“Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” Matthew 1: 18-24
If, after reading the first two chapters of Matthew’s Gospel dealing with matters like Jesus’ ancestry, Mary’s pregnancy, Joseph’s dilemma, the circumstances of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem and the visit of the Magi, you find yourself confused, puzzled and questioning or, indeed, all three, you can be sure that Mary and Joseph also experienced a mix of all those emotions and more.
Like many of their contemporaries, and countless generations of faithful Jewish women and men, Mary and Joseph had prayed for the coming of the Messiah. Now, with almost no explanation and very little warning, they found themselves as participants in bringing to realisation a dream that had been dreamt for centuries.
As a prelude to today’s gospel-reading, Matthew had gone to the trouble of listing the names of significant figures belonging to the 42 generations that were part of the ancestry of Jesus. There were big names like Abraham and Isaac, a manipulator like Jacob who, with his mother’s collaboration, had cheated his elder brother Esau out of his birthright. There was the great King David who had schemed to have Uriah killed, in order to hide his adulterous relationship with Uriah’s wife Bathsheba. There was the cunning woman Tamar who seduced her father-in-law Judah into making her pregnant, thereby guaranteeing material security for her family and there was the prostitute Rahab who took two of Joshua’s spies for a night into her house in Jericho in order to ensure her protection when Joshua’s army invaded the city.
I dare to suggest that Matthew presented in detail the genealogy of Jesus to underline the message that in sending Jesus into our mixed-up world, God did not stand on niceties and knew that Jesus would be well able to cope with the whole gamut of human weakness and frailty.
The gospel-reading of this fourth Sunday of Advent puts the focus on Joseph and the dilemma with which he had to deal. But before we turn our attention to Joseph, let’s not forget that both he and Mary would have been familiar with today’s first reading from Isaiah with its reference to the one who would come to lift up broken humanity. However, it is one thing to know about the promise of the desert bursting into bloom and the God-given sign of “a maiden with child who would soon give birth to a son whom she would call Emmanuel, a name which means God-is-with-us’” and quite another thing for Mary and Joseph to find themselves as the principal agents in bringing Isaiah’s prophecy to reality.
If Mary had encountered a visitation from an angel who identified himself as Gabriel, Joseph, by comparison, had drawn the short straw. Matthew gave no indication as to how Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant. Did he get the news on the gossip line? Did Mary herself tell him? And if she did, it would have been difficult for him to believe that it was brought about by an intervention of God’s Spirit. So, Joseph had to work through doubts that Mary had been unfaithful, and the thought that she may have been made pregnant through the force of a Roman soldier. Then he had to struggle with the possibility of a divorce or coming to a just way of making sure that Mary would not be publicly shamed. He probably had more sleepless nights than dream-filled ones. However, Matthew explained that Joseph did have one sound sleep in which he dreamed of an encounter with an angel who told him to take Mary as his wife and to face whatever unfolded with courage and without fear. Both Mary and Joseph had encounters with angels who urged them not to be afraid. Fear does not normally evaporate through the force of a direction. We can all remember one or other of our parents urging us to let go of a fear. While they may have given us comfort, our fear took time to dissipate. I suspect that Joseph was not entirely calm the morning after his dream of an encounter with a reassuring angel.
Whatever mix of emotions he was carrying, Matthew has given little hint in his Gospel account. However, Joseph had to wrestle with at least two possible decisions, one of which had to be reached. There was a strong social and religious expectation that, if he was not the father of the child Mary was carrying, he state that publicly, sever his relationship with Mary and shame her. There was also an alternative: that he reach out in merciful compassion and do as the angel in his dream advised. With courage in his heart and faith and trust in a God who could work extraordinary things in messy and unexpected circumstances, he chose the latter. In so doing, he sacrificed his public reputation and allowed himself to become the subject of endless, malicious gossip. Our own experience tells us that all actions have consequences. Insignificant actions generally have minor consequences. Joseph’s decision to pursue compassion ahead of the recommended letter of the law (sometimes labelled as justice) had life-long consequences for both Mary and himself.
While there are approximately a dozen Biblical characters named Joseph, most of us know of three of them: Joseph, the son of Jacob, who, after being left for dead by his jealous brothers, rose to greatness in Egypt and saved his family from dying of starvation; Joseph of Arimathea, who provided a tomb for the dead Jesus; Joseph, husband to Mary and foster-father to Jesus. Of interest is the fact that Joseph, son of Jacob was labelled negatively as a dreamer. Paradoxically, had Joseph, who became the husband of Mary, not listened to God’s angel in a dream, where might Jesus, Emmanuel, “God-with-us” have been nurtured, nourished and educated?
Is there anything in all of this for us? We can easily forget that God’s Spirit has made a home in each of us. Just how sensitive are we to the promptings that come from that Spirit? Are we open to the possibility of being asked to do the unimaginable? The Joseph of today’s gospel-reading is notable for his courage, mercy and compassion? Are they qualities that are part and parcel of the way in which we engage with others? Joseph’s courage, faith and trust provided a home for Jesus, the Christ of God. Has Jesus yet found a home in me, in you?