Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Joseph presumably knew Mary well enough at this point that there could be no serious doubts about her moral integrity, her unassailable virtue. If she was indeed "found with child through the Holy Spirit" there could be no question of infidelity. What, then, was the shame Joseph sought to help her to avoid? It was actually by remaining with her that he could most easily help her to avoid public scrutiny that she would face as an unmarried woman with a child. At least if she was married there was a plausible explanation available for those who did not know the full story. So it seems if he was not suspicious of her he might have chosen to continue with the betrothal with the additional righteous motivation of protecting her reputation. But the text tells us that he was worried about exposing her to some kind of shame. Perhaps the shame he feared was that which he, as an imperfect individual, would introduce into the situation. If he already had a reverence for Mary's virtue and now a holy fear about the conception of a child he might have realized (correctly) that the whole thing was, as they say, above his pay grade. He didn't want to tarnish whatever God was doing as humility made him fear that he inevitably would.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
We see from the angel that Joseph was not upset but rather afraid, afraid of how his involvement would be problematic. The angel told him that this fear was misplaced, and this for two reasons. The first is that Joseph himself was a son of David. His own involvement was not accidental but rather part of God's plan to "raise up a righteous shoot to David", as Jeremiah said. The second reason was that the situation was being directed by the Holy Spirit. It was part of a bigger plan than Joseph could see. The best thing to do in such a circumstance was not to try to solve everything oneself, as though responsibility ultimately rested within oneself alone, but to let oneself be led, even without completely understanding where it was all heading.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.
Joseph had the important role of conveying the name given by the angel as the name of the child. Within that name was the announcement that the promise of God to save his people was finally being fulfilled. So too was the fact that God had now come closer to his people than ever before. Thus the child through whom the world would be saved would also be truly called Emmanuel, God with us.
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home.
Let's learn from the model of Saint Joseph. From him we can learn how to allow ourselves to be led by the Holy Spirit to play a part in the plan of salvation even in spite of our flaws and liabilities. We too do in fact have a part to play in helping the world come to know how close our God has come to us. May we carry it out with the same prompt faithful Joseph himself demonstrated. Delayed obedience is often the same is disobedience. But this was never an issue for Joseph. May we learn from his example.
Damascus Worship Featuring Aaron Richards - Hail Joseph
No comments:
Post a Comment