Sunday, June 24, 2012

Did He Really Say That?


Man on the Street video about Jesus.

So who do you think Jesus was? And more importantly: who do you think Jesus is today?   You obviously think something about Jesus you are sitting in church on Sunday Morning.  So who is Jesus for you?  Usually Jesus gets good reviews, even when people don’t think he was born of a virgin, or was raised from the dead or was the Son of God, they like the idea of Jesus even if they aren’t entirely comfortable with all that is taught about Jesus.  And because of that people sometime try to redefine him into someone they can understand.   That is why Mikhail Gorbachev could say “Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.”  And Mahatma Gandhi would write “A man who was completely innocent, offered himself as a sacrifice for the good of others, including his enemies, and became the ransom of the world. It was a perfect act.”   Atheist Friedrich Nietzsche wrote “The word "Christianity" is already a misunderstanding -- in reality there has been only one Christian, and he died on the Cross.” And John Lennon said “Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.”
But who did Jesus say he was?  That is really the crux isn’t it?  Because it doesn’t really matter what people say about Jesus, or how people define Jesus.  What really matters is how Jesus defines himself.
In the scripture that was read earlier Jesus makes a statement and a claim that was readily understood by those who first heard it but sometimes causes confusion when it is read today.  So this morning we are going to take a look at John 8:58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM!”   And some of you can’t get your mind around that because you are so caught up in the obvious incorrect use of the verb.   You are thinking “No, he should have said ‘before Abraham was even born, I was!”  And that is because you are thinking that Jesus was using “I am” as a verb when in reality he was using it as a noun.  How confusing is that? 
So let’s go back to the story to find out what exactly was going on here.
There are a couple of key thoughts that happen here in John 8.  Jesus has been teaching the crowds and we read this statement in John 8:30 Then many who heard him say these things believed in him.
That’s awesome, people are believing in Jesus.  And for many churches that is all they require that people believe in Jesus.  But Jesus wasn’t content that they merely believe in Jesus, he seemed to feel that it was important that they believe in the right Jesus.   He challenged them on their beliefs.  And he does that different times when he asked the Apostles “Who do people say I am?  And more importantly who do you say I am?” 
And so after we read of the many who believed in Jesus we see Jesus confronting their beliefs.  John 8:31-32 Jesus said to the people who believed in him, “You are truly my disciples if you remain faithful to my teachings. And you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
And this bothered them.  They immediately interject John 8:33 “But we are descendants of Abraham,” they said. “We have never been slaves to anyone. What do you mean, ‘You will be set free’?”  And they get angry, and nasty.  They had assumed that their religion would save them, they just wanted to add Jesus as a condiment.  They believed in the Jesus they wanted to believe in, not Jesus as he defined himself.  And so they get into this big discussion about his standing with Abraham and he tells them John 8:56 “Your father Abraham rejoiced as he looked forward to my coming. He saw it and was glad.”
And that is more than they can stand, that’s just madness and that’s what they tell him John 8:57 The people said, “You aren’t even fifty years old. How can you say you have seen Abraham?”
Now if Jesus simply wanted to talk about his pre-existence he would have said ‘before Abraham was even born, I was!”  but that isn’t what he says, what he says is John 8:58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM!”   And that is confusing for us but it wasn’t confusing for those he said it to, because listen to their response. John 8:59 At that point they picked up stones to throw at him.
It wasn’t because he had bested them in intellectual debate, it was because of what he was claiming.  And they knew exactly what he was saying, they weren’t confused at all.  They had all been brought up in the culture of the Torah and the Old Testament, they knew the story of Moses and how he had delivered the people of Israel from the slavery of Egypt and they most certainly knew how God spoke to Moses from burning bush.
Maybe you remember the story.  How the Israelites had become slaves in Egypt and how the Pharaoh had become worried that the slaves were becoming too numerous and might rise up in rebellion.  So he orders all the boy babies that are born to the Israelites be killed.  One Jewish mother hid her baby boy in the bulrushes along the Nile River and it was there he was found by Pharaoh’s daughter, who named him Moses, and he is raised in the Palace as the Grandson of the Pharaoh.  Still with me?  When Moses was an adult he discovers his heritage and one  day he comes across an Egyptian beating an Jewish slave, he steps in and while defending the slave he kills the Egyptian.  Facing possible murder charges Moses flees to the desert where he is eventually called by God to go back to Egypt and rescue his people.  If you don’t know the story from the Bible you know it from the Disney film, Prince of Egypt, which has more singing.  And at this point you may be thinking, “Sure but what does this all have to do with people throwing rocks at Jesus?”  We’re getting there. 
The way God speaks to Moses is from a burning bush, and Moses isn’t sure he is up to the challenge, after a little bit of back and forth Moses agrees to accept the challenge, but he has one last question for God.  And we find that question in Exodus 3:13 But Moses protested, “If I go to the people of Israel and tell them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ they will ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what should I tell them?”  Good  question Moses, and here is the answer to Moses question and the answer to your question what does this have to do with people wanting to stone Jesus. 
Exodus 3:14 God replied to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. Say this to the people of Israel: I AM has sent me to you.”   And so when Jesus said in John 8:58 Jesus answered, “I tell you the truth, before Abraham was even born, I AM!” He wasn’t saying “I was around before Abraham was created”  he was saying “I created Abraham”.  And the people understood that in no uncertain terms that Jesus was saying “I am God”.  And they considered that blasphemy and under Jewish law the penalty for blasphemy was spelled out in Leviticus 24:16 Anyone who blasphemes the Name of the LORD must be stoned to death by the whole community of Israel.
It is interesting that these are the same people who were there when this passage began, remember how they were described?  John 8:30-31 Then many who heard him say these things believed in him.    Jesus said to the people who believed in him . . . They wanted to believe in Jesus as a good man, they wanted to believe in Jesus as a great teacher, or as a prophet, or as a healer and miracle worker they didn’t want to acknowledge Jesus as God. 
And some things never change, a few years ago a United Church minister in our community was quoted in the paper as saying that: Jesus was a spiritual genius, like Mozart was a musical genius, or Picasso was an artistic genius, but he wasn’t the son of God. 
Apparently Jesus thought he was and apparently those he taught had no doubts about the claims he made. 

C.S Lewis wrote in “Mere Christianity” “‘I'm ready to accept Jesus, as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept his claim to be God’.  This is the one thing we must not say.  A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things that Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher.  He would either be a lunatic on a level with a man who says He's a poached egg, or else He would be the devil of Hell.  You must make the choice.  Either this man was and is the Son of God or else a Madman or something worse.  You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call Him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher.  He has not left that open to us, He did not intend to.”

So Let’s start with this.  There was a Jesus You see even the most liberal amongst us aren’t willing to say that there never was a Jesus.  That is now beyond debate. 
This claim that Jesus did not really exist arose in the 18th and 19th centuries but after  a hundred years or so it has been almost universally refuted. There are very few scholars who would attempt to seriously teach that today, the evidence just isn’t there to support that position.
However, there are still many people in the world today who buy into that view and some who even promote it.  But when you hear someone making this claim, they are simply repeating what they have heard someone else say. They have done no real research, they are simply parroting back something they have heard or read.  Because the truth is, there is overwhelming evidence for the historic Jesus, both biblical and non-biblical.  And simply because you didn’t see it for yourself is not a reason to believe.  That’s like saying the Leafs have never won the cup, just because there isn’t anyone here who was alive when it happened. 
There is Biblical Evidence For Jesus’ Existence The problem here is that some people immediately tell you that you can’t believe the bible, their view is very similar to the view of  “George Gershwin” Song “Ain’t Necessarily So”  “It ain’t necessarily so No, it ain’t necessarily so These things that you’re liable, to read in the bible. No it ain't necessarily so”
So what are some objections to the validity of the gospels? 
The Dating of the Gospels.  For some people they feel that because we don’t have actual copies of a gospel account that was written the day after the resurrection that information can’t be trusted. 
But that was a different time.  Matthew, Mark, Luke and John wouldn’t have just opened their laptops and started to type out the story.  For that matter they wouldn’t have dug out their lined notepads and ball point pens and started to write.  Writing material were very expensive and hard to come by and so 2000 years ago people relied on what is called “Oral Tradition”  that is the story was passed on from one person to the next in community. 
And when we think of that today we think of the “telephone game” you know where the first person in the group whispers something to the second person, who whispers it to the third person and so on and so on until it gets to the last person in the group and then everyone laughs over how much the original has changed.  But this wasn’t done in whispers this was done in community, where someone could challenge the telling of the story and say “Wait that isn’t the way it happened.”
Anthropology has shown that ancient cultures could pass on oral traditions without error.  It was their way of preserving their history, their story and their culture and it was very important that the story be told without error.  And that has become a lost skill because we don’t need it anymore.  Like doing math in your head.  There was a time that you could add a string of numbers in your head and figure out your change because you had to .  And so I could ask you to add up 1 + 5 + 7 + 7 + 4 – 3  the answer would be?  21.  Do you remember when you could spell words? Correctly? Without spell check?  It’s a lost art. 
And so in the same way we, through neglect, we have lost the art of oral tradition. 
And in most cases we don’t negate a historical document simply because it wasn’t written down at the time it happened. 
But the Gospels were written down, and they were written down while the eye witnesses were still alive.  When it comes to accuracy, when the oldest copies of N.T. books are compared to today's version, they proved to be 99.5% identical. Of the 0.5% differences, none had anything to do with doctrinal teachings
The Bias of the Writers   Some would say that we can’t accept the bible because it’s biased.  That it was fabricated by people who had a vested interest in the story.  Well of course they were biased, they were writing the story.  But all of the gospels were written within the life time of eye witnesses.  There were lots of other people who could write differing opinions, but we have none of those texts, nobody was saying “Hey, this is wrong, I was there and that isn’t how it happened.”  And regardless of what some say there isn’t any evidence that any of those texts existed.  There is no evidence of a grand conspiracy of those dissenting views being tracked down and destroyed, regardless of what is written in fiction.  The early believers weren’t powerful, they didn’t have political sway or the resources necessary to track down and destroy dissenting views.
These days when you get into discussion about the so called “Lost Gospels or Gnostic Gospels”  and there are those who want to tell us that these are a more reliable account and they were banned by the church because of their dissenting views.  But that isn’t the truth, the four gospels that we have were written by eye witnesses to the life of Christ, and were part of an oral tradition that could have been refuted by other eye witnesses, but weren’t. 
Most scholars, even liberal scholars, will concede that the four Gospels which we hold to were in all probability written between 50 and 100 AD.  Those same scholars tell us that the earliest of the Gnostic Gospels was written at least a generation later and some of them as much as two to three hundred years after the event and even after the early church had established the Canon of the scripture, which is our Bible. 
To say the writers of the Gospels were biased because they were eye witnesses is ludicrous.  It’s like saying you can’t believe any of the accounts of Paul Henderson’s 1972 winning goal in the Canada Russia series because the people who report it were all people who wanted it to be true.
Apparent Contradictions  This is one of those catch twenty two arguments.  If every account of every story in the four Gospels was identical then the critics would charge collusion.  They would tell us that this was evidence that the writers all copied from one common source and therefore can’t be trusted.  But because the accounts differ they tell us that these apparent contradictions are evidence that the Gospel accounts can’t be trusted.
But are the contradictions really contradictions or simply different people reporting the same thing as they saw it?  If you wanted to know the story of “Denn”  you could talk to my mother, my best friend, my wife and my kids.  And the stories would all be a little bit different.  They each saw me in a different light.  Because my mother thought I was perfect and never gave her any trouble, does that negate the stories that Reg could tell about our teenage actions?  If Angela’s accounts of Denn as a husband are different then Stephen and Deborah’s memories of Denn as a father, which one do we believe?
I was at a debate this past year where they debated the historical relevance of the Gospels and the skeptic would point to stories being told with different details.  One example that was used was the story of Jairus, the ruler of the Synagogue who came to Jesus for the healing of his daughter. In Mark and Luke’s accounts when Jairus came to Jesus he told Jesus that his daughter was sick, it was only as they made their way to the Jairus’ home that the servants came and told Jairus not to bother Jesus anymore because the little girl was dead.  “But” said the skeptic “in Matthew’s account we read that Jairus came and told Jesus that his daughter had died and begged Jesus to do something.”  With a flourish the man said “They both can’t be true.”  And my thought was “What an idiot!  Or course they can both be true.”  If Matthew arrived part way through the story, just when Jairus had heard the news about his daughter’s death, his account would have to be different than those who had arrived 10 minutes earlier.   
When our kids were growing up Deborah loved big scary rides, Stephen not so much.  So Deborah and I rode the roller coasters while Angela and Stephen would do something else.  Same people, same trip, same visit to Disney, different stories.  Does that make it any less reliable?  
But we don’t only have biblical accounts of the life of Jesus was have There is Non-Biblical Evidence For Jesus’ Existence as well.  Mostly from the late 1st and early 2nd centuries, you have the documents and writings of people who reference the life and death of Jesus: Clement of Rome (c. AD 96), Ignatius of Antioch (c. AD 107-110), Flavius Josephus (AD 37–100), Julius Africanus (c. AD 221), Acts of Pilate (c. AD 37?), Babylonian Talmud (AD 70-200), Thallus (c. AD 50-100), Papias (c. AD 90), Quadratus (d. AD 124), Pliny the Younger (c. AD 61-112), Mara bar Sarapion (1st-3rd century), Suetonius (c. AD 70-130), Justin Martyr (AD 103-165), Lucian (c. AD 125-180), Celsus (c. AD 180), Tacitus (c. AD 56-117) and that doesn’t even account for the Apocrypha & Gnostic writings.  To have this many people referencing Jesus really is amazing. Because remember, at the time not a lot of people knew about Jesus. Jesus lived and ministered in a relatively localized area, in a rather insignificant part of the Roman Empire, and was only a public figure for about three years. Yet we have a lot more information about Jesus than most major public figures at the time.
According to historian Dr. Edwin Yamauchi, Professor Emeritus of History at Miami University and an expert on first-century Christianity, we could know over one hundred facts about Jesus without even consulting the New Testament.   We could know that some saw Him as a miracle worker, a healer, and the Messiah. We could know that He was executed by crucifixion on a Roman-style cross. And we could know that even after His crucifixion there were those who claimed He was still alive. The extra-biblical sources contain an abundance of information about Jesus and treat Him as a real historical figure.
And finally and most compelling There is the Evidence of the Martyrs For Jesus’ Existence The majority of the apostles died because they were preaching in the name of Jesus and thousands of others in the first fifty years after the death and resurrection were put to death because they believed Jesus was a real person as well as the Son of God. To them, He was a reality, He was a real breathing person who lived and walked where they lived and walked. Many of them even knew Him personally.  
People will die for what they believe to be true, but nobody will willingly die for what they know to be a lie. These martyrs would have known the reality of Jesus.  Did they believe Jesus was real? They certainly did. And their proximity to the time frame when Jesus lived makes them prime witnesses.
There is no doubt in the minds of serious scholars that Jesus Christ existed, that he taught, was revered and was crucified.  Over the next two months we are going to be looking at what Jesus said about himself and what that means to each one of us today.  Sure hope you can be a part of our journey. 

Sunday, June 17, 2012

God was His Father, But Joseph Was His Dad

(Video for Luke I am your father)
“I am your father”  probably one of the greatest scenes in movie history. For most of us we know who our dad is, or at least we assume we do.  My father used to tell me that I belonged to the Milk man in Chatham NB, he said that he became suspicious when we moved 300 kms away and had the same milk man.  But if you have ever met Burton Guptill you would have no doubt at all that he sired me.   The funny thing is that a number of years ago an elderly lady at the Berkeley looked and me kind of thoughtfully and that then said “You remind me of a milk man I used to know.” 
Luke thought he knew who his father was, but obviously he was wrong.  That is if Darth Vader could be trusted.  Come on, the guy had just hacked off his own kid’s hand. 
Most of you are familiar with the story that was just read from the book of Luke.  The majority of the commentators agree that this was a pivotal point in Jesus’ life.  It was here that God interrupted his son’s childhood and said “Jesus, I am your father.”  And  it was at this point that he became aware of who he was and the task that lay before him.  There are all kinds of stories, legends and tales of Jesus as a child but this is the only biblical account of Jesus’ childhood.   Up to this account the sum total of what we know about the Jesus as a child is summed up in these words in Luke 2:39-40 When Jesus’ parents had fulfilled all the requirements of the law of the Lord, they returned home to Nazareth in Galilee. There the child grew up healthy and strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s favour was on him.
We don’t know all of the intricacies and mechanics that went into God becoming man but somehow I doubt if he had a full awareness of who he was before this stage.  If he was to truly experience what it was to be fully human what do you do that with awareness that you are God at the age of three?  Seriously, most three year olds already think they are god, for them the shock would be discovering they weren’t God.
And it is in the book of Luke that we find the only accounts of Jesus as a child and in one of those short snippets we read about the time Mary and Joseph lost their oldest kid.  I’m sure that Mary and Joseph told the story of their trip to Jerusalem on many occasions, recounting the horror of that day.  With the passing of time it may have become something they could laugh at, but at the time it was no laughing matter. 
The story starts in Luke 2:41-42 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival. When Jesus was twelve years old, they attended the festival as usual.
Culturally we are told that it was required by Jewish law that every adult male who lived within 20 kms of Jerusalem should go to the temple in the capital city for the Passover celebration.  It was also decreed that under Jewish law that at 13 a boy became a man.  So this was a very special occasion for Jesus.  We know that this wasn’t the first time that Jesus had been in Jerusalem for the Passover, but it would be the last time he would celebrate the feast as a child and I’m sure he was looking forward to next year. 
The Passover celebration lasted for several days and culminated in the Passover Feast; it was the biggest holiday in the Jewish faith and was a major celebration.  Mary and Joseph and their family would have been there with friends and extended family from Nazareth and we are told that they weren’t traveling alone but with a group. 
Those in the know tell us that in all probability the women and children would have travelled as a group and the men would have travelled as a group.  You only have to go to a social function today to realize that things haven’t changed much.  We are also told that the women and children would have left earlier in the morning and travelled slower while the men would have left later but travelled faster, and everyone would have ended up at the destination around the same time.
Because of Jesus’ age he could have travelled with either group, he was really neither fish nor fowl.  Young enough to still travel with the women and children if he wished but old enough to tag along with the men.  And that is where the trouble began, because it would appear that when Joseph got ready to head out with the men he assumed that Jesus was with his mother, while Mary had assumed that Jesus would follow with the men and older boys.  One Sunday when we were pastoring in Truro I was getting ready to lock up the church and go home when I realized that I had an extra toddler.  Her folks had come in two vehicles and the both assumed that the other one had Keely.   And you know what happens when we assume right?  That’s right sometimes we are wrong.
Luke 2:43-45 After the celebration was over, they started home to Nazareth, but Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. His parents didn’t miss him at first, because they assumed he was among the other travelers. But when he didn’t show up that evening, they started looking for him among their relatives and friends. When they couldn’t find him, they went back to Jerusalem to search for him there.   Can you imagine the panic?  The finger pointing?  The fear?  Mary and Joseph would have split up and began canvasing all of the other groups.  Who had seen Jesus?  Where and when?  By the time they had finished it was very apparent that no one had seen Jesus at all through that day.  When they couldn’t find him we are told they left the group and headed back to Jerusalem on their own.  But how would they find him?  They came from the little town of Nazareth and Jerusalem was the largest city in the country.  Perhaps not Toronto size but certainly the task before them was daunting.
And so they hunted, they went back to their accommodations and Jesus wasn’t there, they went to where they had eaten and Jesus wasn’t there, they looked up the new friends they had made during the days they had been celebrating and no Jesus. 
We aren’t told but we have to assume they went to the authorities with no results and checked whatever served for emergency health care to see if a twelve year old boy had been brought in, but to no avail.  We don’t know if Mary and Joseph had brought their other children back to Jerusalem with them, or if they had sent them ahead with family members but when it seemed that all the avenues had been exhausted we read this Luke 2:46 Three days later they finally discovered him in the Temple, sitting among the religious teachers, listening to them and asking questions.
We don’t know what took them to the temple, if they were looking for Jesus or if in desperation they returned to the centre of their spiritual lives to pray for their son and to seek comfort from their God.  Whatever it was that took them to the temple took them to their son.  Isn’t it always the way, you find what you are looking for in the last place you look.  Which is one of the dumbest things people say.   Just once wouldn’t it be nice to hear someone say “Yep I found it in the third from the last place I looked.  I had a list of places I needed to look so even after I found it I just kept right on looking.”
In this case it kind of makes you wonder what would have happened if they had of gone to the temple to ask for prayer before they looked all over Jerusalem.   But Mary and Joseph were like most of us, we try to do it on our own first and only after it becomes apparent that we can’t do it do we ask God for help.
I wonder about the range of emotions that Mary and Joseph must have felt when they saw Jesus there right as rain in a conversation with the teachers of religious law?  From “I can’t believe you are all right we were so worried about you.” To “What were you thinking, your father and I were worried sick.” To “You are going to get the spanking of your life when you get home young man.”
It appears it was somewhere in the middle, you understand that we are just getting snippets of the conversation, we are hearing the high points not all the minutia that actually makes up a conversation, so we hear Luke 2:47-48 All who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. His parents didn’t know what to think. “Son,” his mother said to him, “why have you done this to us? Your father and I have been frantic, searching for you everywhere.”  That’s a good motherly response, lead with guilt.   And we can read it any number of ways because we don’t know the tone of voice that Mary used, the volume of her words, the look on her face or whether she was hugging Jesus or shaking him. 
And he responds by saying Luke 2:49 “But why did you need to search?” he asked. “Didn’t you know that I must be in my Father’s house?”    Based on the fact that he was going on 13 he probably rolled his eyes, it might be blasphemy, and you might want to stand back in case the lighting strikes, but reading that I think I would have reached out and slapped the kid.  Arrrggghhh.  And I have never hit either of my kids in anger, although there have been times. 
And so it was here that in whatever fashion for whatever reason the switch was tripped and Jesus became aware of his destiny.  Had Mary and Joseph forgot the wonder of his birth, maybe the everyday had caused them to lose sight of the eternal and suddenly Mary and Joseph were reminded of who their son truly was, not the son of Joseph creator of tables and chairs but the son of God, creator and master of the universe.
I wonder if for Joseph he suddenly remembered “That’s right I’m not his father.”  And I wonder if his mind rushed back to that day more than 12 years before when his fiancé told him that she was pregnant, and the child was not his.  If he remembered the visit from the angel who confirmed Mary’s story, of the wonders of the birth in the stable, of the visiting shepherds with their story of celestial choirs and the wise men bearing gifts and their story of the star in the sky. 
Could it be that 12 years of the ordinary had crowded out and eclipsed the wonder of Jesus birth?  If the mundane had caused Joseph to forget the miraculous? 
At some point in time at the temple God had looked down and said “Jesus, I am your father.”  And throughout the gospels Jesus refers to God as “My Father in Heaven”. 
There was no doubt in Jesus’ mind that his father was God, but I think in every practical way his Dad was Joseph.  If there had been a Father’s Day 2000 years ago it would have been Joseph who got the card  
Joseph Trusted God  We are looking at the story from this end and there are still people who call the virgin birth into question.  I mean there are so called Christians and even so called Christian Churches who say the Virgin birth didn’t really happen, that it isn’t really important that we believe it.  What a crock, I don’t know if that’s a correct theological term or not, but if can’t believe that Jesus was born of a virgin what can you believe about Him?  But they say, “that’s impossible!”  Of course it’s impossible, that’s the entire point.  If you’re going to believe that Jesus was divine then you’d better believe that he had a divine beginning. 
But there are people today, who even though they have the gospel account, even though they can read that Jesus lived died and rose from the dead, can’t believe that he was born of a virgin.  Think about poor Joseph.  The girl he planned on spending his entire life with tells him “I’m going to be a mom, but you’re not going to be a dad.”  What do you say?  I can’t say with a hundred percent certainty, but I would suspect that I’d be close to 99.99 % certain that nobody here today would have believed Mary’s story.  And if you would, I have a lovely bridge I’m trying to sell, goes between Dartmouth and Halifax.  And not only would you get a nifty bridge but people would pay you to use it.
Mary would always know that she had been a virgin.  She knew exactly what she had done, and what she hadn’t done, she wasn’t naïve, when Gabriel told her that she would have a son she responded in Luke 1:34 Mary asked the angel, “But how can this happen? I am a virgin.”
But Joseph, all he had to rely on was the word of Mary, and the word of an angel.  And it would appear that the angel was the turning point.
I’m sure that Joseph must have thought, “I don’t understand it, I can’t explain it, I’m not even sure that I’m happy about it, but if it’s of God then count me in.”  Mary wasn’t the only one that had to put up with the whispers and snickers about her situation.  Joseph was the one who would have gotten the blame.  What a heel couldn’t even wait ‘til they were married.  The women would have looked down their noses at him, and the guy’s would have joked about him.  And what would Joseph have said, “Look it’s not like that at all, she’s still a virgin the child is the Holy Spirit’s.”
And you can just imagine the guys “sure the Holy Spirit got Mary pregnant, nod nod, wink wink, now Joseph thinks he’s God.”
And yet as far as we know once Joseph was visited by the Angel he never doubted the parentage of Jesus. 
God Trusted Joseph  Think about it, just for a minute, put yourself in God’s place.  You’re going to come to the earth as a helpless child, you are going to be raised and fed and nurtured by two humans, just plain ordinary peoples.  Who are you going to trust to do the job? I’ve been a parent for twenty eight years and I’m not sure that I would trust me with the responsibility.  It was Samuel Butler the English writer who wrote “Parents are the last people on earth who should have children.”
One of the first indication of the type of man Joseph is when Joseph first gets the news that his fiancé is pregnant, the story is found in Matthew 1:19 Joseph, her fiancé, was a good man and did not want to disgrace her publicly, so he decided to break the engagement quietly.
He could have had her killed, it was certainly an option as laid down in the Old Testament, probably wouldn’t have been the first time it happened, and probably wouldn’t have been the last.  Even if it doesn’t happen today the temptation is there, Loretta Lynn made this statement “My attitude toward men who mess around is simple: If you find 'em, kill 'em.”
Still happens in other countries, sometimes hidden in the international news you will see that a woman in a Muslim country has been executed for adultery.  Never a man, only the women, perhaps men don’t commit adultery in those countries.
He could have done that, but he didn’t.  He also could have made a public spectacle out of Mary, he could have told everyone that he knew that she had slept around on him, could have dragged her into the middle of town, humiliated her and demanded that the engagement be called off.   No instead he decided to break the engagement quietly and the thing that is most telling about his character are the words so as not to disgrace her publicly.  Even at the lowest point in his life, when Joseph thought he had been betrayed by the girl he loved he was still a man of character, and he still put Mary first.
Joseph also brought his son up in a Godly home.  Remember our story?  Luke 2:41 Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Passover festival.
.  It was the desire of every devout Jew to celebrate Passover in Jerusalem, but it wasn’t always easy, so most people didn’t make the trip.  But we are told that Mary and Joseph made the trip every year.  If we were to pull up the map again, here is Nazareth, where Jesus lived with his parents, and here is Jerusalem, that’s a distance of about seventy miles that’s further then from here to Truro.  And there wasn’t just Mary, Joseph and Jesus.  We are told in the scriptures that there were at least two brothers and at least two sisters, and they didn’t have a magic wagon to go in, they were on foot. 
Most of us would find it inconvenient if we had to drive to Truro for a Christmas Eve service, but Joseph felt that it was important that he celebrate Passover in Jerusalem with his family. 
Jesus life as a child is pretty much a mystery to us except for the story about the Passover celebration in Jerusalem, but we are told this in Luke 2:52 Jesus grew in wisdom and in stature and in favor with God and all the people.
A pretty good report.  And Joseph had to take at least some of the credit.  Jesus may have been the son of God but it was Joseph who raised him.  And maybe Jesus would have said with Michael Jordon “My heroes are and were my parents. I can't see having anyone else as my heroes.” 
We all know that God was Jesus’ Father, but let’s not forget that Joseph was his Dad.  And just as God entrusted Joseph with his son, he entrusts each parent here with the children you have been given.