The Expectant Father: “The first major questions you and your partner will face after learning you are pregnant are Where are we going to have the baby?, Who is going to help us deliver it?, and How much is it all going to cost?...” How will we share the news with our parents? What names do I like? Will it be a boy or a girl? If it is a boy, will I name him after my grandfather? What will we do for a nursery?
These may be the first major questions for most expectant fathers, but not for Joseph. Joseph’s story is quite unique, unlike any other soon-to-be Daddy I know. Father Ron Rolheiser tells us that, “The background, in so far as we can reconstruct it, to the relationship between Joseph and Mary would have been this: The marriage custom at the time was that a young woman, essentially at the age of puberty, would be given to a man, usually several years her senior, in an arranged marriage by her parents. They would be betrothed, technically married, but would not yet live together or begin [intimate] relations for several more years. The Jewish law was especially strict as to the couple remaining celibate while in the betrothal period. During this time, the young woman would continue to live with her parents and the young man would go about setting up a house and an occupation so as to be able to support his wife once they began to live together.
Joseph and Mary were at this stage of their relationship, legally married but not yet living together, when Mary became pregnant. Joseph, knowing that the child was not his, had a dilemma: If he wasn't the father, who was? In order to save his own reputation, he could have demanded a public inquiry and, indeed, had Mary been accused of adultery, it might have meant her death. However, he decided to "divorce her quietly", that is, to avoid a public inquiry which would leave her in an awkward and vulnerable situation.”
And then, Joseph has a dream.
A dream, people. Not a paternity test, not a tangible messenger, not a letter…a dream. People have all sorts of crazy dreams. I used to have this recurring dream where I’d be in the meat aisle of the grocery store and my hands would start shrinking as I got closer to the packaged hamburger. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve had that dream. But I haven’t declared never to set foot into the grocery store again and I don’t wring my hands every time I see packaged hamburger. The dream was a dream, it wasn’t real.
Dreams, in our culture, are often discounted. Most folks reject them as no more than strange brain waves processing the day before and preparing for the day ahead.
Joseph’s dream, it was something different. An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in this dream and told him not to be afraid, to take Mary as his wife, and that the child inside of her was from the Holy Spirit. Our God chose to strangely speak to Joseph by whatever means necessary, a dream, for revelation.
And this is who our God is, the one who does strange things to reveal Godself to us…one who becomes human and invites a respectable man to receive even this supernatural baby and the child’s mother as his wife.
Upon receiving this revelation, he agreed to take Mary home as his wife and to father the child as his own. He spares Mary of embarrassment and shame and chooses to provide a place for this child to be born and raised.
Joseph takes in this baby that isn’t even his!
Some of us may have had a hard time coming to terms with the issues of parenthood. Having a baby, raising a child, is no easy task. It involves sleepless nights, lots of messes to clean up, diaper changing, potty training, trips to the doctor, bills from the doctor, disciplining, arguments, decisions on schooling, and more.
And Joseph, after he had that dream, agreed to take it all on. And this was no ordinary child, this was to be the a child conceived from the Holy Spirit, a boy named Jesus who will save his people from their sins, a baby named Emmanuel which means “God with us”. You or I, looking at Joseph’s situation might not choose the same way. In fact, some of us might think he was a little crazy. That dream did a number on him!
Who is this Joseph, that he could agree to such a huge responsibility?
This story in Matthew 1, shows us that Joseph is a devout believer, “deeply faithful to everything within his religious tradition, and yet at the same time open to a mystery beyond both his human and religious understanding.” (Rolheiser)
When God broke into Joseph’s life in a new and previously unimaginable way, Joseph welcomed him in. Joseph dealt with what seemed an impossible divine conception with obedience and hospitality. “In essence what Joseph teaches us is how to live in loving fidelity to all that we cling to humanly and religiously, even as we are open to a mystery of God that takes us beyond all the categories of our religious practice and imagination,” writes Rolheiser.
John Foley, writer for the Center of Liturgy at St. Louis University says, “Joseph was a good man. He already had a storehouse of trust in God’s love. He did not experience this storehouse as broken into, shattered or pulled to pieces by the dream. Instead the message fit right into the design of Joseph’s life with God. And so he followed.”
With risks and diapers and sleepless nights and all, he received the baby, Emmanuel, God with us, into his home and into his arms.
What a beautiful picture of extravagant hospitality, welcoming this stranger who in this case is the baby Christ Child. Author, Christine Pohl writes,
“Offering [hospitality] welcome is basic to Christian identity and practice. For
most of the church’s history, faithful believers located their acts of
hospitality in a vibrant tradition in which needy strangers, Jesus,
and angels were welcomed and through which people were
transformed. But for many people today, understandings of
hospitality have been reduced to Martha Stewart’s latest ideas for
entertaining family and friends and to the services of the hotel and
restaurant industry. As a result, even Christians miss the
significance of hospitality and view it as a mildly pleasant activity
if sufficient time is available….A quick review of Jesus’ life and ministry finds hospitality at the center. Jesus is both guest and host, dependent on others for
welcome and startlingly gracious in his welcome to outsiders,
seekers, and sinners. Meals were central to Jesus’ ministry and a
shared meal soon became the center point of Christian worship.
Hospitality is a lens through which we can read and understand
much of the gospel, and a practice by which we can welcome
Jesus himself.”
Joseph was one of the first to offer hospitality and welcome…. to Mary, even at the risk of his own reputation and standing in the community…And then to welcome the baby Jesus into his life and raise him as his own… that is faithful, that is obedience, that is a willingness to being open to a God who works in mysterious and out of the ordinary ways, that is trust in God, that is an amazing act of hospitality!
Hear this poem written by J. Janda, author of In Embrace:
Joseph
Who
Loved as his own
What
Was not his
Nor
Could ever be his
But
Whom he protected
And
Watched grow so
Contradiction
Could
Bloom in mystery
And scatter blood seed
To
Root in despair
And blossom white
As his staff of lilies
UCC Minister, Kate Huey gives us some helpful questions for reflection: “In what ways do we need to listen to the still-speaking God for our instructions, too, as Joseph did so long ago? In what ways do we need to strike out in new directions, to persist in opening our doors and our hearts rather than seek righteousness, in looking forward instead of back? What dreams do we have of something new and different and daunting? What hope longs to come to fruition?” (UCC) “ What does it mean to you, to our church, to the Body of Christ, that God reaches out to guide Joseph into such an act of radical hospitality, receiving a child not his and a woman pregnant not by him as his own?” (Methodist GBOD)
May we, like Joseph, let the Lord enter in. May we rejoice at the prospect of having God among us. And may we, like Joseph, recognize and accept the overwhelming and splendid responsibility of living in the presence of Emmanuel, God with us.
Amen
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