What About Joseph?

Isaiah 7:10-16; Matthew 1:18-25

For the most part, Joseph, the main character of our Gospel text today, is “the Rodney Dangerfield of the Christmas story -”[1]  he just gets no respect.  He’s easy to overlook.  The church has historically focused on Mary and not on Joseph.  There are no hymns dedicated to Joseph in our hymnal.  Stained glass windows around the world feature Mary and the baby Jesus – Joseph, if he’s in the picture at all, is always off to the side.  Even Luke’s Gospel barely mentions Joseph.  Luke chooses to focus on Mary – on how Mary was visited by the angel Gabriel, and how Mary responded with the memorable words of the Magnificat, “My soul magnifies the Lord…”

But Matthew makes it clear that, although Joseph doesn’t utter a single word in the Christmas story, he plays a central role in it.  So what does Matthew tells us about Joseph?

First, we know that one of Joseph’s functions is to link Jesus with the lineage of David.  Notice how the angel addresses Joseph: “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife…”  Matthew begins his gospel with the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David.  He traces the family line down from Abraham to David to Joseph.  “If the Messiah is to be born the son of David, then this is the man he must be born to.”[2]

Second, Matthew records Joseph’s “marital situation.”[3]  He tells us that Joseph and Mary are engaged but not yet living together.  The Greek word that’s translated “engaged” should more properly be translated “betrothed.”  Theodore J. Wardlaw notes: “Betrothal” in ancient Palestine meant more than “engagement” does in our time.  Through “betrothal” a woman was “bound” to a man through formal words of consent.[4]

Betrothal was often arranged when the woman was still quite young, around twelve or thirteen years old.  At this point, she was already viewed by society as the man’s wife, and it could be years before the woman betrothed to the man moved out of her family’s house and into the home of her husband.  Joseph and Mary are between these two stages –between betrothal and marriage.

Next, Matthew tells us Joseph’s “moral situation.”[5]  Joseph is a “righteous man,” which means that he is utterly devoted to keeping the commandments of God.  Here is where the problems start.  Wardlaw says, “when Mary is found to be pregnant and Joseph knows he’s not the father, he knows from the Scout handbook of religious righteousness just what he has to do.  According to the law – to which he is righteously committed – he must turn her out or even put her to death.  The problem for Joseph is that he’s both compassionate and righteous (Eugene Peterson in The Message says that Joseph is “chagrined but noble”).  Because he’s compassionate, he will quietly release Mary from the bonds of betrothal.  But because he’s righteous, he will not ignore the law.”[6]

Martin B. Copenhaver says, “For Matthew, the heart of the story is about a just and good man who wakes up one day to find his life wrecked: his betrothed pregnant, his trust betrayed, his name ruined, his future revoked, his dreams shattered in pieces all around him.”[7] 

And in the midst of this crisis, Joseph faces a dilemma.  The law clearly states that unfaithfulness is grounds for breaking off the engagement.  After all, Joseph is a righteous man.  But Joseph also knows the terrible cost of publicly divorcing Mary on the charge of infidelity.  Either she would be killed, as the law prescribed (Deut. 22:13-30), or at the very least she would be disowned by her family and left to scratch out her living however she can, feeding herself and her illegitimate child on whatever she can beg or steal. 

Joseph is a righteous man, and he will not ignore the law.  Mary is to be dismissed.  But he is also a compassionate man, so he is unwilling to expose Mary to public disgrace and plans to dismiss her quietly.   Walter Wangerin notes:  “Evidently, one’s rights do not define one’s righteousness!  Joseph’s righteousness is tempered by mercy and love.”[8]

It’s at this point that the story takes a surprising turn.  An angel appears to Joseph in a dream and reveals to him that “what looks like a moral outrage is in fact, a holy disruption.  The child in Mary’s womb is not a violation of God’s will, but an expression of it, a gift from the Holy Spirit.”[9]

Barbara Brown Taylor points out that, according to Matthew, “the whole grand experiment hangs on what happens with Joseph.  If Joseph believes the angel, everything is on.  The story can continue.  Mary will have a home and a family and her child will be born the son of David.  But if Joseph does not believe, then everything grinds to a halt.  If he wakes up from his dream, shakes his head, and goes on to the courthouse to file the divorce papers, then Mary is an outcast forever.”[10]

Jewish law reads, “If someone says, ‘this is my son,’ he is so attested.”[11]  If Joseph chooses to claim the child, then legally he becomes the child’s father, whether or not he is biologically.  The Christmas story has reached a critical point.  Will Joseph claim the child or not?  Will he believe the angel’s impossible message or will he stick with what has always made sense to him?

Taylor says that, “according to Matthew, Joseph’s belief is as crucial to the story as Mary’s womb.  God and all the angels are on her side, but it takes both parents to give birth to this remarkable child: Mary to give him life, and Joseph to give him a name:  Jesus, son of David, from whose house the Messiah shall come.”[12]

All of heaven must have been holding its breath waiting for this righteous man to make his decision.  Joseph is faced with a mess he had absolutely nothing to do with, and he has every reason to walk away from it in search of a “cleaner, more controlled life with an easier, more conventional wife.”[13]  But Joseph doesn’t do that.  He decides to believe that God is somehow present in this mess.  He claims the scandal for his own.  “He owns the mess – he legitimates it – and the mess becomes the place where the Messiah is born.”[14]

Taylor notes that “Joseph is the one in the story who is most like us, presented day by day with circumstances beyond our control, with lives we would never have chosen for ourselves, tempted to divorce ourselves from it all when an angel whispers in our ears: ‘Do not fear.  God is here.  It may not be the life you had planned, but God may be born here too, if you will permit it.’”[15]

That “if” is the real shocker – “if you will permit it.”  It’s a real mystery that God’s birth requires human partners “willing to believe the impossible, willing to claim the scandal, to adopt it and give it our names, accepting the whole sticky mess.”[16]

Of course, our individual lives are not the only ones that seem to be in such a mess.  The whole world seems like one giant mess.  And it will take the faith of Joseph to continue to believe today that, as the Amy Grant song says, “God is in us, God is for us, God is with us, Emmanuel.”  May it be so for us this Christmas.  Amen.