Advent is here. Christmas is coming. Many of us may be thinking about family gatherings and plans for celebrating. We may also be thinking of the little family making their way back to Bethlehem, a small town outside of Jerusalem, moving carefully back to the family home for some official business.
When we think of the little family that brought us the first Christmas, we may line them up in terms of importance with the baby Jesus being first, then his young mother Mary, followed by Joseph, as a distant third.
Joseph may not have any dialog in the Christmas pageant. But his actions are profoundly important.
The Gospel of Matthew begins with a genealogy, which many of us may pass over as we make haste to get to the Christmas story. Matthew gives us some important cues about the significance of this part of the story. It is the beginning, which you might know is the meaning of the word genesis. It is the same word that means birth, and is the root of the word genealogy.
The beginning, or the birth, of Jesus is connected to Abraham and the promise that was given to Abraham and Sarah, that they would be the progenitors of a great nation. Matthew recites the generations for us, noting that there are 14 generations from Abraham to David; 14 generations from David to the exile in Babylon; and, 14 generations from the exile to Joseph.
Matthew tells us from the beginning that Joseph was a righteous man. He was observant. He knew the religious law. But he was also decent. When he discovered that his bride-to-be was pregnant, he planned to quietly dismiss her. The law allowed and expected her to be stoned. Joseph, in his righteousness, or his way of thinking about what was right, decided not to do that. She would likely quietly return to her family or perhaps stay with her aunt Elizabeth, whom she went to stay with after learning of her pregnancy, until her baby was born.
Joseph had a dream in which he learned about the actions of the Holy Spirit, and that he was to name the child Jesus. It was a fulfillment of Isaiah’s words that a savior would be born who would be called Emmanuel, God with us.
Joseph was a righteous man. He already was going beyond what the law required. After learning from a messenger the truth of what happened, Joseph stepped up to a different level of righteousness. He chose to go through with his marriage to Mary, and he gave his name to the child.
To give a child a name is to bring the child into the family. Joseph named him as he was instructed. Giving Jesus his name also declared that Jesus was in the genealogical line of King David. It is another fulfillment of the expectation of a savior. Jesus’ name means “the one who saves his people from their sins.”
Joseph pays attention to his dreams. He learns that he must take his wife and their newborn son and flee to another country for their safety. Sadly, those dangers still exist today as we see young families flee to other countries to take refuge from despotic leaders or dangerous circumstances.
We don’t actually hear Joseph’s voice in the Christmas story. But we see his actions. If we follow in Joseph’s footsteps, he leads us to a new level of doing the right thing, of taking actions that go above what the law requires, of protecting the dignity of his betrothed, following through on his commitments, giving his name to the newborn child who will be the savior, and assuring Jesus’ future by fleeing as refugees to a foreign land until it is safe to return.
Joseph’s actions give us a model for doing what is right in difficult and dangerous circumstances. The law says we are not to go below what it requires. Joseph points toward the freedom of what we can do that goes above what is required. We can look at the law as the floor. Joseph points us toward the heavens in what we might do in our commitments to one another, in our protection for those who are vulnerable, and our fulfillment of promises that make the Christmas story real in new ways here and now.
Source: Freepik.com