Carpenter Interrupted, part 1

This post is part of the Ghosts Around the Manger series.

His whole world was dust and timber, hammers and saws, blisters and blue fingernails. In the winter, he used the scrap lumber that littered the shop to build fires to warm his hands before he worked with better wood to build a shelf for this customer, a table for that one. In the summer, sawdust beaded around his sweaty neck and filled the wrinkles of his robes, dusted his feet and tickled his nose until he sneezed.

He could see the finished job in his mind before he even countersunk the first peg. It would assemble puzzle-like until the last rough edge was smoothed and the wood grains ran together into a perfect pattern, as if some sculptor had carved the creation whole from a block of fine Lebanon cedar. This is all Joseph of Nazareth knew, all he wanted to know. Until God called him from his simple world of square corners and smooth edges and framed him for a most complex role in an unpredictable story.

Carpenters have a saying; measure twice, cut once. They are deliberate. And quiet. They use words sparingly. Conversation distracts them from their careful work. When Joseph first appears in the stories of Jesus’ birth, he is being careful and quiet.

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph, her husband, was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her. Quietly.

Things were already scandalous enough without driving one more nail into the coffin of Mary’s reputation. And there was his own good name to consider. In his business, a blue-tipped finger was an embarrassment — evidence the hammer had missed its mark. But this . . . this pregnancy . . . was more than an error in judgement. His customers paid attention to more than the craftsmanship of his work. If he was careless in matters so great as personal morals and the Law of God, how could they trust him to so small a matter as a mantle over the fireplace? To marry her now would confirm the lurid suspicions that he and Mary had violated God’s Law and the morals of the community. Quietly severing his relationship with her was the only way to preserve his own reputation.

Reputation, however, was not Joseph’s only concern. A cautious man, he had measured this woman, though not in the way of most men. That she was beautiful, he could not deny. But it wasn’t just the delicate curve of her face that had attracted him. It had been something deeper and more lasting. A spiritual beauty, an innocence.

He knew how to hold a plank and look down its long length to see whether it bowed or held its shape straight to the end. He could judge the quality of a board just by running his rough hands over the wood grain. He knew people, too. At least he thought he did. He had measured the soul of this woman and found her square at every corner, level-headed and morally straight. The grain of her life ran in the same direction as his, or so he had believed. Wasn’t she known for her piety, her purity, her faith? Hadn’t he known her family for years? In his shop, standing in the dust of a broken dream, Joseph was no longer certain about his ability to appraise a person’s character.

But it wasn’t judgement that filled his heart. A deep sadness was flowing through him, slow and dark and cold, like the waters of the Jordan River in winter. He had never felt so profoundly betrayed. How could she have done this? And with whom?

Coming tomorrow, part 2 of Carpenter Interrupted.