A Letter From Joseph

The Story of Love
A Sermon By The Rev. Christopher W. Keating
12/28/2006
©2006 Christopher W. Keating
Text: Matthew 1:18-25

Joseph is a model of loving faithfulness and discipleship as he discovers true righteousness by obeying the heart of the law and not its letter.

For most of us, Joseph is frozen in his place in the nativity scene. What I want to do, however, is to release Joseph from his captivity. I want to hear him speak, to feel what he felt, to know his anxiety – for like all fathers, he was filled with anxiety. Only then can these words make any sense to us… “Joseph…do not be afraid.” Only then can we see that Joseph can be a model of discipleship, and only then will we see Joseph’s journey as a journey of love.

Yet scripture doesn’t give us many clues about Joseph. He is almost as silent in the New Testament as he is in our nativity displays. What would it be like, I’ve wondered, if we could hear from Joseph himself? What if we could read Mary and Joseph’s holiday letters, you know like the wordy and self-congratulatory letters we receive from friends. . You know that type. We once received a letter which detailed how the author had been cured from hemorrhoids. (Psychologists call that “inappropriate disclosure.”) These letters usually begin like this:

Dear friends, what a year it has been! Donny just finished his PhD in nuclear physics – in three years – all the while leading his company’s IPO AND writing his latest best seller. Darlene made a major career move this year and is now ambassador to Luxembourg, but we managed to see her many weekends this summer when she dropped by our little place in the south of France. Our son in law’s cousin’s brother in law is doing better since his double lung transplant and looks forward to returning to work on the International Space Station. Other than that, our year has been pretty normal…

What would a letter from the Holy Family sound like? Would they have said things like, “So you think raising your honor roll student is hard? Ever try raising a kid who thinks he’s Messiah? Every time we have fish and bread left overs, suddenly there is enough to feed the whole neighborhood. And forget about trying to keep water in the house!”

My curiosity about was satisfied recently when scholars discovered the “Holiday Protevangelium of Joseph, Husband of Mary.” Fortunately, I was able to secure a translation for us to hear.

“Joseph bar David, husband of Mary, servants of the Most High God. To those who are called our family and friends, grace and peace to you in the name of God. Greeting. May you be filled with peace and joy and love in all abundance.

I am most eager to write you to you this year, as it has been the most amazing year of my life. I hardly know where to start. As I write these words, I am on a journey from my little home in Nazareth in Galillee to Bethlehem. The governor, who apparently has nothing better to do with his time, has demanded that all the world should be registered, each in our ancestral town. Talk about bureaucracy! Personally, I’d chalk this one up to lobbying by the inn keeper’s association. Anyway, here we are, bundled together journeying toward Bethlehem.

Yes, I said “we are going to Bethlehem.” That is part of my news! I am proud to announce my engagement to Mary, a young woman from a good family back home in Nazareth. She is the love of my life, and I am proud to be her fiancée. We were planning the traditional Jewish marriage ceremony after our one year of betrothal. Well, we were planning that, but there have been a few surprises since the engagement.

Actually, quite a few surprises.

Let me explain. After our engagement, Mary had some news for me. “Joseph,” she said, “You had better sit down.” And with that, she told me she was going to have a baby! As you can imagine, this took the breath away from me! Suddenly we were moving from planning a wedding to decorating a nursery. The amazing thing was that Mary wasn’t the least bit upset or worried or confused, and I knew that I loved her deeply. I loved her I had no desire for the shame of an unwanted pregnancy to stain her young life. At the same time, the law was clear. She was guilty of a crime. She should be condemned.

Yet I also knew that God had said, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” Out of love for Mary, I would not condemn her, but instead decided I would divorce her quietly.

What happened next was truly surprising. During this time, I did not sleep well. I tossed and I turned, until late one night I fell into a deep, deep sleep. An angel appeared—yes, an angel! Another surprise. He called me by name, and then said words I shall never forget: ‘do not be afraid.’ Over, and over again: ‘do not be afraid.’ The angel told me that this is what God had planned. The angel assured me I should take Mary as my wife, the child as my child. Those words changed me. “Do not be afraid, Joseph,” the angel said, “for the child in her is from the Holy Spirit.” The angel promised me that God was behind this whole pregnancy business. In fact, it was all a fulfillment of what our great prophet Isaiah promised: God is with us. Emmanuel. When I woke up, it was as if the world had changed, my friends. I realized how much of my life had been spent trying to get things done right. But here God was doing something out of the ordinary. Normally, a righteous man would have condemned his fiancée for having an illicit pregnancy. Yet here was God telling me to take Mary as my wife. Here God was saying that there was a new way to be righteous. Here was God showing me what was the right thing to do. One wise man has said that “genuine righteousness is always joining with God to do God’s work in the world.”[1]

My friends, let me tell you something. This whole experience was a deeply personal crisis for me. Yet this, too, was a surprise. I discovered that in such a crisis, real faith does not say, “My will be done.” Instead it learns to lean on God a bit. Faith in a crisis learns to love in new ways. It learns to say to God, “Thy will be done.” Hey, maybe I should write that part down and share it with my son someday.

Oh, yes. A son! I almost forgot the best surprise. The angel told me that Mary is going to have a little boy. And guess what? An angel told her the same thing! My advice to you is: watch out if you see angels near your house! You should have seen the look on her parent’s faces! He told us his name will be “Jesus.” And that’s appropriate, of course, because it means “God saves.” As I told Mary, he’s already got a lot to live up to.

Well, it is almost dark. Let me tell you just one more thing. Ever since that angel told me to not be afraid, I’ve had a chance to look at Mary with new eyes. I see in her face the face of pure love, and I know that if she’s up to this wild adventure, then I’m in it, too. Already my boy is teaching his old man a new lesson. Sometimes, doing the right thing means listening for the voice of God at the heart of a crisis. It means opening ourselves to God, trying to find what God is already doing. And then we know the truth that God really is with us.

“Be not afraid.” I think I’ll tell that to my son, too.

Be not afraid, my friends. The future is in God’s hands. Be not afraid. Hope all is well with you and yours. Shalom, your brother Joseph.
AMEN.
[1] Tom Long, Matthew, p. 14.