Reflections on Joseph
(An On-line Forum Letter article)
Joseph generally gets short shrift in the Christmas narrative, even in Year A when on Advent 4 he has more than a walk-on role. The story as Matthew tells it is an enigma to us; we can't find much more than amusement at this old fellow whose girl, he thinks, done him wrong, but finally an angel gets him into the loop and he acquiesces to playl his part.
The so-called church fathers often had a different spin. They tended to think that Joseph knew right up front, as the story opens, just what had happened. After all, Matthew opens the story by assuring us that Mary was "found to be with child from the Holy Spirit"--an odd expression, to be sure, and one which surely allows us to think that Joseph knew this, even before his dream.
What does it mean that he was "unwilling to expose her to public disgrace?" The Greek text there is perhaps not quite that explicit, and could be read more like "unwilling to make a show of her"--and a show it would be, if people found out she was with child by the Holy Spirit! In this reading, Joseph's plan was simply to step out of the picture in hopes that people wouldn't take too much notice of Mary.
The angel tells Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife. Why would he be afraid? Maybe this isn't a fear of disgrace and scandal, but something quite different. As a righteous man, Joseph, if he knew that this child was from the Holy Spirit, could draw only one conclusion: Mary belongs to God, Mary has been possessed by the Holy One. And if that is so, then I must stand off. I must not touch her. It was a holy fear that Joseph felt.
"We are to fear and love God," so we are taught. I'm not sure we ever completely learn it, we moderns who feel good about God as cosmic buddy. The Bible says that people who really confront God find it a fearsome thing. It's the kind of fear that Luther felt in saying his first mass. To touch holy things, to draw near to holy things--this leaves a person quaking.
Olov Hartmann put it this way: "How can a man have God in the house and not be afraid?" Imagine what it was like for Joseph, after all this had been resolved and he and Mary settled in to await the birth. To know that there, within his wife, was a child, but more than a child--there, within her, next to him on the bed, was God. "How can a man have God in the house and not be afraid?"
And if Joseph could look at the young Mary and know that God was within her, is it not something of the same thing with us? Is not God with us, within us, and within all those with whom we live? Do we not have to open our eyes and see the holiness in common things--in our spouse, our children, our neighbors, those we encounter each day, each of whom, in their way, bear Christ to us?
Joseph surely was afraid. He knew the nearness of God in the commonest of things. He surely was afraid, but his fear gave way to wonder and amazement at the promise of Emmanuel, God with us. And so must it for all who wait and watch for the Babe of Bethlehem.
roj
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