Matthew 1:18 - 24
When we read the gospel today and
indeed all that the gospels tell us about Joseph, we can’t help but
form an impression – obviously colored by the various pictures
we've seen. Sometimes he is pictured as a grandfatherly figure with
a long beard, someone who is no threat to Mary’s virginity; and
sometimes he is pictured as a young, handsome man who works
steadfastly in the carpentry shop, leads his wife and her child
through the desert to Egypt, or stands silently behind Mary as she
hears the prophecy of old Simeon that a sword would pierce her heat,
or is upset with Jesus when they find him in the temple. Joseph’s
lack of any speaking parts makes him seem bloodless, something other
than human; and where does that leave us? What do we learn from
Joseph?
I sometimes think we overlook the
human being here. First of all Matthew tells us he and Mary are
engaged. This meant that a wedding was in the planning; it meant
that at some level the young couple were attracted to each other.
Maybe it wasn’t the stuff of a Hallmark movie; people thought about
marriage differently in those days. But the way it worked was that
Joseph was preparing a home for them to live in, and the ladies of
the town were helping Mary get things ready for that day. And I
suspect both of them were eager to please each other, and when they
got together, supervised, of course, the two of them would talk about
the future. We Catholics emphasize Mary’s virginity, but in those
days being a mother was the pinnacle of a woman’s success, not
virginity, and Mary, like all young ladies, was looking forward to
that. And then one day, Joseph is shocked because Mary is with
child. If he didn’t love her, he could simply accuse her of
adultery, but because he loved her, it was with a broken heart that
he planned to divorce her -- meaning that he was willing to let
friends and neighbors believe Mary was carrying his child, but he no
longer wanted to spend his life with her. Did he feel relief when
the angel told him this was the child of the Most High, who was
destined to save his people? I think on one level Joseph may have
felt cheated; God had stepped in and changed everything. Joseph had
no say in the matter. But he soldiered on -- and the next several
years were one unsettling thing after another. Mary had the child in
a stable, probably unattended by a midwife. He would be sleeping
peacefully and an angel would tell him to get up and take Mary and
Joseph to Egypt. He would finally get established in Egypt and an
angel would tell him to go back Israel. He wondered about the
prophecies of the two old people in the temple; he grieved with Mary
when Jesus remained behind; and he must have felt a special pain when
Jesus said “I must be about my Father’s business” -- this child
who had grown precious to him, this child he worked with every day,
passing on the skills of his trade.
We hear nothing more about Joseph
after the finding of Our Lord in the temple. Some people who are
amazed at Jesus’ preaching ask each other, “Isn’t this the son
of the carpenter?” But Joseph came on the scene, cooperated with a
plan he had nothing to do with, and just as silently stepped off the
stage. In the Cathedral of Saint Helena which was my church as a
child, there is a stained glass window in a side chapel which shows
Joseph lying on his death bed with Mary at one side and Jesus on the
other. But, we only imagine that scene. Joseph may have fallen off
a roof or died of some more gruesome cause than old age; or he may
have lived long past Jesus’ crucifixion. No one knows.
John Lennon wrote a song with the line
“Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans”. I
think that describes Joseph’s life. And ours as well. You and I
are like Joseph; we think we know what we are going to do tomorrow,
where we will be next year. If we are mature adults we know there is
a lot of uncertainty in our predictions; but emotionally, we still
cling to the illusion that we are in control. And not being in
control is upsetting.
Joseph discovered very early in his
relationship with Mary that he was not in control; that God was doing
the directing. Matthew says that Joseph’s life was directed by
angels -- God’s messengers who told him where to go and what to do.
I wonder if we are as well. Angels are simply messengers of God and
every one of us has been directed by things that happen to us. God
still speaks to us through such angels even if we don't realize it at
the time..
For Christians Joseph is seen as the
model protector, the ideal provider. He was essential to the
survival of Mary and Jesus. But I wonder how he felt when all this
was going on? I suspect that at some point he realized that he was
not in the driver’s seat; he realized that Mary and Jesus did not
belong to him, but he belonged to them. And for those of us who have
raised families and are well into our twilight years, like Joan and
I, we can look back and see that God’s hand directed our lives,
despite our own plans; and we can say, that’s a good thing; I only
wish I had been more cooperative -- like Joseph was.
