Many of us fight back whenever we seem to loose control and have to stop driving and let God lead us to where He would have us go. A old bumper sticker said God is my Co- Pilot. A Co- Pilot is supposed to take over when the Pilot is otherwise occupied or unable for some reason to stay in control of the Plane. Some people say that God should be your Pilot rather than your co-Pilot because God should always be in control of the plane of your life. Making God the Co-pilot or the Pilot is hard for most people because we think we have a better plan than God does. God, The Creator God who has had the same plan since Adam and Eve were still in the Garden, God. We have the arrogance to believe that we would even begin to know better than He what is best for the plan of God?
Whenever we find ourselves out of our own control we begin to struggle and fight to regain even a small amount of control over our own existence. It is only when we find ourselves out of control that we can learn just how much in control God really is. I think that Mary and Joseph are prime examples. We will look at them and the situations they both were in.
First we look at Mary, the Virgin Mother of Jesus. She was impregnated by an angel of God with God’s own son Jesus, and told to give birth to Him and name Him Jesus. Knowing that this was an offense that at that time and age would be considered an offense that would be punishable by death either by her betrothed husband or the surrounding people in her village. To be pregnant at that time out of wedlock was unheard of and looked upon by the people around her with shame. She would face the chance of death and the almost sure chance that if they did not kill her the people would treat her with such disdain and hatetred that she would wish that she was dead.
Next we look at Joseph, the Betrothed Husband of Mary. He would be expected to be upset with Mary over her obvious indiscretion with another. If Joseph did not hold her accountable for the indiscretion, it would be the same as admitting to the people that he was the one Mary had slept with and that the child she carried was his and was from a pre-marital tryst between the two of them and would bring shame on him and his standing in the public eye. Again we see that ultimately the whole thing comes down to what people would think as they have no way to understand the mind or the thinking of God.
I’m sure that even though Joseph had been told by the angel of God in a dream that Mary would have a son and he was to name Him Jesus and that Jesus would be born in Bethlehem, and would be the Messiah of the people of Israel. Joseph still suffered many doubts as he went along. I’m sure that as the song ‘A Strange Way To Save The World’ says, that Joseph must have questioned thinking that he knew better than God Himself, ‘Why me, I’m just a simple man of trade, Why Him, A Baby, with all the rulers in the world, Why Here, inside this stable filled with hay, Why Her, she is just an ordinary Girl, then he qualified his statement so as to not look as though he was questioning God, even though he was, he said, ‘ I’m not one to second guess what angels have to say, but, this is such a strange way to save the world.’
I’m sure it must have gone on from there, as he thought ‘ To think of how it could have been, If Jesus had come as He deserved, There would have been no Bethlehem, No lowly shepherds at His birth. But thinking on it some more Joseph would have realized that he knew the reason God had to reach so far down to show the lowliest human that they were still worthy of God reaching down to them and saving them from their sins. No matter how bad we are we can’t get so low that Jesus would not be willing to reach down to us. No matter how hard we wrestle with God for control, He still thinks we are worth saving.
If we go back to Jacob in Genesis 32 where he wrestles with the Lord. It was not Jacob that wrestled with the lord as we so often think. It was the Lord that came down and began to wrestle with Jacob to have control. If we look in verse 24 of chapter 32 it states that the man that represents the Lord was the one who wrestled with Jacob all night. Jacob was not wrestling to take control from the Lord, he was attempting to keep the Lord from taking control of him. It appears that Jacob won the match , but did he really? Did the Lord just let him think he won so that His plan would continue as He had planned for it to go.
Was Joseph his son more than just a shadow of Christ in what Jesus was coming to do, or a shadow of Christ in his entire life to come. Would Christ like Joseph be rejected by his own Kin only to be received by them gloriously when He returns on the scene in the time to come? There are many mysteries that will not be known until Jesus returns, but from the signs of the times, that won’t be long. Keep looking up for the time is near! As one of my favorite Radio shows is often saying.
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