Matthew 1; Luke 1-3; John 1

John 1:1-30—JST appendix With a buddy, look for all the titles and roles that John saw Christ possessing and fulfilling according to these verses.

His Own Received Him Not “Why was it at that time or why is it now that some will not receive him? No doubt they had expected something entirely different. They were looking for a leader in political and social reform and they had little interest in spiritual things. ‘The world was made by him, and the world knew him not.’ There are those today who pass him by without recognizing Him” (Howard W. Hunter, CR, 10/68, p.141).

Christ’s Royal Lineage “Had Judah been a free and independent nation, ruled by her rightful sovereign, Joseph the carpenter would have been her crowned king; and his lawful successor to the throne would have been Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” (Talmage, Jesus the Christ, p. 87).

Genealogy (Matthew 1:1-17, Luke 3:23-38) “The omission of some obscure names and the symmetrical arrangement into tesseradecads [fourteens] were common Jewish customs….the very discrepancies which appear to be most irreconcilable…turn out…to be fresh proofs that they are not only entirely independent, but also entirely trustworthy” (Frederic Farrar, Life of Christ, p. 37).

Joseph and Mary—The Ideal for Parents

Leave it to Beaver  Three students who have watched “Leave it to Beaver”  The student who plays the Beav was in a fight with Eddie Haskell on the way home from school; he walks in the door covered with blood. How will you discipline, teach, show love, etc?  June and Ward will react as perfect parents should, using words that June and Ward would use to parent the Beav.  Search Luke 1:26-47 (Mary); Matthew 1:18-25, 2:13, 19, 22 (Joseph)—What evidence do we have that these were amazing parents? Even better than June and Ward.

Christ’s Parents (Luke 1:35; Alma 7:10; 1 Nephi 11:19-21) Jesus Christ is the divine son of Heavenly Father and Mary. From Mary he inherited mortality, which allowed him to die. From His Heavenly Father He inherited immortality and the power to resurrect. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints proclaims that Jesus Christ is the Son of God in the most literal sense. The body in which He performed His mission in the flesh was sired by that same Holy Being we worship as God, our Eternal Father. Jesus was not the son of Joseph, nor was He begotten by the Holy Ghost. He is the Son of the Eternal Father” (Teachings of Ezra Taft Benson, p. 7)

Mary (Luke 1:42) “This is a Hebraic way of saying, 'Thou art the most blessed of all women,' a statement which is literally true. As there is only one Christ, so there is only one Mary. And as the Father chose the most noble and righteous of all his spirit sons to come into mortality as his Only Begotten in the flesh, so we may confidently conclude that he selected the most worthy and spiritually talented of all his spirit daughters to be the mortal mother of his Eternal Son. ” (Bruce R. McConkie, DNTC, 1:85)

What do we know about his mother Mary?  …the simple grandeur of his mortal birth to just a young woman, one probably in the age range of those in our Young Women organization, who spoke for every faithful woman in every dispensation of time when she said, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38). (Elder Holland Oct. 1995)

What do we know about Joseph? We could remember his magnificent but virtually unknown foster father, a humble carpenter by trade who taught us, among other things, that quiet, plain, unpretentious people have moved this majestic work forward from the very beginning, and still do so today. If you are serving almost anonymously, please know that so, too, did one of the best men who has ever lived on this earth. ( Elder Holland Oct. 1995)

 “Emma” song  “I was not his father”