disgrace. Righteousness was a pattern Joseph had already established in his life before any of these events took place, and this is the first adjective used to describe him. If you have wondered how Joseph could so quickly trust and follow God’s leading, the answer is, this was not the first time. Rather, Joseph had already established a pattern of righteous living, so when an angel appeared to him in a dream, the very first thing he did when he woke up was to obey.
Paul tells us in Romans 12:2 to stop conforming to the patterns of this world and to instead be transformed by the renewal of our minds. In other words, stop focusing on what we can accomplish ourselves and instead focus on Jesus and his desires for our lives.
This holiday season, none of us will have our plans thrown off the same way Joseph’s were, but there will be times our plans don’t go quite as expected. In those times, we can either react like the rest of the world and attempt to force circumstances to obey us, or we can look to our Savior and seek to learn what he desires from us. This might not be easy, especially if we’ve never tried it before. But every pattern has a beginning—a first step. And a life patterned by righteousness produces a beautiful masterpiece to the glory of God.
Jordan Brown is the lead pastor of Antelope Springs Church in Roseville, California.