The Beginning of Sorrows: Joseph and Mary

A few days ago I offered a quotation from Whyte's sermon "That Holy Thing," in Jesus Christ Our Lord: His Walk, Conversation and Character (1953). Today, I would like to offer a few quotes from his sermon "Joseph and Mary," in Bible Characters: Joseph and Mary to James, The Lord's Brother (4th ed.; London: Oliphant Anderson and Ferrier, nd).

Mary

On a thousand sacred canvases throughout Christendom we are shown the angel of the annunciation presenting Mary with a branch of lily as an emblem of her beauty and as a seal of her purity. But why has no spiritual artist stained the whiteness of the lily with the red blood of a broken heart? For no sooner had the transfiguring light of the angel's presence faded from her sight than a deep and awful darkness began to fall upon Joseph's espoused wife. Surely if ever a suffering soul had to seek all its righteousness and all its strength in God alone, it was the soul of the Virgin Mary in those terrible days that followed the annunciation. Blessed among women as all the time she was; unblemished in soul and in body like the paschal lamb as she was; like the paschal lamb also she was set apart to be a divine sacrifice, and to have a sword thrust through her heart. Mary must have passed through many dark and dreadful days when all she had given her to lean upon would seem like a broken reed. Hail, though that art highly favoured of the Lord, the angel said to her. But all that would seem but so many mocking works to her as she saw nothing before her but an open shame, and, it might well be, an outcast's death. ... Great is the mystery of godliness: God manifest in the flesh. A man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. These are the beginnings of sorrows. (pp. 1-2)

Joseph

Joseph's part in all this is told us by Saint Matthew alone. Alone as we read that Evangelist's particular account of that time, we see how sharp that sword was which pierced Joseph's soul also. His heart was broken with this terrible trial, but there was only one course left open to him. Conclude the marriage he could not, but neither could he consent to make Mary a public example, and there was only left to him the sad step of revoking the contract and putting her away privately. Joseph's heart must have been torn in tow. For Mary had been the woman of all women to him. She had been in his eyes the lily among thorns. And now to have to treat her like a poisonous weed--the thought of it drove him mad. Oh, why is it that whosoever comes at all near Jesus Christ has always to drink such a cup of sorrow? Truly they who are brother or sister or mother to Him must take up their cross daily. These are they who go up through great tribulation. (pp. 2-3)

This chapter is included in the recent edition published by Christian Focus Publications: Alexander Whyte, Bible Characters: People from the New Testament (CFP, 2003) [CFP | Amazon | CBD]

The Beginning of Sorrows: Joseph and Mary

'That Holy Thing'

One of my favorite 19th century preachers is Alexander Whyte. Most of his books are the result of collecting and publishing his sermons, and they are heart-warming to read. This evening a read his sermon on Luke 1:35, "That Holy Thing." This is a very fine sermon on the incarnation of Jesus, based upon a peculiar phrase found in the AV. His final application of this text is worth repeating here.

The angel described Mary's child to her as 'that holy thing.' Now, I will not pain you and offend you by calling your child the opposite of that. For, does not the apostle himself say that the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the believing wife, and the unbelieving wife by the believing husband, and that, therefore, their children are holy? But I will say this, that if you would have your child not ceremonially and conventionally holy only, but personally and really and everlastingly holy, and if you yourself know what holiness is, you must set before yourself for your child no less a holiness than that of the Holy Child Himself. And as often as you see and feel in your innermost heart your child's fretfulness, and quarrelsomeness, and rudeness, and sulkiness, and impudence, and pride, and anger, and an unbroken will, take him apart and, like Thomas Halyburton's mother, pray both with him and for him. Pray importunately that your child also may be made of God, both to Him and to you, a twin-brother of the Holy Child Jesus. Pray without ceasing that your child may be sanctified with the self-same sanctification as Mary's Child. And if that may not be perfected all at once, as His sanctification was, pray that at least it may be begun as long as you are here to see it and to have a hand in it. Take your child apart, as long as he is docile and will go with you, and ask on your knees, and in his hearing, something like this—'O God, the God and Father of the Holy Child Jesus, make this, my dear child, a child of God with Him. And after I am gone make him and keep him a man of God like Him.' Take no rest yourself, and give God no rest, till you see a seed of God not only sown in your child's heart, but till you see him, as Mary saw her firstborn Son, subject to her in everything in her house at home, and growing up every day in wisdom, and in stature, and in favour with God and man.

(Alexander Whyte, "That Holy Thing" in Jesus Christ Our Lord: His Walk, Conversation and Character [1905; reprint ed.; Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1953], 19-20; emphasis mine.)

'That Holy Thing'