Mary's Belly Bump

Matthew 1:18-20

I hate the word belly bump. I haven't quite pinned down why I find the phrase so distasteful. Maybe it's just the sound of it or maybe it the way that something so incredible as a pregnancy is described in such a casual cutesy way. Yet, it's the only phrase that I have now to describe Mary. Mary had a belly bump.

After Gabriel told Mary that she would become pregnant, she went to visit her cousin Elizabeth for three months. Most likely by the time she returned to Nazareth, she was showing.

Matthew says, "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:18).

How was she "found to be with child"? Did someone notice the slight bump? Who told Joesph? Was it Mary's family? Was it one of Joseph's friends? Was it an observant town gossiper? Did he notice it himself?

I'm trying to imagine what an engaged man might feel like to discover his fiance was pregnant through a another man. He would feel betrayed, jealous, disappointed, embarrassed, angry, and used.

I somehow imagine Joseph to have been a thoughtful man. He would had not chosen Mary willy-nilly. He had seen in her something of value. So to discover that she was pregnant would have come as an incredible shock. (It's harder to deal with the sins of saints than of known sinners.)

Finding out that Mary was pregnant would be similar to discovering someone had died. In the moment of discovery, Joseph would have lost not only his faith in the world but his future. What direction does someone move from betrayal?

Joseph could have reacted to his pain. He could have said, "Now she has hurt me. Let her feel that pain." He could have humiliated her and even worse had her stoned. But he didn't. "Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace he had in mind to divorce her quietly" (Matthew 1:18).

He lived the principle that "love covers over a multitude of sins" (1 Peter 4:8). He covered Mary. He shielded her from pain even though he was suffering.

The Bible does not say how long Joseph lived with the tension of knowing that Mary was pregnant before the angel came to tell him that "what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit" (Matthew 1:20). But I imagine that the news brought great relief to Joseph. He had moved from knowing he had a future to betrayal to being given back his future. And not just given back his future, but given something so incredible that he must have grappled in wonder at his new role: he would be the step-father to the Savior. He would raise a man more righteous than he could ever imagine, a man who would cover more than a multitude of sins.