Following on from our pre-Christmas blog about the inn keeper, we have been looking at some of the other supporting roles and what they can teach us. After all, the nativity story shouldn’t just be restricted to a couple of weeks before Christmas or the annual school nativity play.
Ruth was particularly focused on Joseph, some may say he’s got a starring role, being Mary’s betrothed, but he’s usually restricted to guiding the donkey and is remembered for not having the foresight to book a room before setting off on the journey to Bethlehem with his heavily pregnant fiancé. In the nativity scene, he’s always just stood there, a bit of a spare part. In reality he would have been caring for Mary, he would probably have delivered the baby and would have been doing his best to keep them both warm and dry. I imagine that rather than standing behind Mary when the shepherd’s arrived, he would have been laying with Mary resting, taking advantage of the baby Jesus sleeping.
What also struck us was how trusting and faithful he was. After he hears about Mary being pregnant, he doesn’t make a rash decision even though Mary’s explanation is so unbelievable, he decides to sleep on it. As we know, while he slept an angel appeared to him in a dream and when he awakes, he does exactly what the angel had told him to do. In Matthew’s brief account of the nativity, he skips over the story of the angel appearing to Mary, or the story of Elizabeth and Zachariah, and he makes Joseph’s response the main point (Matthew 1:18-25).
How many of you have awoken suddenly after a vivid dream and laid there in that semi awake state for a few moments wondering if it was reality or a dream? Wondering what had triggered the dream or even what was it all about? Would you or would I be willing to make serious life decisions based on that strange dream? I think that I’d be sitting for a long time, staring at nothing in particular whilst drinking an endless number of coffees, trying to workout what to do.
But Joseph made a huge life decision off the back of that dream, despite knowing culturally what a baby conceived outside of marriage would mean for all their futures. He trusts Mary based on his dream and faithfully looks after her and the baby.
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