Preparing for the Christmas
season in each church is always a different experience. Some churches leave all
the planning to the minister – and in those places I can plan out a theme for
Advent – sermons and worship; other churches, like Annesley, have things which
are done every year, like the children’s cantata next Sunday - which means
that there’s no sermon - so trying to paste together sermon theme doesn't quite work. So I decided to preach
today a Christmas sermon which works for Advent too. Maybe as we go through the story this year, we'll
As this story goes, a Sunday
School was putting on a Christmas pageant which included the story of Mary and
Joseph coming to the inn. One boy wanted so very much to be Joseph, but when
the parts were handed out, a boy he didn’t like was given that part, and he was
assigned to be the inn-keeper instead. He was pretty upset about this but he
didn’t say anything to the director.
During all the rehearsals he
thought what he might do the night of performance to get even with this rival
who got to be Joseph. Finally, the night of the performance, Mary and Joseph
came walking across the stage. They knocked on the door of the inn, and the
inn-keeper opened the door and asked them gruffly what they wanted.
Joseph answered, "We’d like
to have a room for the night." Suddenly the inn-keeper threw the door open
wide and said, "Great, come on in and I’ll give you the best room in the
house!"
For a few seconds poor little
Joseph didn’t know what to do. Thinking quickly on his feet, he looked inside
the door past the inn-keeper then said, "No wife of mine is going to stay
in a dump like this. Come on, Mary, let’s go to the barn." -And once again
the play was back on track!
In all the Christmas pageants
performed, Joseph mostly gets a silent role and inevitably takes up his place
right at the back of the stable, but I think he is far more important than we
have ever made him. Think about what he did! Everyone praises the courage of
Mary, but who praises the courage of Joseph? Here is a man of integrity who
always obeyed religious law, who is engaged to a young girl – and he finds out
she is pregnant not by him. She says there was no other man, but the Holy
Spirit which created the child.
By law Joseph has two
choices: One, he can go through a kind of “divorce”, severing his promise of
marriage. Mary and her family would be forced to leave the village go somewhere
else, public scrutiny would be too much; or, he could call for her to be stoned
to death for adultery.
Yet here is a man who hears
angels - an angel who whispers to him to take Mary as his wife, and to trust
God. In the English translation, we are told he marries Mary even though she is
still a ‘virgin’.
In the Hebrew
Scriptures, the Hebrew meaning of the word used is “young woman”. When the Gospels were written, they were
first written in Hebrew - so for Joseph,
Mary would not necessarily have been a technical virgin, just a young woman.
The word is ‘alma’in the Hebrew. In Isaiah 7:14, it says, “a young woman shall conceive and
give birth to a child.”
When the Gospels were
translated from Hebrew to Greek, there was no corresponding word – one of the
inevitable difficulties with translations which often changes the text - so the
translator chose the Greek word 'parthenos' which meant a young woman or man who had not had sexual relations, but also 'beyond puberty but not yet married'.
Yet there was a commitment
and a promise between Joseph and Mary. Mary’s father was required to pay a
dowry; even though they were technically not married, all the same rules
applied. If Joseph should die, she would be called a widow. If she died, he
would be called a widower. If the engagement broke up, it would be called a
divorce. During the time they were engaged, they were called husband and wife.
While they were engaged, they were both expected to be virgins. The engagement was to last
one year and then they were to be married.
In the biblical story, we are
told, “Joseph was a just man.” That means that Joseph was a good man, a kind
man, an honorable man. The Bible uses the word, “righteous.” Joseph was a
righteous man. Then we come to this beautiful line, “Joseph was unwilling to
put her to shame.” That line says mountains to us about Joseph. He didn’t want
to hurt Mary. He didn’t want to destroy her. He was not punitive. He was not
revengeful. He wasn’t out for a pound of her flesh. Instead, Joseph had these
feelings of grace towards her, and so he resolved to divorce her quietly. Not tell her parents. Not tell his parents.
Not tell the rabbi. Not to tell the court so he could get his money back. So
the very first story about the conception and birth of Jesus is a story of
compassion, a story of grace, a story of a man with incredible generosity. In
the eyes of that culture he had been deeply shamed, yet he still cared for Mary
and took care of her.
The story continues. An angel
or divine messenger appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Mary is pregnant
by the Spirit of God. The Spirit hovered over her and she is now pregnant. You
are to marry her and name the child Jesus for he will save the people from
their sins. Call him Immanuel because God is always with us.” And so Joseph
remained with Mary because he believed the dream and the message of the angel,
and he knew that Mary was telling the truth.
Notice that Joseph never says
a word, in the few times he appears in the birth narratives. He listens,
he takes actions, but he never speaks. He's *there*. We might hope his words are recorded,
because we can imagine the conversations he had with Mary, and the Angel
Gabriel. We can “hear” him talking to the innkeeper. We can visualize him teaching
Jesus about carpentry. After the birth he is again visited by an angel who
tells him to take Mary and Jesus and flee into Egypt – a refugee family – where
they live for two years. He reappears briefly again when an angel says it’s now
safe to return to Nazareth, but then he fades from the rest of the narrative altogether. It is widely
thought that Joseph was much older than Mary, which would be consistent with
cultural practices. When Jesus finally begins ministry, Mary appears alone -
the assumption is that Joseph has died and Mary is a widow.But we don't know - he just disappears.
I think of Joseph as a man of
integrity. He was a carpenter - not quite an untouchable, but close to the
lowest of the low. Yet he was also fluent in several languages - he would have
to be, in order to work in the town of Sepphoris near Nazareth, where Greek,
Roman and many other cultures rubbed elbows. He would also have been able to
read. He seems like a man who plans carefully. When he was secure enough, he
began to think about marriage. When he finds out Mary is pregnant, he risks
being questioned and ridiculed. In those days, a marriage contract was worked
out between families, and the engaged couple continued to live with their
parents till their wedding. The townspeople could well have thought Mary and
Joseph didn’t wait till their wedding. Joseph protected their reputation by
moving up the wedding date, and the Roman census took them far away from the
town’s questioning eyes.
Although Joseph came from the
royal lineage of King David (thanks to the Gospel genealogy), we can easily
picture him as a humble man. The brief portrait of him in Scripture suggests he
was a quiet, unobtrusive man, available when needed, willing to endure hardship
and disappointment. Looking forward to fathering his own child, his first was a
child not his own. He accepted the humbling circumstances surrounding Jesus’
birth, and he trusted God as much as Mary did.
Instead of being indignant,
he accepted the child as his own, and accepted the revealed will of God. He
followed the instructions—journeying from Nazareth to Bethlehem, then to Egypt,
then back to Nazareth. Instead of putting Mary aside, or rejecting the child,
Joseph received the child as a gift from God.
I think it’s high time we
take Joseph out from the back of the creche and put him right up front, with Mary, from the beginning.
Ann Weems, a Presbyterian
elder and lecturer, wrote this poem, called “Getting to the Front of the
Stable”.
Who put Joseph at the back of
the stable?
Who dressed him in brown, put
a staff in his hand,
and told him to stand in the back of the creche,
background for the magnificent light of the Madonna?
God-chosen, this man Joseph
was faithful
in spite of the gossip in Nazareth,
in spite of the danger from Herod..
This man, Joseph, listened to
angels,
and it was he who named the child Emmanuel.
Is this a man to be stuck for centuries at the back of
the stable?
Actually, Joseph probably
stood in the doorway,
guarding the mother and child,
or greeting shepherds and kings.
When he wasn’t in the doorway
he was probably urging Mary to get some rest,
gently covering her with his cloak,
assuring her that he would watch the Child.
Actually he probably picked
the Child up in his arms
and walked him in the night,
patting him lovingly until he closed his eyes.
This Christmas, let us give
thanks to God
for this man of incredible faith
into whose are God placed the Christ Child.
As a gesture of gratitude,
let’s put Joseph in the front of the stable
where he can guard and greet
and cast an occasional glance
at this Child
who brought
us life.
Sources:
1. “Getting to the Front of
the Stable”, a sermon by Rev. Fran Ota, Christmas 2005.
2. “Joseph and the Virgin
Birth”, a sermon by Rev. Edward F. Markquart, Grace Lutheran Church, Seattle,
WA.
3. “Joseph—Father of Jesus” a
sermon by Pastor Bob Leroe, Cliftondale Congregational Church, Saugus,
Massachusetts
4. “Getting to the Front of
the Stable”, a poem by Ann Weems. From “Kneeling in Bethlehem”. The Westminster
Press, Philadelphia. 1987.
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