Joseph Was a Dreamer

Many years ago, when my granddaughter was a toddler, she had a Playmobil Nativity set: plastic shepherds, a crib with hay, a barn. When her grandfather and I arrived for Christmas, she couldn’t wait to show it to us. Starting with her favorites; the lambs, the cows and angels, and finally, the stars of the show: Mary, the baby and… Uncle Joe!

No one knew how she decided that the the man standing by the manger was Uncle Joe, but all in all, it’s not a bad solution. I like to think that this small child had figured out what scholars and preachers had been debating for centuries.  “Mmm” she might have wondered, “Mommy and Daddy told me that Jesus was God’s son, so this guy who’s hanging around on the sidelines not doing much of anything, must be Jesus’ uncle.”  Thus, Uncle Joe he was and that was that.

It’s not a bad solution, but in the long run, probably not the case.  So who is he?  Who is this loyal, devoted man, the man who stood by his pregnant, not-yet-wife?

Joseph was a man who paid attention to his dreams.  Joseph believed that his dreams were messages from his God, that his dreams were, as John Sandford described, “God’s forgotten language.”

When he learned that his bride-to-be was pregnant and resolved to quietly divorce her, he had a dream in which he believed God spoke to him. “Do not divorce Mary, for the child she is carrying is the child of God.”

Joseph did marry Mary and the baby was born. Soon afterwards, Joseph had another dream. An angel appeared saying, “Take Mary and the baby far away, for King Herod, having learned from the wise men that the King of the Jews had been born, was plotting to kill all baby boys under the age of two. Once again, attending to his dream, Joseph took Mary and the baby down to Egypt where they stayed until, through another dream, Joseph learned that Herod was dead and it was safe to return.  Although, as it turned out, it wasn’t, since Herod’s son had similar murderous intentions. And so, right on time, Joseph had another dream when he was told to take Mary and the baby north, to Galilee where they settled in Nazareth.

Now we might naturally wonder whether Joseph really had that series of life-saving dreams, or whether it was simply a convenient literary device for Matthew’s gospel to move the story along and ensure the family‘s safety. I believe it doesn’t really matter.  Because the point of this story is to tell about the man who kept his family safe.

Joseph was Jesus’ father. In whatever way we understand Jesus’ conception in Mary’s womb; whether Joseph was his stepfather, his foster father or his adoptive father, or even his biological father, he did what a good father always does.  He protected his child.

I believe it was the Swiss child psychiatrist Alice Miller who wrote something along these lines: “How did Jesus grow up to be the loving, righteous healer and prophet, the truly good man that he was? Because he had a father named Joseph, who raised him as if he were the son of God.”

Today is Epiphany in the Christian calendar, the day when we celebrate the three visitors from the East who recognized the baby as the herald of a new age, a heavenly king. Had it not been for Joseph, not only would that child have been murdered by Herod’s soldiers, he might never have been born.

Funny, isn’t it? that Mary, the baby, those cute fuzzy lambs, the night-watch shepherds and the glorious angels all take center stage at Christmas but there is one bit part, a walk-on player who doesn’t get much press. Yet he is the one who guaranteed that the story didn’t end there in the barn: Uncle Joe, ever stalwart, faithful, vigilant and present as the young boy grew into the one we call Savior.