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Joseph: the unsung hero

Posted by Mark Elder on 19 Dec 2008

Sometimes mind-blowing circumstances combine together in unforgettable ways. Such is the Christmas story, a narrative that has various slants on the main event of Jesus’ birth, depending on whose eyes you see it through. One of those central characters is Joseph, who has an incredible series of events to contend with...

It starts really well with a profitable business making tables and chairs, then a lovely girl comes along who he falls for. Then despair when he finds out she’s pregnant and he knows it’s not him, so he decides to divorce her quietly. Then unbelievably, in a dream, he realises that not only is Mary pregnant "through the Holy Spirit", but also is told what sex the child is, what his name should be, and to cap it all, that his mission in life will be world salvation. Wow, maximum respect required here for Joseph. I mean, how do you manage to avoid blowing a gasket when you consider a set of circumstances like that?

But what is less well known are the three things that Joseph did in between the dream and before the journey to Bethlehem:
1. He took Mary as his wife (v24). So between the dream and the birth, Joseph "completed" the marriage, formalising (probably in a low key wedding ceremony), the engagement he’d entered into before his dream. So, not only did Joseph have the gossips talking about his pregnant fiancé, he would have had to deal with the added stigma of people reckoning that his was a shotgun wedding. A man of conviction, fibre and trust in God emerges here; and a man who takes more notice of God than slanderous and critical voices.
2. He didn’t have sexual relations with Mary before the birth of Jesus (v25a), even though, as a married man he could have. There’s various theories as to why; for me the most compelling is that this was an unrecorded part of his dream, so that it would be unequivocal that it was the Holy Spirit, rather than Joseph, who was the real father. Of course, as an aside, we know that, after Jesus birth, Mary and Joseph had normal sexual relations, (see Matt 12:46 etc, and the reference to brothers), discounting the notion believed by some Christians, that Mary remained a virgin. Not so. In fact, if we’re being absolutely accurate, the miracle wasn’t the birth of Jesus – that was natural – rather, it was the conception.
3. He named him Jesus (v25b). So, it was Joseph who gave him a name to fit his job description; Jesus (literally meaning "saviour"), because he will save his people from their sins. Without exception, all eldest sons carried the same name as their father. But not this one. On the eighth day when he was circumcised he was given a name by a "step" father that established, at the off, what Jesus went on to do.

I like Joseph: His courage, his love for his wife, and most of all, his obedience to his God.