Joseph's Angel Dream

The Catholic Liturgy for the 4^th Sunday of Advent, Dec. 22, 2019. Gospel of St. Matthew 2:18-24.  Theme: Joseph’s Angel Dream

In the years before I started studying Scripture and learning about Jewish customs in Biblical times, I always found this passage from St. Matthew’s Gospel that we heard today to be a bit odd and even confusing. I mean it says right there in the story that Mary is Joseph’s wife so what’s the problem with her being pregnant? I mean from the point of view of the people. Of course, I totally get it that Joseph was troubled and wanted some answers.

So, it seems to me that to really grasp what Mary’s pregnancy said to the people and demanded of Joseph, we need to know a bit about what it meant in their day to be “engaged” and to be “married”.  According to ancient Jewish custom, an engagement or betrothal was as solemn and binding as the marriage itself.  Even though the couple did not live together nor enjoy physical intimacy, their promised relationship could end only in either divorce or death.  So, for a woman to become pregnant before the actual wedding day meant one of two things for her:  at best, she would be shunned by family and villagers and at worst, she could be stoned to death.

And thus, we arrive at the dilemma. For Joseph, it meant trusting Mary’s word and believing in the unbelievable. For the people, it meant that Mary was an unfaithful fiancé-bride who should be publicly rejected by Joseph to preserve his own dignity and reputation.

But Joseph knew Mary better than anyone.  He knew her virtue, her integrity, her deep love for God and his Law.  It just could not be possible that she had either been unfaithful or that she had lied to him. There had to be another answer. Poor Joseph! We can imagine the tossing and turning, the sweating and kicking of blankets that accompanied his fits of sleep that night!

And then God, through the angel dream, showed Joseph a third way. A way that saved Mary from gossip or death, but would instead cast a dark shadow upon his own goodness and reputation.  Joseph’s plan was this: He would go ahead and marry her, take Mary into his home and care for and raise her Child as his very own. 

You see, if he did this without public explanation, then people would assume the he, Joseph, was the one at fault.  They would assume that he was the one who could not wait until the wedding day, but had jumped the gun with disregard for God’s commandments and Jewish custom. They would assume him to be the father of the child. And Mary would remain safe innocent, and even pitied instead of shunned, for they would see her as simply one more engaged girl whose fiancée had coerced her into pre-marital intimacy.

It was Joseph’s perfect solution.  Or rather, it was God’s perfect solution! joseph awoke with a new way of thinking, a new way of embracing the situation as God’s will for his life, ready and eager to take Mary into his home as his wife and be father to her holy Child.  As one of our popular Christmas carols puts it, this message was indeed for St. Joseph tidings of comfort and joy.

This passage shows us that Joseph was a man who lived and loved for others. He is such an example of real love, a love so unselfish, so great and deep, that it will take the fall for the sake of the one he loves.  He gave flesh and bone beforehand to the teachings that his adopted Son would grow up to proclaim:  Seek first God’s will for your life and then everything else shall be given to you;  Die to yourself so that others may have life.  Love one another and wash each other’s feet. 

This story of Joseph’s Angel Dream gives us the best example of how we should live, not just now in Advent as we prepare to celebrate the birth of Mary’s Child, but every day as Christians: Keeping God first in our lives, putting others second, and then giving ourselves last place, remembering that Jesus said those who make put themselves last shall be first in the Kingdom of God.