Carpenter Interrupted, part 2

This is the concluding post in the Ghosts Around the Manger series.

Betrayals open a floodgate of questions and those, alone, were painful enough. He didn’t even want to know the answers. Joseph dealt with his hurt the only way he knew how. He threw himself into his work trying to bury his anguish in the sawdust of the carpentry shop. He felt sure of himself there. He might have misjudged Mary, but he knew good wood when he saw it. In the shop, he could smooth out rough edges and make all the corners square. When something was nailed down, it stayed. So Joseph worked out his pain in a frenzy of measuring, sawing and hammering until, exhausted, he collapsed onto a cot in the corner and fell asleep.

It was in his sleep that Joseph discovered the answers to his questions and the radical new direction for his life. On four occasions his sleep was interrupted by an angel with a message from God. Each message required something difficult of him, something demanding and, at times, even dangerous. He was commanded to take Mary as his wife, regardless of the impact on his own reputation, and to raise her child as his own. Since there were those who wanted to kill the child, he was instructed to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt. He had been a happy single man who’d spent his days quietly, predictably, carefully. Now, he was a husband, a midwife, a father, a bodyguard and a travel guide.

Finally, he was commanded to take the child and his mother and return to his home. And, in doing so, to potentially face the questions of people who might still wonder about Mary’s unusual pregnancy. This quiet, careful man was called by God out of a well-ordered life to raise a child who was not his, to flee to a country he did not know, and to endure shaming stares and gossip for a sin that neither he nor Mary had committed. You would expect Joseph to at least ask a question for two. If he did, the text never reveals it.

Few things change a person’s life as much as the birth of a child. Ask any parent. Nothing changes a person’s life like the announcement that someone named Jesus, the Savior, has been born. Just ask Joseph.

After the childhood stories of Jesus are written, Joseph walks off the stage of history never to be seen again. He stole no scenes. He uttered no lines. He received little applause. Yet this quiet, careful and unassuming man played an enormous part in making the promise of God come true. His entire life was reordered by God. Without a word, Joseph teaches us that God may interrupt any life. God might well call you or me out of our comfortable, controlled, neatly arranged lives to enlist us in what He is doing in the world through Jesus. I wonder if we’d be as obedient as Joseph.

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May God give you a pure heart, then your heart’s desire. May He bless you and keep you during this season and all through the new year. And may we all extend to each other what each of us has received from God. Grace and mercy and love. Merry Christmas, friends.