For the New Testament reader this is the first instance that we have to have faith in something that seems unreal. A virgin pregnant by the Holy Spirit. That's a pretty incredible! Think of that as if you'd never heard of the Holy Spirit before. This intangible, unseen, never heard from, entity that's part of God but separate as well exists (that's a lot to believe in right there) AND came and made a virgin pregnant simply by it's power and God's will. Can this story get any more bizarre? It literally sounds like something from a sci-fi movie. Not only that, but the poor guy who was engaged (at that time they were called husband and wife at this point in the relationship) to this girl gets visited by an angel in a dream and tells him to stand by his girl and that this is God's plan and His doing.
I think we take for granted the impossibleness of this event because as christians we've heard about the Holy Spirit for most of our christian lives and we're numb to the Christmas story because we've heard it so often. Or perhaps we are too fixated on what is under the tree instead of what chose to die on a tree. Regardless, the spectacle that is the immaculate conception can be easily overlooked.
For Joseph there was no Holy Spirit. They hadn't talked about it in Synagogue much because God hadn't really sent it to His people yet. This had to take an enormous amount of faith on Joseph's part. If I were in Joseph's shoes I would doubt if the angel in his dream was real and that Jesus was really conceived by this Holy Spirit thing. Joseph had to believe the angel was real, the Holy Spirit was real, and that it conceived a child in his wife. That's three really big leaps of faith that is asked of Joseph on one night. And what about when Joseph figured it out (I imagine that it wouldn't take too long to figure something was special about Jesus)? How humbled would he have been?
I think for us it kind of works the same way. God get's us on a ledge outside of our comfort zone. An activity, relationship, position, etc. that makes us terribly nervous and asks us to have faith. To believe in more than we think we are capable of or really to believe that we are more capable through Him. It may not be send-an-angel-in-your-dream scale, but it is still something that requires you to have faith in God's plan. When we finally take the step and move forward in faith we're humbled to see what God has done through our actions. Like Joseph we had faith and were humbled.
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