The man only wanted to marry the woman he loved but got unlucky. He got handpicked to father a son that wasn’t his – the son of God who always spoke of His father in heaven not the one in Nazareth.
We hear of Joseph during the drama that surrounded the birth of Jesus and we do not hear much of him afterwards yet he must have played a key role in grooming baby Jesus to become the adult Jesus we came to know – after all, He was called the son of the Carpenter.
Every responsible father knows what it takes to bring up a son. The boy child is usually adventurous, inquisitive and challenging. And Jesus must have been no different. He was a normal child with 4 other male siblings. So normal, the Nazarenes couldn’t understand who He had become when He began his ministry. He was perfectly man and that means as a boy, He did everything that normal boys do when growing up. As a baby, He must have regularly soiled Himself and everything He picked must have gone into His mouth. He learnt to crawl then walk and His first words must have been No, mama, dada. Growing up, He must have played hide and seek with His friends (pilolo), played soccer on the streets, must have gotten hurt severally, imitated adults, played tricks to avoid eating and early bedtimes, demanded explanations for the Don’ts and argued his points etc.
So, when I pondered what this year’s Christmas meant to me, I felt led to muse over the Joseph in Jesus’s life. If no one could point to any immoral escapades of Jesus’s youth, then He must have also had a very disciplined upbringing and some credit must go to Joseph his earthly father. Like every boy child, Jesus must have been full of fun and challenges. Yes, Jesus is God but let us not take His human part for granted or cautiously discuss it else we oversimplify what it took for Him to be without sin and how painful the flogging and nails at Golgotha felt. He was fully man. Joseph groomed a normal child and everyone in Nazareth witnessed it otherwise they wouldn’t be so surprised when He began to call Himself the son of God when He grew up. He wasn’t very different from every Hebrew boy. Joseph had to model good behaviour to Him. He did compliment and scold him when he had to. He must have had to set limits, expectations and guidelines for the one who made him. We rightly marvel at the humility of Jesus to be subject to His creation, but we forget to deeply acknowledge the enormous task of Joseph and Mary to parent their creator, the All-Knowing. As a child, they had to enforce good behaviour, teach Him what He ought to know, play with Him, talk through His boyhood challenges with Him, tell stories and teach Him to tell stories too and what a good storyteller He turned out to be. Joseph had to encourage Him to have pastimes, offer Him opportunities to work for Himself, perhaps as a carpenter and like every responsible father, Joseph must have invested unbelievable amount of time and effort in grooming Jesus and His siblings.
As I pondered the birth of Jesus and the role of Joseph and Mary, I began to understand the ways of God in the affairs of men and how He hasn’t changed and won’t change. When Angel Gabriel received his matching orders with a Nazarene address, he must have been shocked. Son of God? Nazareth in Galilee? Mary the teenager betrothed to Joseph the Carpenter? Two naive parents? He must have wanted to be sure he wasn’t heading to the wrong address.
Like many prophecies, all that Joseph and Mary received was the beautiful message of becoming the parents of the promised Messiah. They had been handpicked to welcome the King of Israel that they had both heard about growing up and the entire nation of Israel was looking forward to, for their deliverance – The King from the tribe of Judah, the son of David.
To Mary, Angel Gabriel said (Luke 1:30-33):
Don’t be afraid, Mary; You have found favour with God.
You will become pregnant, give birth to a son,
and name him Jesus.
He will be a great man
and will be called the Son of the Most High.
The Lord God will give him
the throne of his ancestor David.
Your son will be king of Jacob’s people forever,
and his kingdom will never end.”
Beautiful prophecy but Angel Gabriel said nothing about the frustrations that will accompany the birth of the promised child. Does that resonate?
Joseph in his wildest imagination wouldn’t have expected the King to be born in a manger during the hectic period of census. Like many of us, he must have daydreamed of being blessed with a nice comfortable home and great wealth for him to be able to properly welcome the Messiah and to give Him the best of upbringing akin to a king. When his friends and family must have ridiculed him for still marrying a woman who had been unfaithful with an absurd ridiculous explanation, Joseph must have taken solace in his daydreams – royalty awaits him. Yet day after day, he saw his hopes dashed as he grappled with little to cater for God’s son. His life neither changed over-night nor over time. Many times, he must have wondered if he had heard the Angel well and if the child, he was fathering was indeed the Messiah. Or if he, Joseph, had disobeyed or annoyed God along the way. Does that resonate with your own story?
There were enough signs during Jesus’s conception and birth; when he was 12 and I am sure many other signs in-between to prove to Joseph that He was the Messiah. But Joseph was human. He must have thought, if he is indeed the Messiah then why does He have to have such a needy upbringing? Why is nothing changing for this family all these years we have stayed true? Does that resonate with your own story?
Can you imagine the frustrations of Joseph moving from place to place in Bethlehem with a woman in labor begging for a decent place to pay for and lodge? And what a time for God to allow Mary to go into labor! Joseph must have prayed several times begging God for one decent Inn to accept them because of His own son, yet God was silent and again and again the Inn Keepers turned them away. Does that resonate with your own story?
Then the next time he heard from God, he was commanded to run away with the baby and mother. Really? You cannot protect your own son? To where? To Egypt! You must be kidding me, right? No, I mean it! How do I go? Figure it out! For how long will we be gone? Till you hear from me again! But I hardly hear from you. Talk to you later, my dear servant Joseph! And that was it. Believe it or not, Joseph lived in a foreign country without knowing when he was going to go back to his people. Each night he slept, he hoped for a dream that will instruct him to go back but each morning he woke up disappointed. The command to leave Bethlehem was so sudden and urgent that he had no time to prepare before he left. He must have thought: you are All-Knowing so couldn’t you have given me an earlier heads-up? Does that resonate with your own story? How do you think a carpenter from Nazareth in Galilee (who perhaps left his tools behind) survived in the elitist Egypt for 3yrs?
When King Herod died and Joseph was finally told to return to Israel with the baby, he must have rejoiced at the breaking news. That with their enemy now gone, the struggle was finally over. That on arrival back in Judea, a prominent person, perhaps a Pharisee will locate them or perhaps the new King will invite and accord them some privileges and comfort for the child to be groomed in a kingly way. Because as the Scholars from the East confirmed, Jesus was born King of the Jews. But then fear gripped him immediately he entered Israel and realized he couldn’t return to Bethlehem because Herod’s son was now King in Judea and could harm the boy. His bubble had been punctured. It was only then that he had another dream to retreat again. Why wasn’t it told him before he left Egypt? Why did he have to go through those moments of fear and desperation before another revelation came to him? Did he have to go through those moments of anxiety and confusion whilst the angel could have been more specific the first time? Does that resonate with your own story? Joseph was only now warned of a potential danger although the Angel had earlier (in Egypt) said it was all clear. Poor Joseph turned towards Galilee and chose the village, Nazareth. Little did he know, he was fulfilling scripture voluntarily. For him, in reality, after a couple of years including exile, they were back to where they were – square one. Joseph must have had many questions, many frustrations, many cut-off expectations, yet God must have been silent. Does that resonate with your own story?
Joseph’s story and experience with God should be of great comfort to anyone going through difficult times even though you are in the will of God. This is not to say everyone should expect hard times when you walk with God but to say, do not always expect good rosy times when you walk with God. When that beautiful prophecy, godly ambition or conviction is plagued with long repetitive difficulties and frustrations, it doesn’t mean He didn’t speak. When He seems silent, it doesn’t mean he doesn’t care. When evil seem to triumph, it doesn’t mean He is not in control. Jesus said, in this world, you will have trouble, but take heart, I have overcome the world. God always speaks of the victory; He paints the end to you but hardly sketches the journey for you. He prefers to come along with us.
I wish you a merry Christmas and the quiet grit of Joseph in the new year for the pursuit of every beautiful prophecy or godly ambition you have become convinced of. God is unlikely to tell it all how next year will go but it will all work out well in the end. Like the case of Joseph, He will intervene when He has to.
Cheers to that man Joseph who made Christmas possible.
