A Domestic Disturbance

Overheard by the nativity set:
I am Joseph, the quiet one. I was one of the first to see God in that baby in the manger....and I was his father....in a way.

Sometimes I feel like I don't belong in that scene. I should be placed over here, at a distance, removed from the center of the action. Because, you see, the story is really about that baby - about how he was born and what he came to do.

And as for me? Well, I was the adopted father - the one with the pedigree and the ancestral line. For me the birth came in the midst of chaos. Leave it God to choose a domestic disturbance for a display case.

Look at me! I look so calm and gentle. My eyes are closed with such a peaceful look. My hand is extended in a gesture of caring. I look so strong.

I suppose I might have looked a little like that on the night. The Church through the centuries has certainly wanted to remember me like this. The countless nativity scenes, the stained-glass windows - they all look pretty much the same. Good, strong, kind, understanding, obedient Joseph. Definitely not a deadbeat dad.

But it wasn't that easy! I may not have been a deadbeat dad, but I sure was a downbeat one - at least at first. I was the outsider and it almost didn't happen this way. If it hadn't been for that dream and that angel....

Well, you all know the story. It's written down right at the front of the New Testament. We read it each year. You just have to read between the lines to see how difficult it all was - and most people don't look beyond the baby to see the disturbance he caused and the turmoil within me. They only see Joseph the Good. My wife, Mary, they remember well. Her words and her song are part of the Christmas tradition. But Joseph? I have no words to record my dilemma. Mary was blessed among women, but I was embarrassed among men.[i]

Matthew tells the story pretty well. He knows that the point of it all is that baby. He says so right up front. To prove it he goes through the genealogy - the family tree - from Abraham right on down to me. And there are all the greats from our Jewish history - Jacob and Judah, David and Solomon, Hezekiah and Zerubbabel - all the giants who walk through the stories of scripture.
But read between the lines and you see that there are some surprises here. Even a few scandals. There aren't many women in this list, but the ones that are there are interesting. There's Tamar - who posed as a prostitute to lure her father-in-law into a liaison that resulted in the birth of my ancestor Perez. There's Rahab, the Canaanite prostitute who rescued the Jewish spies from Jericho. Ruth, was a Moabite - a foreigner from a land we consider evil. Bathsheba, who was taken by David and whose husband David murdered. Not exactly a peaceful and pure family line. But God used them anyway.

So I guess it's no surprise that the whole family tree ends with a question mark and another scandal. It says, "Jacob was the father of Joseph," (that's me), "who was the husband of Mary, of whom the baby was born." You'd expect it to say "Jacob was the father of Joseph who was the father of the baby" wouldn't you? But no. I was the outsider, only connected to the baby through my relationship with Mary. Mary. The fifth woman in this family tree - and the fifth surprise.

Surprise isn't the word for it! You see, it all happened while Mary and I were still engaged. "Engaged" is not really the best word to use because it was more than that. To be engaged in my land, in my religion, meant that we were not just intended for each other, we were already called husband and wife.

Mary and I were young. We were in love. We had the future in front of us. Which made it all the more painful when I found out....that Mary was pregnant.

What was I supposed to do? It was adultery! Even though we weren't married, to be engaged and to have your wife come tell you she's pregnant, even if it's by you, it was...adultery!

It broke my heart. For Mary to be expecting was not what I expected! I knew that it was over. Or at least I thought I did.

I really didn't have many options. The Law of Moses says that a woman caught in adultery was to be stoned to death at the gate of the town. But death? For Mary? This severe punishment wasn't carried out very much anymore, but if it had been, could I have lived with that?
More likely the result of a public divorce would have been that Mary would spend the rest of her life shamed and shunned. Her prospects for marriage would be ruined for good. Could I have done that to Mary? My Mary? If I was to follow the Law of Moses, I would have to. And I had followed the Law of Moses all of my life.

Matthew has it right. He knew my dilemma. "Joseph," he said, "was a righteous man and he was unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace." Those two things don't go together. A righteous man follows the Law and does not quietly go around the rules to save a sinner from public shame. But that is where I was - wanting to be righteous and yet wanting to do what was right. They're not always the same.

But I had so many plans for Mary and me. I couldn't let them go so easily or so quickly. In fact, I even briefly considered a third option which would have been legal - I could have claimed the child as my own and gone ahead with the marriage. Which is what I eventually did. But that was before...before the angel. And I guess I wasn't that much of a saint.

Now I know what you're saying. Why didn't I talk this out with Mary - find out what really happened? Why didn't we discuss the options together? Why didn't we sit down with a premarital counselor for relationship therapy to see if we could salvage this marriage? In my time - in my land - we hardly spoke to one another privately before marriage. It wasn't done.

So I had made up my mind. Or at least I thought I had. I had decided to let her go quietly and to let her take all of my dreams with her. That was before the dream.

Now I've always been known as something of a dreamer. I guess that could be expected from a man named Joseph. Like my namesake so many years before in ancient Egypt, I was known to have prophetic dreams. This one was so clear and so compelling that it was like talking out loud. I still can't be sure that I didn't!

I was speaking with an angel - surely one of God's own angels. The angel knew what I was going through. The angel greeted me by saying, "Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid." Son of David - that's what the called the child when he grew up. But it was my family line. "Don't be afraid to take Mary for your wife, for what is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit." It was beyond belief what this angel said. A child conceived by God's own spirit! "She will bear a son," the angel said, "and you will call him Jesus, for he will save his people from all their sins."

Jesus. That was to be his name. It was not all that uncommon of a name. There are many men named Jesus. But I had never really thought about what the name meant - "He saves." That’s what it means – “He saves.” Now the angel was telling me that this child - this baby would save his people from sins. God knows there's enough of that around. And we have been waiting for the savior to come. And I was given the task of naming this savior.

When a father names a child he accepts the child as his own. That's one of the ways adoption is done. I had been asked to adopt this child of God into my family line so that he would also be the son of David. And when he would save his people, it would include me.

Well, Matthew records that I did what the angel commanded. I married Mary and she did have a son and I did name him Jesus. But it wasn't as easy as all that. It's never easy when God interrupts your life with a baby. And when the baby is also Emmanuel - "God with us" - well, it's even harder.

Despite the angel's assurance in that dream, which was so vivid, I still felt a distance between Mary and me. We had no relations between us before the child was born. During the pregnancy I was never sure that I shared the incredible joy that Mary seemed to feel. During the labor and the birth there was no sign that this was miraculous.

But when I held that child for the first time. When I looked into his eyes and heard his fresh, stripping cry - then I knew that what the angel had said was more than true.

He stripped away all of my defenses, leaving me feeling naked, vulnerable, raw and needy…just like him. There was no sense putting up a front with this baby. He would have nothing to do with it. He saw behind it and beyond it. He seemed to know me as I really am.

This child was God's child and he saw me in all my sinfulness. He knew how hard I struggled to be righteous, even when it meant I wasn't right. He knew how much I needed a Savior. How much I longed for a world made right. How deep the wounds were that kept me from experiencing joy.

I looked at Mary and we smiled at each other. We touched for the first time in weeks.
That's how I got to be at the center of it all. In the midst of a messy domestic disturbance, God used an unwed mother and a disturbed but righteous man to do the right thing. And I became the father of a savior, and the husband of a saint. And the world was never the same. Thanks be to God.

Matthew 1:18-25
Now the birth of Jesus Christ happened like this:
When Mary, his mother, was engaged to Joseph, but before they came together, it was discovered that she was pregnant by the Holy Spirit. But this man Joseph, being righteous and not wanting to publicly disgrace her, made quiet plans to send her away.
Yet while he was considering this, look, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream saying, "Joseph, son of David, don't be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what she carries was fathered by the Holy Spirit. And she will bear a son; you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. All of this has come about so that what the Lord had spoken through the prophet might be fulfilled:
'Look, a young maiden shall become pregnant and will bear a son,
and they shall call his name, Emmanuel,'
which means 'God is with us.'"
Upon rising from sleep, Joseph did as the angel of the Lord commanded him and took Mary as his wife. And he did not have sexual relations with her until she had borne a son, and he called his name Jesus.

[i] With credit to Will Willimon.