My parents arranged my betrothal with Mary, and I was well
pleased. Mary was a young maiden who also worked hard with her family. She did
not flirt but was modest, and, as beautiful as I thought she was, it was her
inner beauty that radiated. Mary too followed the Law and feared God, but her
obedience seemed to come naturally. I disciplined myself to be obedient; she
needed no such discipline.
All the more then that her pregnancy was so shocking. The
sin itself is shameful enough. We live in a small village; we live in a village
where the women remain chaste until marriage, and no one would even be tempted
to commit adultery with a man who is not her betrothed. If Mary had claimed
that a man had forced himself upon her, but no, she claimed that she had
remained chaste. Any explanation would have been better than what she came up
with – the Holy Spirit? the power of the Most High? the Son of God? Was she also
willing to commit blasphemy? Was she demon possessed? What had happened to my
Mary?
I could not go through with the marriage, of course. But
then, neither could I publicly disgrace her. The very nature of the sin did not
square with what I knew of her, and she stood her ground with her explanation.
She was not a liar, and her ongoing demeanor belied the notion of demon
possession. And so I resolved to quietly end the betrothal. Perhaps she could
return to her cousin Elizabeth and escape the disgrace that would befall her in
Nazareth.
And then the first dream came. The angel, just as Mary had
described him, came to me. Mary had been truthful all along. The conception had
come from the Holy Spirit. And I was to marry her and take care of her and the
child Jesus, the son who was God’s Son. I was both relieved and fearful. I did
not fear the villagers. I could bear reproach and gladly bear it with my wife.
It was the responsibility.
The Roman decree that forced us to travel to Bethlehem
actually came at a good time. It was a difficult journey to make, but it also
took us out of our small village and the disgrace that came with living there.
We were okay in my hometown. I had family and could find work. But the weight
of responsibility grew heavier from the moment the child was born. Every father
feels the weight when the first child is born: “I now have a child to provide
for.” Imagine the realization, “I have God’s son to provide for.”
The very evening of his birth, we met the first of
astonishing characters. Shepherds came. They had been visited by an angel who
announced the birth of the Messiah. And here they were right where the angel
had directed them. Forty days later we took the child to the temple in
Jerusalem for Mary’s purification and to consecrate the child. There we were
met by an old man named Simeon who proclaimed him to be the Messiah, the light
for Gentiles that Isaiah had spoken of. Immediately after Simeon came an old woman
named Anna who also spoke of him as the Redeemer.
Things settled down. We remained in Bethlehem, where I
expected us to stay the rest of our lives. But two years later came the most
astonishing characters of all – Gentiles, and not just Gentiles but magi who
were obviously wealthy. They came, they said, to worship the king of the Jews,
and then they bowed down before the boy and offered very costly gifts.
I had no doubt even before this episode that the child had
come from God and was the Messiah that we Jews had awaited for centuries. What
I could not get my head around was why Mary and I had been chosen for his
parents, considering our humble circumstances, nor could I see how this child
would one day rise up as Israel’s deliverer. What was my role to be in all of
this?
I was soon to find out. The visit of the magi brought not
only treasure but danger. I was visited a second time in a dream by an angel,
warning me to flee to Egypt with the child and Mary. Herod was now aware of his
existence and would seek his death. I had to protect him. The gifts proved a
God-send as they provided the means to pay for our journey and years in Egypt. I
protected my child in a foreign land, and brought him back safely to our
original home in Nazareth after two more dreams directed me.
I would continue to protect my son, though it was in the
strangest of places that I feared I had failed. As the Law directs, we attended
the Feast of the Passover every year in Jerusalem. When my son, Jesus, was
twelve (one year before the age of manhood) we lost him. We left the city in a
large group of family and fellow villagers, thinking that he was with
relatives. He had always been an obedient boy. We never had to worry about him.
But he did not show up when we camped. He was gone! No one knew where. We had
left him alone in Jerusalem!
Imagine how frantic we were, and our worries only grew.
Though we searched and searched, we could not find him, not until the third day
in the temple courts. As we walked along the colonnade where rabbis taught
their disciples, we heard our son’s voice. The rabbis were gathered around him,
listening to him!
We both stood gaping. Mary reacted first. “Son, what do you
think you are doing? Your father and I have been sick with worry about you. We
have been searching for days for you!” He looked at us puzzled, “Wouldn’t you
know that I would be here in my Father’s house? Where else would I be?”
I knew my role and accepted it obediently, even gladly,
however fearful the responsibility might be. Yes, I was to be the protector and
provider for God’s Son. Even so, as he grew under my watch, I had come to see
him as my son, my beloved son. I had almost forgotten his true Father, who was
his true Protector and Provider. My…his Son had never forgotten his Father.
There was a relationship between that Father and Son that was growing stronger
by the year, and this year before his age of manhood the Son would make it
clear who the Father was that he owed his allegiance.
Somehow the thought did not sadden me. It brought me back to
a day in which I held a baby in my arms and pronounced his name Jesus. I
dreamed then of what he would become, how he would be the Messiah who would
save his people from their sins. And here he was, in his Father’s house,
exhibiting his Father’s wisdom. How could I not be proud of my son who would
fulfill the dreams of all who looked for their Redeemer and so become children
of his Father?
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