What About Joseph?

On this Wednesday morning of the season of Advent, I am pondering the story of Joseph, Jesus' father. We know very little about him. He was there for a while and then he was gone. 

Mary was there at the beginning, the middle, and the end of Jesus' earthly life. She is honored among all women, and rightfully so, but what about Joseph? 

Perhaps out of our own fatherhood narratives, we can surmise some things about Joseph. No doubt he was a man of faith. In the Jewish tradition of things, he and his Beloved were engaged to be married. Was it arranged? Did they choose each other? Did they have eyes for each other and request of their parents to arrange the marriage? 

We know that they were "engaged," or "betrothed," to use a Bible word. 

We suspect that he was older than Mary, and we for the most part think that Mary was a teenager. 

We know that out of the blue, Mary gets a visitation from Gabriel who tells her extraordinary news. How then does Mary communicate this extraordinary news to the man to whom she is engaged? 

As a righteous man who did not want to embarrass her, he decided to divorce her quietly when he found out that she was pregnant, but then an angel appeared to him and told him some extraordinary things as well: stay with her, the pregnancy is from the Holy Spirit, name him Jesus, and he'll save his people. And he did not have sexual intercourse with her until after the baby was born. 

And so he honored Mary and the words from the angel. 

He shows up at the Temple when Jesus is eight days old, according to tradition. Then, when Jesus is 12 years old, they both appear again the gospel narrative going to and from Jerusalem when Jesus decides to hang out with the teachers of the law. Later, Jesus is noted as "Mary's son," or "the carpenter's son." 

And then Joseph disappears. Where did he go? Did he die early? Did he pass on to glory after he and Mary birthed several more children? 

We can ponder the influence that Joseph had on Jesus as an infant, a child, a teenager, and then as a young adult male in the Jewish tradition of things. 

Maybe he led by example as to how to be a man, a father, a husband, a productive citizen. 

Maybe there were times in their carpentry business when he showed Jesus how to build, cut, saw, splice, and set prices for his labor. 

Maybe he showed Jesus how to be an honorable husband and father. Maybe he showed Jesus how to be an honorable business person. 

Surely he brought stability into their home. Stability that a man of faith brings into a home with a wife who is a mother of several, and as a father to several children. 

Did he, as did Mary, ponder things and store them up in her heart? Was he prone to making sense out of things, or was he a man who simply went about his business doing what needed to be done without the effort that contemplation brings? 

If the gospel narrative is a stage play, Joseph plays a supporting role. Mary and Jesus are lead actors. Joseph gets a key role for a short duration, and then with no explanation he is gone, though through the words of others we know that he and Mary had other children. 

I wonder sometimes if he understood that Mary would be much more central to the story of Jesus than he would, and if that was ok with him.

I think his influence on Jesus continued all the days of Jesus' life. I think he was a good man, a faithful husband, an attentive father. I think his faithfulness to Jehovah was displayed in the biblical text as he heard the words of the angel of the Lord and then went about doing them.

Without getting much credit, he simply did his job. 

Perhaps that is the ultimate that can be said of any of us, "he simply did his job." 

That will be enough.