Matthew 1:18-25: What the Angel Told Joseph

INTRODUCTION

When the time comes to name a baby, some people choose the name of Father or Mother, or a favorite grandparent, or someone they admire.

Some names are traditional and run in families. My grandfather, William Sommerville, came from Scotland. The practice was that in Scotland the oldest child was traditionally named for his father. My father was William, the same name as his father and grandfather and so on back for many generations. My older brother also inherited the name William.

Parents used to buy a book with a title like What to Name the Baby, and pick a name with a special meaning. For example, John means “God Is Gracious,” Charles means “Strong and Manly,” Dorothy means “Gift of God,” and Sarah means “My Princess.” The name Sally comes from Sarah, so it also means “My Princess.” Ingrid is a Norse name meaning “Beautiful.” Rosemary is a combination of Rose and Mary, and also the name of a fragrant herb.

My father named each of his six children a name from an admirable character in the Bible: David, James, Mary, John, Ruth, and Timothy.

Today I want to talk about how Jesus got his name—actually two names.

The story is told in Matthew 1:18-25:

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 of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly.

But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; and she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet:

“Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

and his name shall be called Emmanuel”

(which means, God with us).

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 borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

So the angel gave Joseph two names for the Savior: Jesus and Immanuel. We will now consider why God chose these two names for his Son.

I. The angel told Joseph that our Lord’s name would be “Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

A. The actual name in the Hebrew language was Yeshua, a form of Joshua. When Yeshua is translated into Greek it becomes iesous. Eventually the “i” became “j” in the English language, and that is why we say “Jesus.” The important thing is that the name “Jesus” means “God saves.”

Our Lord Jesus wasn’t the first person to have this name. In fact there were other Jesuses in New Testament. In fact, one of St. Paul’s friends was named Jesus Justus (Colossians 4:11). According to some of the best manuscripts of Matthew, the bandit and murderer who was released when Jesus was crucified was named “Jesus Barabbas.”

B. So the name “Jesus” means Savior, the one who would save his people from their sins. I would like to consider the ways in which Jesus saves us from our sins.

Salvation is to be forgiven.

Salvation begins with forgiveness.

Forgiveness is more important than we think. Most of us are not constantly aware of how far we fall short of being all we ought to be.

So, even if we are blind to most of our sins, we still need to be forgiven. That is why when we pray our Lord’s Prayer we ask the Father to forgive us our trespasses—or sins—or debts.

But there’s more to it than that.

Salvation is also to be set free from sin.

In Jesus’s world a large proportion of people were slaves. They belonged to someone who could do with them what he or she wished. The people of Jesus’s time would have been familiar with the idea of being “set free.” The word for “saved” also means “set free.”

The Bible tells us that all of us who are without Christ in our lives are slaves to sin, whether we know it or not.

Without Christ we can never overcome the selfishness, the wrong attitudes, the bad habits that keep us from being all that we can be—and keep us from enjoying God’s blessings in our lives.

We struggle against our bad habits and bad attitudes and stubborn faults. But Jesus, as Savior, can set us free.

Salvation from sin is also healing.

As I have mentioned before, “saved” and “healed” are the same word in the language of the Bible.

Sin is not only guilt but also sickness of the soul. The sickness of sin is deep in our hearts—mostly out of sight.

This deeply-hidden corruption in our hearts calls out for healing.

When I was in the army in Korea, I dug a lot of holes. One day I was digging a hole when I hit something hard. I thought it was a rock and I kept striking it. But as I uncovered it further, I saw that it was an unexploded mortar round. It could have exploded and torn me to pieces. I carefully covered it up and dug my hole elsewhere.

Suppose that unexploded shell could talk. It might say, “Why should I be treated so? I have never hurt anyone!”

I might answer, “It is not what you have done; it is what you have inside you.”

And what we all have inside us is what the Bible calls “uncleanness,” the sickness of sin just waiting to be expressed.

Salvation is also to be brought home to God.

In our natural state we are estranged from God. God seems far away and not a Friend at all.

According to 1 Peter 3:18, “Christ suffered for sins once for all, the righteous for the righteous, that he might bring us to God.” Jesus came into the world to make God our Friend. Through Christ’s death he removed the barrier of sin that separates us from God.

Salvation is to enter into the light.

Sin blinds us. Jesus healed more blind people than any other kind of healing. After Jesus healed a blind man, he then told the people, “I am the light of the world.” When we come to Jesus as Savior we begin to walk in the light—we know why we are here and where we are going. We see things as God sees them, and we finally know what is most important—and it isn’t money or health or respect or success.

St. Paul wrote, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, every thing has become new” (1 Corinthians 5:17).

II. And the angel gave Joseph another name for the baby: “Immanuel,” which means in Hebrew, “God with us.”

A. All through the Bible God is pictured as being with his people.

In Genesis God is pictured as walking and conversing with the Adam and Eve in the garden in the cool of the evening.

In Deuteronomy 31, God promises to go always with his people—never to leave them or forsake them.

In Psalm 73, the psalmist says to God:

“I am continually with you.

You hold my right hand.

You guide me with your counsel,

and afterward you will receive me to glory.”

And in our favorite 23rd Psalm we acknowledge:

Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,

I will fear no evil, for thou art with me…”

B. But something more happened when God came to the earth in the man, Jesus.

Let me tell you a story.

Long ago a great monarch, Shah Abbis, ruled the Persians. Shah Abbis loved his people. To know them more perfectly he used to mingle with them in various disguises. One day he went as a poor man to the public baths, and there in the tiny cellar, he sat beside the fire-tender.

At mealtime he shared the fire-tender’s coarse food and talked to the lonely man as a friend. Again and again he visited him until the man grew to love his frequent visitor. Then one day the emperor revealed who he was, and he invited the man to ask some gift from him.

The fire-tender sat gazing on him with love and wonder. At last he spoke: “You left your palace and your glory to sit with me in this dark place, to partake of my coarse fare, to care whether my heart is glad or sorry! On others you may bestow rich presents, but to me you have given yourself. And I can only ask that you will never withdraw the gift of your friendship.”

That story is a dim picture of what our Great God has done for us in coming to earth as Jesus, our Savior and Friend.

John’s Gospel puts it this way:

And the Word—that is, Jesus—became flesh and dwelt among us,

and we beheld his glory,

glory as of the only Son from the Father,

full of grace and truth (John 1:14)

A new and wonderful thing that happened when God came to earth as a little baby human. In Jesus Christ the Great God truly became one of us, “Immanuel.”

I don’t know whether Mary and Joseph or any of his friends ever called him “Immanuel.” But that is who he was. “God with us.”

As a human, Jesus—the Incarnate God—would experience what it is to be a baby, a growing child, an adolescent, and an adult.

God knows everything, but when God became flesh and dwelt among us, he not only understood—but actually experienced—the struggles, disappointments, and temptations that we humans experience—even death.

In the book of Hebrews we read that Jesus is able to sympathize with our weaknesses, for he has been tempted in every way as we are (Hebrews 4:15).

Jesus was “despised and rejected of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.” He was betrayed. He was ridiculed and tortured. He felt that God had forsaken him, and finally he died on that cross—a painful and shameful death.

Jesus is truly “God with us.” He understands. He is one we can trust.

After his resurrection Jesus promised his disciples, Lo, I am always with you, even to the end of the world.”

Jesus will always be Immanuel, God with us.

C. But there is something even more wonderful at the end of the very last book of the New Testament.

In the next to the last chapter of the Book of Revelation, John writes of his vision of the New Heaven and the New Earth. He sees heaven opened up, and he hears a voice saying,

“Behold the dwelling of God is with men and women.

He will dwell with them, and they will be his people,

and God himself will be with them;

he will wipe away every tear from their eyes,

and death shall be no more,

neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more,

for the former things have passed away.”

So we can look forward to a time when Jesus will be “Immanuel”—God with us—in an even more intimate and more glorious way. We will dwell with him in the Father’s house.

In that time we will “see him as he is.” And we will “enter into the joy of the Lord.”

What could be better than that?