Have your ever noticed how little nuances of wording can reveal something important about people? They may not say it directly, but their choice of words can indirectly reveal an inner struggle or difficult experience they’re dealing with and if we don’t see the clues we may overlook what they are up against.
An example is in Luke’s description of Joseph and Mary’s trek to Bethlehem before Jesus’ birth.
Joseph also went up from Galilee, from the city of Nazareth, to Judea, to the city of David which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and family of David, in order to register along with Mary, who was engaged to him, and was with child. (Luke 2:4–5, NASB95)
The alert observer of the text can see that without distracting the reader from the story of Jesus, Luke gracefully left clues about difficult personal struggle going on in the lives of Jesus’ parents. The English reader might easily miss it, but the Greek text does more to emphasize Mary’s predicament. If we see it, we may have an opportunity to understand some of our own difficult circumstances.
Why did Mary go to Bethlehem with Joseph?
In the book “Devotions on the Greek New Testament”,1 Verlyn D. Verbrugge, Senior Editor-at-Large for Biblical and Theological Resources at Zondervan, gets to the heart of the issue in wondering why Mary took a six day road trip2 to Bethlehem with Joseph while she was nine months pregnant knowing that only males had to present themselves to be registered.
I suppose because of all the Christmas artwork I’ve seen, I always assumed that Mary experienced a comfy ride on a donkey, but drawing on her own pregnancy experience, Nina Simone points out that at that stage of pregnancy nothing is comfy and walking would have been less uncomfortable than riding. Either way the trip wasn’t comfy. So why go? Verbrugge finds a probable answer in careful observations of the Greek text.
First he points out that the phrase “the one having been betrothed to him”3 is worded in Greek to make sure the reader sees something important about Mary: she is not yet married. Then in light of that fact, the added phrase “being pregnant”4 completes a very socially inappropriate picture. In their culture it was not even proper for an unmarried couple to be together in public so an unmarried pregnant woman traveling with Joseph would have been the talk of all who saw them. Verbrugge suggests a logical reason for why she went:
… Joseph was the only one who believed the story of Mary’s pregnancy … Joseph had, of course, been charged by God to take care of Mary (Matt. 1:20-21); was it possible that Mary, pregnant under suspicious circumstances, was no longer welcome to live with her parents? I think so. So even though Mary was nine months pregnant, when Joseph had to go to Bethlehem, she had to go along. And through that means, God saw to it that Micah 5:2 was fulfilled.
What? No red carpet?
The most significant action God took since creation, the incarnation of Jesus, involved messing up a young couple’s dreams of first love, getting Mary ostracized so she would have to hike over 60 miles in the days just prior to birth to have her baby away from home in an inn, and having to lay her first-born in an animal’s feeding trough in an over-crowed town rather than her own home.
As if that wasn’t enough, two years later Joseph had to move the family to Egypt (perhaps financed by the Magi’s gifts) to escape a powerful tyrant who was so afraid of a toddler that he ordered the murder of all the toddler’s in the area.
Where was the red carpet? Where were the plush accommodations appropriate for the ruler of creation and the guardians God Himself assigned for the infant’s care? Don’t you find it odd, and let’s face it, frustrating at times, that God regularly works this way, not just with Mary and Joseph, but us too?
Yet here is a lesson about what happens when God works among spiritually darkened humanity. The story is a reminder that all who are spiritually born from above are on a mission. The same mission as Mary, Jesus, the Apostles and millions of faithful who have lived before us. A mission to allow The Father to bring light into a darkened world that some may be rescued from their slavery to the flesh that ties them to hell. This is a mission that should constantly remind us that since our primary objective is not finding comfort in this life, a difficult road trip like Mary’s is worth enduring.
And now I [Jesus] am coming to you [Father], and I am saying these things in the world so that they may have my joy completed in themselves. I have given them your word, and the world has hated them, because they are not of the world just as I am not of the world. I do not ask that you take them out of the world, but that you protect them from the evil one. They are not of the world, just as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth—your word is truth. Just as you sent me into the world, I also have sent them into the world. (John 17:13–18, LEB)
Bringing spiritual light, truth, and salvation comes at a cost of hardship. It certainly did for Mary. Are we who follow Him allowed to expect an easier life than Mary and Joseph? (Hint: Luke 6:40) So what’s your life like? Maybe the hardships aren’t all your fault.Footnotes
- Devotions on the Greek New Testament by J. Scott Duvall and Verlyn D. Verbrugge, editors (Zondervan 2012). Each of the 52, two or three page, articles discusses a good insight into God’s word that comes from careful observation of the Greek text. [↩]
- Assuming they walked 10 miles per day. [↩]
- τῇ ἐμνηστευμένῃ αὐτῷ [↩]
- οὔσῃ ἐγκύῳ, [↩]