As we draw nearer to the celebration of Christmas, we now turn our attention to events that happened before Jesus was born. These events are told in the first two chapters of Matthew and today’s Gospel comes from there. Joseph is the main character. He has to decide what to do with Mary following her mysterious pregnancy. God intervenes through his messenger exhorting him to keep her as his wife because she is to give birth to the Savior. Joseph obeys the messenger angel and by so doing allows Jesus to become a descendant of David. Joseph is important because he is of David’s stock. By accepting Jesus as his legal child, Jesus becomes a son of David. Matthew placed his genealogy of Jesus at the very beginning of his Gospel (Matt 1:1-17) in order to make this point clear right from the start. Joseph is also presented to us as an example of a person of faith. He obeys each time the messenger of God says something to him concerning his relationship with Mary and the child Jesus (Matt 1:24; 2:14, 21, 22). His faith allows God to intervene in the lives of his people. The Savior is called Jesus, a Greek form of the name Joshua, which means “God saves” (Matt1:21; Luke 1:31; Acts 4:12). In Jesus, God saves his people from their sins. He is the new sign by which the people of Israel and of all ages know that God is with us.