Day 42
I Never Expected It
Jesus was unexpected. His arrival on this planet, His life on this earth, His departure from it, and His enduring presence, are all unexpected. I never expected to see the Porpoise frolicking in the ocean the day I went for a walk. Yet, there they were. We live in a world that viciously attempts to eliminate the unexpected. Christianity has succumbed to the same superficial attempts contained in volumes of books populating your nearest bookstore that claim to provide step-by-step formulas that will allow you to avoid, overcome, control, eliminate and deny the unexpected.
God created the unexpected. If that were not the case, everything would be predictable, could be anticipated and the outcomes certain. That’s just not the way He created this life. For that matter, that’s not the way He created us. He expects us to do the unexpected. Take the story of Joseph, Jesus’ earthly father for example.[i]
Joseph and his girlfriend Mary, were pledged to be married. Pledged means something comparable to a modern day engagement with the exception that a divorce was legally required to break it off. Joseph finds out that Mary is pregnant. He has never had sexual relations with her. The guy had to be devastated. She claims to have had sexual relations with no one at all. Put yourself in Joseph’s shoes. Imagine what’s going on in your mind. (“Say what? Uh Huh…Yeah right!”). Even if you know you are telling the truth and you don’t doubt the veracity of her story, how are you going to explain this to your family, her family, friends and your nosy neighbors?
Joseph decides to do the expected. He nobly chooses to divorce Mary quietly, so that no public shame will be cast upon her. (It might just be me, but most the men I have known would be far more concerned about their own reputation from the repercussions of the dissolution of an important relationship like this one, than they would for how this might play out for the woman). How you do this quietly, is only something the mind of a man could come up with.
Enter the God of the unexpected. God sends an angel to Joseph who makes it clear that Joseph must accept and cherish the blessing of the unexpected. Joseph is to make Mary his wife. He is to accept the fact that the child in her womb is immaculately conceived. It will be a boy, He is to be named “God with us,” and He will save people from their sins. Joseph awakens from the dream and does a one-eighty. Jesus is born.
You can recognize God, the One who created the blessing of the unexpected, because He always provides a new direction, and the birth of new life. What about the unexpected that occurred to little Suzie Marie Pena, her dad and those police officers? The only truth I know is that type of unexpected occurrence in life does not come from the hand of the God. Christians must renounce the tendency by some who attempt to glorify our God, my Jesus, through tragedy. They have fallen prey to the deception that attempts to explain the inexplicable by making the unexpected predictable, explainable, and eliminate the possibility of uncertain and unfathomable outcomes.
The story of Joseph reveals that even the birth of Christ required that mortal man change his mind about the expected. Joseph trusted God with all the inexplicable reality that surrounded Him. He exchanged his best thinking about the expected for the uncertainty of trusting God, the Creator of the unexpected. Like Joseph, the unexpected was revealed to me by the appearance of the Porpoise in the ocean during my walk on the beach: I was refreshed by Him. New life was breathed into me that day. A new direction was somehow restored to me. In hindsight, I’m sure glad it happened. Honestly, I never expected it. I’ll bet Joseph feels the same way.
When I get to heaven, I’m going to find Joseph. I’m going to ask him to take me and Suzie to his favorite place in heaven where he exclaimed in absolute astonishment, “I never expected it.” We’re going to celebrate the unexpected together. Just the three of us.
NOTES
[i] Matthew 1:18-25
