Considering Joseph: Matthew 1:18-25

"When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord commanded. He brought Mary home to be his wife..."

When I initially read this passage in preparation for this project, I didn't know what to write about it. In American Christian culture, there is no area that receives more attention than the birth of Christ, with the possible exception of His crucifixion. Finding some new angle on the birth narrative is difficult, if not impossible, and I still have two more to go!

With this in mind, I decided a) not to attempt innovation at the expense of accuracy and b) to focus on the unique aspects of Matthew's birth narrative. Reading it in parallel with the other accounts in Luke and Mark, the primary difference seems to be Matthew's emphasis on Joseph.

There may not be any important biblical character more marginalized than Joseph. As Jesus' earthly father, he was given the important task of raising the Son of God¹, but if Joseph is mentioned at any length, the focus is almost always his reaction to finding out about Mary's pregnancy. Understandable, since it's the most interesting thing we're explicitly told about Joseph. It's hard to imagine what a shock it would be to learn that your virginal fiancee was pregnant at all, let alone that it happened under such atypical circumstances. The natural reaction for most of us, myself included, would probably be hurt and anger. However, if Joseph experienced these prior to the angel's confirmation of Mary's story, we aren't told. Although Mosaic law allowed Joseph to publicly break the engagement and save his own reputation, his only recorded reaction is to discreetly break the engagement, explicitly to save Mary any embarrassment.

So what do we learn from Joseph's reaction in this passage? Maybe to trust the ones we love, maybe to trust that God has a plan that is bigger than us. Still, there is one lesson that seems to stand out above all the rest: When given the opportunity for vengeance or, at least, absolving himself of wrongdoing, he chose to act mercifully. Notably, we don't know much about the aftermath of Mary and Joseph's wedding. Chances are, there was plenty of talk--after all, it wasn't like the angel filled in all of Nazareth on what was happening. Still, the Bible itself never speaks negatively about Joseph. History has absolved him, even if it hasn't glorified him.

Joseph's actual position in terms of the biblical family structure pretty interesting too, although I don't know if it's really more interesting than Joseph's character. It did stick out in my mind though, so here goes: The family structure is intended to parallel God's relationship with us. The complex relationships between family members are representative of the relationship between God and his Church and God and the world at large. The most important aspect for this particular observation is that fathers are intended as metaphors for God himself. A child's perception of God is heavily influenced by his view of his father. If his father is authoritarian and harsh, he will likely visualize God similarly. If his father is untrustworthy, trusting God will likely be more difficult, and vice versa. This puts Joseph in a strange and somewhat amusing position. By virtue of simply being a father, he became a representative of God in the symbolic familial structure, but, because his son was literally the Son of God, he was also acting as a physical stand-in for Jesus' actual Father who was, of course, God Himself! So, it's a lot of pressure for one poor guy who just thought he was about to marry his sweetheart.

¹ This is particularly important if you believe, as I do, that Christ had the potential to sin.