Matthew 1:18-24
During the Christmas season we hear little bits from the gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke about the circumstances surrounding Jesus’ birth. When you go to the actual gospels, though, they are two almost entirely different stories. Matthew is about Joseph, the visit of the Magi, the exile and return from Egypt, and the massacre of the Holy Innocents. Jesus is born in Bethlehem, but when the Holy Family returns from Egypt, they settle down in Nazareth. In Luke, on the other hand, it’s all about Mary. The Annunciation, her consent to be the “handmaid of the Lord'', her visit to Elizabeth, the trek to Bethlehem because of the Emperor’s census, Je3sus being borne in a manger, the shepherds and angels, the presentation in the temple and the return to Nazareth. A very different story. I think, though, that all of us remember the birth of Jesus as one story, and what Christmas scene would not have shepherds and magi, as well as animals, all in the same time frame?
We know a fair amount about marriage customs among the Jewish people of Jesus’ time. Matches were made by the parents -- more specifically, the dads, who listened to their wives or ignored them; but the decision was the dads. The kids could refuse to go along, but usually didn’t, because most of the time the parents of the bride and groom were really sincere about wanting the best for their children, and the expectations of the bride and groom were very different from today. So after the engagement, the bride would continue to live in her parent’s home and the groom, who was usually several years older, would set about saving up some money and building a home, or building an addition onto his parent’s home. Then there would be a great ceremony in which the groom collected his bride and brought her to their new home. And that was the moment when the young man became the king of his castle, the lord of the manor. His wife and children would defer to him; he was the father of the family, and in those days, that meant status..
Joseph and Mary had not reached that point; they were betrothed, but not living together. Some people think that Joseph was planning to divorce Mary quietly because she was obviously pregnant and he knew he wasn’t the dad. But there’s another theory -- Mary had told him about the angel -- it says she was with child through the Holy Spirit -- and Joseph, being a righteous man, wanted to get out of God’s way. In other words, he believed Mary. It was only when the angel confirmed Mary’s story in a dream that Joseph felt he had God’s permission to intrude on this most holy event.
Do you wonder if sometimes Joseph had mixed feelings about what was happening? To go from what he expected -- to be the lord of the manor, the king of the castle, if only with respect to his family -- to becoming the one who serves not only God, but Mary and Jesus, the son of God. And the dreams just kept coming. “Take Mary into your home.” “Rise, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt ''. Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel”. And then instead of going back to Bethlehem, being told in a dream to settle in Galilee in Nazareth. Notice the angel refers to them as “the child and his mother” not “your wife and your son”. And for various reasons we are pretty certain that Joseph was out of the picture by the time Jesus began his mission, because we never hear about him again. Mary, at least, would learn that Jesus rose from the dead and she would see the fruits of his passion in the church that he founded through his apostles. Joseph probably died knowing only that this child, so important to God, was a carpenter, which is a good thing, but hardly worth all that Joseph went through because of those dreams.
You know how you do a jigsaw puzzle. You find the corners first, then the pieces with straight edges, and once you’ve formed the frame you gradually fill in the pieces. My wife likes jigsaw puzzles. I don’t see the point. But that’s Joseph’s life. He found some of the corners and some of the straight edge pieces, but never finished the puzzle.
And he’s like you and I. We hardly ever see the point of our lives, or if we do, it’s clearly not the whole story. Disappointments, failures, expectations that never came true -- loss of loved ones -- I suspect Joseph’s story is our story as well. But we never hear Joseph complain. We see him obeying, doing the best he can for the child and his mother. Joseph was snatched out of the life he had expected and given a task by God, and he may have never known what it all meant. And all we can hold on to is that God sees the finished puzzle and will share it with us after we have risen from the dead.
