from Pastor Todd

The young couple had plans.  They were looking forward to their wedding and setting goals for the rest of their lives.  Family members had been notified and the preparations were spinning through their minds.  Then the young woman discovered she was going to have a baby, and the father was not the man she planned to marry.

When she learned the news, she must have known that it could jeopardize all of her carefully guarded dreams.  Her reputation would be ruined, no matter what her fiancé decided to do, and there was a very real possibility that he might break the engagement.  In her neighborhood, she would be seen as an immoral woman, for people she knew were extremely conservative about such matters.  Most likely, no man would consider her a suitable prospect for a wife ever again.  No one would believe her side of the story, so she would have to endure the stares and whispers if she kept the child.

The man loved his fiancée dearly, but he could see no other explanation than that she had been unfaithful to him, for he had never had sexual relations with her.  He must have been deeply grieved, but his compassion for the young woman led him to consider breaking things off quietly to spare her the embarrassment of public inquiry.

Then, he was advised to go ahead with the wedding and to raise the child as his own.  It sounded simple, but it meant that his reputation would be stained along with that of his wife.  He would be thought of as a weak man, one who silently accepted the insult of his wife’s actions.  Or perhaps the rumor would take hold that he had only married her because the child actually was his and so he shared her shame.  Any chance for him to advance in social or religious settings might be lost if he accepted this baby.

The timing of the pregnancy could hardly have been worse.  They had looked forward to traveling to his hometown to register, their first official act as a “couple.”  But now the journey of 70 miles would have to be made in the final trimester of her time.  The man could not afford a better means of transportation, so the woman would have to ride a donkey over the hilly, uneven roads while he walked beside her.  Special accommodations would be needed when they arrived, and those could be very difficult to find since the town would be crowded with visitors.  Even interaction with strangers could be awkward, for people were bound to ask questions of the expectant mother.

Yet the young woman said, “I am the Lord’s servant.  May it be to me as you have said.”  And the man took her home as his wife and waited patiently until she gave birth to a son.  She chose to put up with the rumors and he chose to accept the undeserved gossip.  And they called the child Jesus.

Merry Christmas.

Todd Scoles
Associate Pastor

Posted in Pastors Blog