Matthew 1

v18

The comparisons of the translations in this passage are hilarious. On the one hand the birth of Jesus "came about" (NIV), "was as follows" (NASB) and "was on this wise" (KJV); Mary "was pledged to be married" (NIV), "had been betrothed" (NASB) and "was espoused" (KJV); was "found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit" (NIV), "found to be with child by the Holy Spirit" (NASB) and "found with child of the Holy Ghost" (KJV). On the other hand, "before they came together" (NIV), "before they came together" (NASB) and "before they came together" (KJV).

Now I get it. The word is συνέρχομαι, it means "to come together or accompany", so it gets used in Mark 3 to describe the crowd assembling for example - and that's pretty much exclusively how it is read throughout the NT. So it could refer to the time before Mary and Joseph having assembled as husband and wife. I'm not suggesting that it should be translated "bumped uglies" or anything (although it could be a reason why translators have been so reticent to clarify). I'm just surprised that this language has remained so constant when almost everything else in the verse has changed.

We often, perhaps almost exclusively, think of this early Christmas-y narrative synergistically - putting the bits from the different gospels together. So we read Matthew and think, "Yes, Mary had that whole encounter with the angel and stuff." But that information is not important to Matthew. It just says here, "She was found to be preggers before her and Joseph had 'come together' (aka gotten their freak on)." So the focus here isn't on Mary and her situation, but on Joseph.

v19

And the point is that Joseph, coming across this situation, is a pretty cool dude. Sure, he's not going to just accept that his new wife is up the duff with some unknown baby, but he's not going to ruin her because of it either. The verse goes so far as to point out that this is not because he has feelings for her, or because it costs him nothing; it's because it's the righteous thing to do.

v20

I love this bit, because honestly there is no other way that Joseph is going to be reasonably convinced of what's happened here without an angel appearing. If Mary were to say, "God told me that this baby is from him," Joseph would be pretty gormless if he said, "Oh, okay. That's totally not an excuse a girl in our society would try on to avoid endless shame and negative consequences."

Moreover, Joseph made a righteous decision! If you read the NIV's primary translation, he did what was right in the eyes of the law. But sometimes God breaks the rules, and what would ordinarily be absolutely godly to do suddenly becomes wrong, and you have to change your plan to remain obedient to God. But when God is going to do something that really throws a spanner in the works, he will let you know. It won't always be an angel - in fairness, this is Jesus being born, so it is worthy of a heavenly singing telegram, but most things that happen in our lives aren't that.

v21

And Joseph doesn't need this extra bit of info either. He could have just been told, "This is God's will, so get onto it, mate." But God brings Joseph in on the secret, because Joseph is going to be a big part of this. He's the adopted dad of Jesus the Messiah. That's a big deal.

v22

The NIV separates this from the angel's speaking with a paragraph break; the others use the word "Now" which is probably included in the Greek. So this is Matthew breaking down the prophecy fulfillment for us. You have to wonder if the Jews were actively looking for this prophecy to be fulfilled, or if it was just sort of sitting on a shelf somewhere with people thinking, "Yeah, that could happen." I don't know the answer to that.

v23
What I do know is that it is a pretty kick-ass prophecy. Whatever it meant to Ahaz back in the day (I can't imagine it meant much beyond that God had plans that involved peace and being with his people), the whole virgin birth thing is a big deal as a fulfillment of a prophecy that is utterly God-worked. Sure, it could have just meant "young woman" in Isaiah, and I'm cool with that. But God picks the harder version for his son's birth, and rightly so.

v24

And imagine how grateful Mary must have been - to God and to Joseph - for doing it this way. Jesus could have been born to a single mum. But instead God wanted Jesus to be born in a family of mum and dad, and also for that dad to have a lineage that went back to David. There is talk about Mary also having that lineage, but let's face it: without a dad, even an adopted dad, he was always just going to be a bastard, because it's not like angels were going to appear to everyone who met him to give them the same heads up as they gave Joseph.

v25

Just in case you were wondering if they did the nasty while Mary was pregnant. Maybe this is to prove that Jesus isn't Joseph's biological kid (although I would think the understanding of pregnancy is once you're preggers, you can't get pregnant again from doing the nasty). I think as much as anything this is about confirming that they were married, even though the marriage wasn't consummated on the wedding night as was tradition (and yes, people probably checked; there are still plenty of cultures where this happens). This actually means a fair bit to those cultures who think that marriage isn't marriage if you didn't do any horizontal mambo. We in the west definitely know full well that sex doesn't equal marriage. But I think even in the west we still perhaps need to learn that marriage doesn't always equal sex. And I'm not saying it never does or anything - the Bible makes it clear that kids are generally born in marriages, and that sex is generally done in them too. But marriage is bigger than those things.