Saturday, 14 December: 19 And her
husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame,
resolved to divorce her quietly. Matthew 1:19
We frequently face tough choices in life. You know
what I mean; those choices that seem to have no good solution. We grapple with
them. Agonizing late in the dark hours of the night, we seek some sort of
resolution that satisfies all parties, especially our conscience. Joseph faced
just such a dilemma. Go forward with the wedding and everyone will wonder, did
he and Mary burn with passion, was he a brute, forcing his way upon a Virgin of
Israel, or was Mary promiscuous, one of those kinds of girls and Joseph a
cuckold? Perhaps he might discard her publicly, leaving her to deal with the
shame and humiliation. But for just man, a man whose soul longed after God,
this seemed rather heartless. Eventually, he settled on the least odious
choice, divorce her quietly. She had a relative, Elizabeth, who might take her
in for a few months. People would still talk, but perhaps, just maybe, not as
much.
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