Should I Stay or Go?

Who, in their right mind, would leave their pregnant wife?

Yet, given the circumstances, who in their right mind would stay?

There he was, making an attempt to stay faithful and pure, and here comes his bride with news that certainly rocked their relationship to the core.

"I'm pregnant!" Talk about an emotional appeal!

Those words have the power to bring anyone to tears. Tears of joy surrounded with much anticipation. Or tears of anger crowded around thoughts of betrayal.

And there he was. With a decision to make. Stay or go? Public or private? Hold a grudge or choose to forgive?

And just before he finalized his decision to "put her away quietly," the unimaginable happened. Something like a supernatural being appeared to him in a dream.

You see, in this culture driven by laws and traditions, it was well within his right to have her publicly humiliated even stoned to death for her unfaithful and hideous behavior.

But this heavenly being, this angel if you will, made a serious appeal for this man to place his initial response on the backburner of human logic and receive this divine interruption as a major twist in the story line of redemption.

So this couple, Mary and Joseph, just two ordinary individuals drafted into God's grand narrative, chose to say yes to His invitation without requiring a detailed explanation.

In a culture where they were certain to be ridiculed and ostracized with heavy words that would wound their most coveted relationships, they found more solace in the unveiled promise of Emmanuel than the weight of accusations and public opinion.

No doubt "God with us" had been attributed a great cost, but they realized the reward of their obedience far outweighed the cost of any amount of disobedience.

Mary could have fled amid the fear of being "caught" in the bout of her mysterious conception. Joseph could have convincingly won any argument of her unfaithfulness and abandoned his bride. Yet they vowed to believe the unbelievable. To see the impossible made possible. To see the darkness overwhelmed by the light.

And now today, because they chose to believe the miraculous and did not abandon the supernatural, we celebrate the birth of their son, God's Son, Emmanuel, God with us.

What we never could have conceived on our own was conceived in faith by trusting Him and His plan to reconcile us back to Himself. And it all began with a Jewish carpenter and his teenage bride saying yes to the greatest invitation in the world; giving birth to the Savior of the world!