December 9: Be Prepared for Divine Intervention
♫ Music:
Day 13 - Friday, December 9
Title: BE PREPARED FOR DIVINE INTERVENTION
Scripture #1: Matthew 1:18–21
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was as follows: After His mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Spirit. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away secretly. But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit. And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” Then Joseph, being aroused from sleep, did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took to him his wife.
Scripture #2: Luke 2:4-7
And Joseph also went up from Galilee, out of the city of Nazareth, into Judea, to the city of David, which is called Bethlehem, because he was of the house and lineage of David, to be registered with Mary, his betrothed wife, who was great with child. So it was that while they were there, the days were completed for her to be delivered. And she brought forth her firstborn Son, and wrapped Him in swaddling cloths, and laid Him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
Poetry & Poet:
“Joseph’s Suspicion”
by Rainer Maria Rilke, translated by C.F. MacIntyre
And the angel, taking due pains, told
The man who clenched his fists:
But can’t you see in her robe’s every fold
That she is cool as the Lord’s morning mists?
But the other, gazing gloomily, just murmured:
What is it has wrought this change in her?
Then cried the angel to him: Carpenter,
can’t you see yet that God is acting here?
Because you plane the planks, in your pride would
you really make the Lord God answerable
who unpretentiously from the same wood
makes the leaves burst forth, the young buds swell?
He understood that. And now as he raised
His frightened glance toward the angel who
Was gone already…slowly the man drew
His heavy cap off. Then in song he praised.
BE PREPARED FOR DIVINE INTERVENTION
In the Bible, we have the words of the angels, of Mary, of the shepherds, of the wise men, of the parents of John the Baptist, but in the Scriptures, Joseph does not say a single word. Joseph received orders from God through an angel, and he was obedient to the Lord at all times. Joseph was a man whose lifestyle was according to the word of God and who was ready to radically change his life in response to divine intervention.
Joseph was a carpenter in Nazareth, a town in northern Israel, in the province of Galilee. Although originally the ancestry of Joseph was from the city of King David: Bethlehem, Joseph was in Nazareth because many years before, many godly people from Judea went to Galilee to convert the "heathen." Therefore, it is quite possible that Joseph was from a very religious family. The only person in the New Testament called “son of David” other than Joseph is the Lord Jesus Christ. Matthew 1:19 refers to Joseph as a righteous man, that is, someone who faithfully observed the law of Moses. Furthermore, Joseph was an underprivileged person. When he and Mary presented Jesus in the temple, they offered a pair of turtle doves because they did not have enough to afford a lamb.
Joseph demonstrated a strong willingness to respond obediently to God’s intervention in his life. Joseph received a commandment to marry Mary, his fiancée, even though she was already pregnant. Joseph and Mary had made a betrothal before a rabbi in an official ceremony. This commitment lasted a year and was so solemn that it took a divorce to break it up. Sexual contact was prohibited, and if it occurred, it was considered adultery. Joseph realized that Mary was pregnant and that he was not the father. Upon learning of this situation, Joseph wanted to leave her secretly because he loved Mary and did not want to bring shame to her. However, this action would not publicly vindicate their names since he would remain the husband to whom someone was unfaithful, and Mary would have to raise her son alone, facing rejection by society. As he was thinking about what to do, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and ordered him: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.”
Joseph was being called to suffer great losses. If he married Mary, people would assume he was his father, and his reputation as an upright man would be shattered. Joseph was also called to deprive himself of the important privilege of begetting his first child and naming him after him. Nothing like this happened before in Scripture or history, but Joseph chose to be obedient. Without arguing or doubting for a moment: “When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife” (Matthew 1:24). Joseph was a simple carpenter who was focused on his normal life and duties. However, when God intervened in his life, he responded in obedience regardless of the cost or the circumstances. May we be willing to imitate his faith when God speaks to us.
Prayer:
Our Father, we are normal people with common lives and circumstances. And yet we recognize that by your grace, you powerfully act through us. May we respond in obedience like Joseph when you speak to us by the power of your Spirit.
Amen
Dr. Octavio Javier Esqueda
Professor of Christian Higher Education
Director, Ph.D. and Ed.D. Programs in Educational Studies
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork #1:
Joseph’s Dream
Jean-Marie Pirot
1986
Oil on canvas
Arcabas Museum in Chartreuse
Saint-Hughes, France
Artist Jean-Marie Pirot paints one of the three times Joseph, Mary’s husband, has an angelic dream in which he receives divine instructions. The first dream Joseph has occurs when Joseph is planning to quietly divorce his betrothed, Mary, who is carrying a child who is not his own. Divorcing her is the proper religious thing to do under these circumstances according to the Law of Moses, and to do so quietly would ensure that Mary would suffer no harm. However an angelic messenger intervenes to tell Joseph: “Do not be afraid to take your wife into your home, for it is by the Holy Spirit that she has conceived this child; she will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus.” The Lord knew that Joseph, a devout man, would be responsible to assume the challenge of raising a child when he knew the child's birth was a fulfillment of a prophecy and that he would honor what God was accomplishing through Mary.
About the Artist #1:
Jean-Marie Pirot, also known as Arcabas (1926–2018), was a contemporary French artist best-known for his paintings, which feature biblical characters and scenes. He also worked in sculpture, engraving, tapestry, mosaics, cabinetry, and theater scenery and costumes. Arcabas graduated from the prestigious Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts in Paris. He undertook various commissions for the French government and local authorities, but his magnum opus is the Ensemble d'art Sacré Contemporain in the Church of Saint Hugues-de- Chartreuse, begun in 1953 and completed in 1986. For over forty years, Arcabas created all the artwork that now adorns the church’s interior, including murals, canvases, stained glass, brass-work, and sculpture. In addition, he also worked in close collaboration with his son, a sculptor known as Etienne, designing the liturgical furnishings of other churches and cathedrals. His international recognition and reputation has grown exponentially in recent years.
http://www.arcabas.com/biographie/index.php#
https://musees.isere.fr/musee/musee-arcabas-en-chartreuse
About the Artwork #2:
Kaganapan (The Event)
Emmanuel Garibay
2006
Oil on canvas
122 × 122 cm
Filipino artist Emmanuel “Manny” Garibay is a social realist painter who says of his work, “It is the richness of the poor that I am drawn to and which I am a part of, that I want to impart.” Garibay’s paintings often portray Jesus among the marginalized and dispossessed. He also frequently critiques the church’s “compliance with greed, corruption, and social inequality.” Garibay’s paintings do away with conventional religiosity. The valorization of the masses—or finding analogies of the suffering of Christ in the masses—attains a new level in his paintings. The central figure in Kaganapan seems to be nailed to some invisible cross—reflecting the “penitencia” of the masses—when in fact he is actually hanging onto the jeep or bus. The figure radiates its own energies into the surrounding space—the interiors of a jeepney—as it expresses an intense communion with the divine. Garibay paints ordinary people in an attempt to portray them as political entities. In this way Garibay’s activism shows through his work. Garibay was once quoted as saying: “If you come from a land like the Philippines, the daily realities of the people’s lives, you see a lot of poverty, a lot of hardships. These things don’t exist in isolation; they exist as a result of injustice and a lot of exploitation. And it is very hard to ignore them. The longer you are confronted by them, the more you see the different forces at work. And the sad part is there appears to be some complicity—complicity by some institutions that are supposed to uphold the rights of people.”
https://leon-gallery.com/auctions/lot/The-Asian-Cultural-Council-Auction-2015/26/28
https://victoriaemilyjones.files.wordpress.com/2021/10/75482-emmanuel_garibay_describes_paintings.pdf
About the Artist #2:
Emmanuel R. Garibay (b. 1962) was born in the Philippines and is the son of a Methodist preacher. He earned his B.A. in fine arts from the University of the Philippines and his M.A. in divinity from the Union Theological Seminary. He is known for his expressionist style and his social activism. His depictions of poor, ordinary people, often in political and religious settings, present questions about justice and social complexity. He has received awards from the Cultural Center of the Philippines; the National Commission for Culture and the Arts; the Arts Association of the Philippines; and Il Bienal del Baloncestoen Bellas Artes in Madrid, Spain. Garibay has had solo exhibitions in the Philippines, the Netherlands, Sweden, Australia, Germany, Hong Kong, Israel, and Indonesia, and has served as President of the Association of Christian Asian Art (ACAA).
https://www.omsc.org/artistgaribay
https://imagejournal.org/article/recognizing-the-stranger/
About the Music:
“Christos Genate” from the album A Byzantine Christmas
Lyrics: (Sung in Greek, translated into English)
Kontakion on the Nativity of Christ
Christ is born today
In the city of Bethlehem.
The heavens are jubilant
all Nature is rejoicing
He is brought forth in the cave,
In a manger of horses,
the King of Heavens
and creator of everything.
A multitude of angels chant
"Glory in the Highest”
and this is also worthy.
The faith of the angels
and of the shepherds proclaim it!
About the Performer:
Father Nicodemus Kabarnos is a Greek Orthodox priest and cantor known for his performing, teaching, and directing of Byzantine music. He became a professional cantor when he was only thirteen years old, and at the age of fifteen received an award in Byzantine music from the Greek Ministry of Education. He subsequently moved to Athens, Greece, to study theology at the Higher Ecclesiastical School of Athens and the Theological School of the University of Athens. He then studied music at the Technological Educational Institute of the Ionian Islands, as well as direction, sound engineering, and sound technology at the Athens Technical College and the Athens Concert Hall Studio. In 2014, he received his Ph.D. in religious communication from the Pontifical Oriental Institute in Rome. In addition to his musical studies, he holds degrees in advanced theory of European music, and he also holds a degree and diploma in Byzantine music. In 2009, he was ordained as a deacon and in February 2009, he was ordained as a presbyter, also receiving the title of Archimandrite. Currently, he serves as superior and pastor at the Holy Church of the Ascension in Neos Kosmos, Athens. At the age of twenty, Father Nicodemus established a Byzantine music school where he has trained over two hundred students and from which he created a Byzantine music choir. He also taught Byzantine music at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens; the Pontifical Gregorian University; the University of Perugia; and Greek College, Rome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikodimos_Kabarnos
https://www.byzmusic.gr/biografiko/
About the Composer:
This is a traditional Greek hymn.
About the Poetry & Poet:
Rainer Maria Rilke (1875–1926) was a Bohemian Austrian poet and novelist, "widely recognized as one of the most lyrically intense German-language poets," writing in both verse and highly lyrical prose. Several critics have described Rilke's work as inherently "mystical." His writings include one novel, several collections of poetry, and several volumes of correspondence in which he invokes haunting images that focus on the difficulty of communion with the ineffable in an age of disbelief, solitude, and profound anxiety.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainer_Maria_Rilke
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/rainer-maria-rilke
About the Devotion Author:
Dr. Octavio Javier Esqueda
Professor of Christian Higher Education
Director, Ph.D. and Ed.D. Programs in Educational Studies
Talbot School of Theology
Biola University
Dr. Octavio Javier Esqueda is a professor of Christian higher education in the doctoral programs at Talbot School of Theology at Biola University. He was born and raised in Guadalajara, México, where he graduated with honors with a Licenciatura in Latin American Literature from the University of Guadalajara, as well as two additional diplomas, one in religion and society and the second in journalism. He graduated with honors from Dallas Theological Seminary with an M.A. in Christian Education and completed his Ph.D. in Higher Education at the University of North Texas. Before coming to Biola University, he taught at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary in Fort Worth, Texas. He and his wife, Angélica, have two children, Darío and Salma. Dr. Esqueda has several publications on theological education, Christian higher education, and literature. Teaching is his passion and he has had the opportunity to teach in several countries on different academic levels. He is an avid soccer fan.