Joseph's Christmas Story

Joseph's Christmas Story

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord
appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because
what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She
will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name
Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
(Matthew 1:20-21)

She was out shopping with her family one day and
happened to walk by my carpentry shop in Nazareth.

I fell hopelessly in love the minute I saw her,
and couldn’t rest till I found out who she was.

I don’t recall whose furniture I was
building that day, or even how it turned out.

She was all I could think about.

I wanted to know her name, which of the 12 tribes her
family was from, and how many brothers and sisters she had.

This last item would help me estimate the
“bride price, ” the money I would have to pay
her father for his permission to marry her.

I had already decided that
that’s what I was going to do.

If she was from a small family, leaving them to marry me
would deprive her parents of a much needed pair of hands,
and her father would want a high price to compensate for
the family’s loss, maybe more than I could afford to pay.

I guess you can tell my brain was
going about a hundred miles an hour.

Even though I was known as a quiet and
easy-going man, my prayers that the Lord
would let me have her were urgent and intense.

I quickly discovered her name
was Miriam, or Mary to you.

She was from the tribe of Judah, like me.

Then I learned that she had
no brothers at all and no older sisters.

This meant that she was first in line to
be married and that she was her father’s
principal heir, being his firstborn child.

It also meant that according to our law she
could only marry a man from the tribe of Judah.

Let me explain.

Back in the time of Moses, before the Land was
originally divided among the tribes and families, the
Lord warned my people they could never sell it to anyone.

He said it was all His and they were just tenants.
(Leviticus 25:23)

This was to make sure that no tribe
could ever lose its inheritance.

Each family’s allotment of land had to be
passed down from father to son, and as part
of the Jubilee Year observance, all land
had to be returned to it’s rightful owners.

At that time there was a man named Zelophehad
of the tribe of Manasseh who had only daughters.

One day the leaders of his tribe came
to Moses complaining that they had been
told to give Zelophehad’s land to his
daughters, since he had no sons.

What would happen if the daughters married
outside the tribe and the land passed into
their husbands’ families’ estates?

Would the Tribe of Manasseh lose part
of its inheritance at the Jubilee?

When Moses inquired of the Lord, He said that
in cases where there were no sons in a family,
daughters could inherit land from their fathers
but had to marry men from within their own tribe.

That way the tribal allotments would remain intact.
(Numbers 36:1-12)

Since Mary had no brothers, she had to marry
someone from the tribe of Judah, someone like me.

Later, this would become a very important issue.

I was not only from the Tribe of Judah, but a
descendant of King David, in the royal line of
succession to the throne through King Solomon.

So although a poor carpenter from Nazareth, I was
technically a Prince of Israel, in line to be King.

But God had cursed the royal bloodline, as it’s called,
at the time of King Jehoiachin 600 years earlier.

He was so evil that in anger, God declared that no
descendant of his would ever rule in Israel again.
(Jeremiah 22:28-30)

So even though God had promised King David
that only direct descendants of his son Solomon
could be kings in Israel, the royal line was now cursed.

Being descended from Solomon, I was part
of that line so neither I, nor any blood
descendant of mine, could ever be king.

The last King Israel has ever had was Zedekiah, a
cousin of Jehoiachin’s not in the royal line, who was
placed on the throne by Nebuchadnezzar just before
Babylon defeated the Jews and took them all slaves.

Since there’s never been a king since the Babylonian
Captivity, Israel hasn’t had a legitimate king since the
royal line was cursed, just as the Lord had said.

Mary was also from the Tribe of Judah, and a
direct descendant of King David as well, but
through Nathan, Solomon’s brother.

Nathan’s bloodline was not cursed.

If a son of Mary’s could somehow prove he was
also in the line of succession, he could be King.

But if he was biologically related to any man in
the royal bloodline, a requirement for succession,
he’d inherit the curse. It was a real catch 22.

Of course God, who knows the end from the beginning,
wasn’t breaking His promise to King David by cursing the
royal line. He knew how He was going to solve the problem.

At the proper time, He would simply arrange to have a
virgin from the House of David be wed to a man in the
royal line of succession and then have her conceive a
male child without her husband’s participation.

Giving Mary’s parents only daughters
was step one in accomplishing this.

She couldn’t marry outside the Tribe of Judah.

Making me fall in love with her was step two,
and having our Son conceived of the Holy
Spirit completed the process.

So now you know what the Bible means when it
says our son was of “the house and lineage of David.”
(Luke 2:4)

Through His mother He was descended from
King David, a member of his “house.”

Since He was legally my Son, He inherited
royal lineage, but because we weren’t biologically
related, He sidestepped its curse.

This made our Son the only man in Israel qualified
to be King of the Jews, then or since.

Our God is the Master of the loophole.

So the virgin birth was required to perfect our
Son’s claim to the Throne of David in fulfillment
of one of Gabriel’s promises to Mary.

It was also required to make him the Son of
God in fulfillment of the other. (Luke 1:30-33)

And it was required to fulfill Isaiah’s
prophecy to King Ahaz. (Isaiah 7:14)

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Once I found out what I needed to know about
Mary, I went immediately to see her father Heli.

It took a long time for a man to establish himself
in those days, getting to a point where he could afford
to maintain his own home with a wife and family.

Having worked for years to get there, at the ripe
old age of 25, I was anxious to settle down.

And since Jewish girls were typically
married while still in their early teens,
Mary was quite a bit younger than I.

That helps explain why she was still
around at the death of our Son and I wasn’t.
(I died when Jesus was 19 years old.)

As soon as I arrived at their house and introduced
myself to them, Mary’s parents guessed why I’d come.

As they invited me to sit down at the
family table, they called her to join us.

Mary got out four cups and wine
but didn’t pour any for herself.

She sat listening intently as I spoke with
her father, telling him (and her) why I
thought I would be a good husband for her.

Since she and I had never officially
met, this was the first time I had
ever been this close to her.

She was the most beautiful girl I’d ever
seen, and I couldn’t keep my eyes off her.

And as it was with every Jewish girl, this was how she
learned about the man who would become her husband.

After a proper amount of negotiating, we agreed
on the bride price and all eyes turned to Mary.

She now had about 30 seconds to
decide the course of her life.

If she filled her cup and drank
from it, we were betrothed.

If she turned her empty cup upside
down I would leave and never come back.

It was her choice.

Those few seconds seemed like hours, and
I’m sure the pounding of my heart was visible
through my robe as I waited, not daring to breathe.

Finally, she filled her cup and took a sip.

No man in all the world has ever
been happier than I was at that moment.

But after he had considered this, an angel
of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take
Mary home as your wife, because what is
conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.

She will give birth to a son, and you are to
give him the name Jesus, because he will save
his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20-21)

On His eighth day of life, we brought Jesus, as
the angel had told us to name him, to the Temple
to be circumcised as a child of the covenant.

(His Hebrew name is actually Yeshua,
which means “God brings salvation.”
The name Jesus comes from the Greek.)

While there, His role as Israel’s Messiah
was confirmed by two witnesses, as
required in the Law. (Deuteronomy 19:15)

Both Simeon and Anna had been moved by the
Holy Spirit to seek out and bless Jesus and
praise God for sending Him to redeem mankind.
(Luke 2:23-40)

By the way, when the Lord ordained the
ritual of circumcision for males, He arranged for
the coagulating proenzyme you call prothrombin
to be at 130% of normal adult levels on the eighth
day of life, and for natural analgesic enzymes
in the blood to be at lifetime highs as well.

Circumcision on any other day can be a
painful and bloody event, but on the
eighth day it’s remarkably less so.

Of course, this is a fact the medical
profession has only learned in the last century.

In our day we just knew that everything worked
better when we were obedient to God’s commands.

Later in His life, Jesus would say,
“Foxes have holes and birds of the air have nests,
but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”
(Matthew 8:20)

This observation was true
from the moment of His birth.

It seemed like He didn’t fit anywhere.

He was born in a stable because no
room could be found for us in Bethlehem.

No one but His mother and I
were there to attend His birth.

Then we had to rush Him off to
Egypt to escape an attempt on his life.

It happened like this.

Parthian priests known as the Magi
arrived in Jerusalem, following a star
that had appeared in the skies over Israel.

Many centuries earlier Balaam had
prophesied that such a star would
be a sign of the coming Messiah.
(Numbers 24:17-19)

For over 500 years, ever since the
Prophet Daniel had first told them
when to expect it, the Magi had been
looking for the sign of His birth,
and it had finally appeared.

Upon arriving they called on King Herod,
informing him that one “born to be
King of the Jews” had come.

They asked him where the child
was and of course he didn’t know.

The Magi’s caravan caused quite a stir
in Herod’s court and indeed in all of Jerusalem.

The Romans had gained control of the Holy Land,
but Parthian forces had defeated them a few
years earlier during Rome’s unsuccessful
attempt to conquer nearby Parthia, too.

(Parthia was a remnant of the former Medo-Persian
Empire situated north and east of Israel.)

So the Magi were viewed as
representatives of Rome’s enemy.

Not only that, but traditionally the Parthian
Priesthood played the role of Kingmaker,
in neighboring lands as well in their own country.

They had become so powerful that no King in the
region could long rule without their blessing.

Having been appointed by Rome, Herod was not even
Jewish, and now these powerful kingmakers were
asking the whereabouts of the one born to the
throne Herod had only been appointed to.

In answer to their question, Herod called in the chief
priests who read from the scroll of the Prophet Micah
(Micah 5:2) that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem.

The Magi found us there and presented gifts
of gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Jesus.

These three gifts were part of the treasure
Daniel had left in the Magi’s care when he
died in Babylon over 500 years earlier.

He made them promise to keep it for
the Messiah and present it to Him
when they saw the sign in the sky.

The gold symbolized His royalty, the
frankincense His priesthood, and the Myrrh was
prophetic of His death for the sins of the people.
(Myrrh is a spice used for embalming.)

Together they represented the Messiah’s
three offices of King, Priest and Prophet.

Then in a remarkable contrast to the treatment
Jesus had here-to-fore received since coming
to Earth, these powerful Magi and their entire
entourage bowed low and worshiped our son.

An angel warned me in a dream that King Herod
was plotting to kill Jesus, viewing our newborn
as a threat to his rule, and told me to take
Him and His mother to Egypt immediately.

The same angel also warned the Magi of
Herod’s evil intentions and warned them
not to let him know where we were.

When they left town they took a circuitous
route around Jerusalem to avoid any
further contact with him.

Because of Daniel’s gift, we were able to flee
and remain in Egypt till the angel told us that
Herod had died and it was OK to return home.

Later we found out that after we left Bethlehem,
Herod’s soldiers had executed all the male
children there under the age of two in a
gruesome attempt to kill Jesus.

This had been prophesied by Jeremiah
(Jeremiah 31:15) but was no less painful
for all the mothers whose sons were
brutally murdered on that day.

Finally, after an absence of several years,
we returned to Nazareth and began
a more normal life together as a family.

During her pregnancy, Mary and I had
abstained from any intimate relations in
honor of the Holy Child growing within her.

Now we decided to start the rest of our
family and wound up having four more sons.

These half-brothers of Jesus had a predictably
hard time relating to Him, fulfilling the prophecy
of King David, ” I am a stranger to my brothers,
an alien to my own mother’s sons.” (Psalm 69:8)

Can’t say as I blame them.

I had a hard time with it myself.

How’d you like having the Son of God growing
up in your home, knowing that one day you’d
have to bow before Him as King of the Universe?

But we got used t it, and obviously He went out
of His way to make it as easy as possible for us.

After His death, His brothers James and
Jude performed mighty works on His behalf.

In accordance with our customs, I was
responsible for our son’s general education
and taught Jesus my trade, carpentry, as well.

In matters of scripture, however,
He needed no instruction.

I remember a time when He was twelve.

That fall He completed His ritual
admission into manhood by observing
His first Yom Kippur fast and publicly
reading from the Torah.

The following spring we were in Jerusalem
for the Passover as the Law required.

We thought He was with our group as we left
on our trip back to Nazareth, but after a day’s
journey we hadn’t seen Him so we left the
others and returned to Jerusalem to find Him.

Three days later we found Him in the Temple
among the teachers, who were amazed at the depth
of His knowledge and understanding. (Luke 2:41-52)

Well, His mother and I had been
beside ourselves with worry.

I mean, how would you feel, fearing
you might have lost God’s only son?

We couldn’t resist chastising Him
for causing us so much grief.

When He answered that we should have
known He’d be in His Father’s house,
we were confused and didn’t understand.

Later the meaning dawned on me.

First, He was reminding us that
according to our Law, He was now a
man, responsible for His own behavior.

An answer like that to justify going off
on one’s own would have been an unthinkable
impertinence to a boy’s parents otherwise.

And second, He was reminding
us that He was God’s Son.

Did we think that after all that had
happened, His Father would let Him
be lost before completing His mission?

It wasn’t always easy being the
parents of the Son of God.

But before you laugh me to scorn, have
you ever caught yourself thinking that
some work of God’s would be doomed
to, failure if you dropped the ball?

That’s a burden He’s never
asked you to carry.

He’s the one boss who doesn’t hold
you responsible for the actions of others.

He is even faithful to complete the good
work He’s begun in you. (Philippines 1:6)

As humans we tend to overestimate the
importance of our efforts on His behalf.

Sure He loves us beyond measure, but
He knows better than to let the success
of His plans depend on our faithfulness.

As I write this I’m reminded of Elijah
after the Mt. Carmel exhibition.

He thought he was the only faithful
one left in all of Israel.

The burden was too much for him to carry and
he ran off into the wilderness, afraid for his life.

As the Lord comforted Elijah, He explained
that there were in fact 7000 others just
as faithful as he was. (1 Kings 19:1-18)

Well as you know, Jesus grew up to be the
central figure in all of human history, in
spite of His all-too-human parents.

By His vicarious atonement, He rescued
everyone who would permit it from the
unspeakable and eternal horror due
them as punishment for their sins.

He left this world just as He had come
into it; alone, misunderstood, and feared,
even though throughout His life He had
personified the indescribable love of God and
never turned away anyone who came to Him.

And He’s still like that today.

Every one who asks receives, all who
seek find, and to whoever knocks
the door is opened. (Matthew 7:7-8)

No life is too depraved, no sin too despicable,
for the Son of Man came to seek and save
those who are lost (Luke 19:10) that they
may have life, and have it abundantly
(John 10:10).

He’ll be back soon to take those who have
accepted the pardon His death purchased for
them to the place He’s been preparing all these years.

If you’re not sure you’d be included if He came
today, just apply the Apostle Paul’s admonition.

For if you confess with your mouth,
“Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that
God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
(Romans 10:9)

If you sincerely believe that Jesus is the
Son of God, that He went to the cross for
you, and that God raised Him from the
dead to prove that the price for your
pardon had been paid in full, you’ll be
counted among those for whom He comes.

The day of His return is almost upon us.

I hope to meet you then as, in the twinkling
of an eye, you step across the stars to
enter your eternal home, where you’ll
dwell with the Lord forever.

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