Fourth Sunday in Lent (5)

“Become Like Little Children”, 2017 – Daniel Bota

²⁰But 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. ²¹ 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 18: 1-25

How many times have we seen a father carrying his child high on his shoulders, the smile on the child’s face a mile wide and the laughter completely infectious?  Even though the child is at a height many times its own, there is no need for fear in the safety and security of the father’s arms.  One of my favourite childhood memories is of summer Sunday afternoons at the lake playing in the water with my dad and my older sister.  Dad would submerge himself into the water, one of us would climb on his shoulders and then he would bolt out of the water upright, sending us flying into the air and landing with a huge splash.  We never knew how or where we would land but if it took too long for us to come up, Dad’s hand was always there to help us. I don’t know how many times he did this in an afternoon, but he was great at it and did it over and over to our delight and insistence, and those Sunday afternoons at the lake were absolutely wonderful.  They were wonderful not because of anything spectacular; really it was very ordinary, but we were together, having fun in the safety and comfort of our loving family.

Today is the feast day of St. Joseph, husband of Mary and foster father of Jesus. We don’t know a lot about Joseph but it is easy to think of him as an ordinary man.  A descendent of the line of David, we know he was a carpenter in Nazareth, that he was engaged to Mary but later, when he found out she was pregnant, planned to divorce her quietly.  This demonstrated a principled kindness on his part as it would have been perfectly acceptable in his time to create a scandal for Mary.  We also know that he observed religious laws by keeping the Sabbath and going to the Temple in Jerusalem for the Passover, as well as obeying civil laws by travelling to Bethlehem for the census.  Another thing we know about Joseph is that God spoke to him in dreams, and that Joseph was obedient to God’s call and took action to keep his family safe. 

But really there are several things that are quite extraordinary about Joseph.  First of all, let’s go back to those dreams.  Three times the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in dreams.  I think that’s quite extraordinary.  The first time was to convince him that Mary was an honorable woman and that she was with child of the Holy Spirit.  The second time, the angel of the Lord instructed Joseph to flee to Egypt with the child Jesus and his mother.  And then while they were in Egypt, the angel appeared in a dream for a third time to inform Joseph that it would now be safe to return to the land of Israel with Jesus and Mary because King Herod was dead. To all three of these instructions, Joseph listened and took action.  The other thing that I find extraordinary about Joseph is that it is through him, not Mary, that the genealogy of Jesus is descended.  It is through Jesus’ earthly, adoptive father that his designation as the Son of David is tied.  The prophecy of Jesus as Messiah was fulfilled through adoption, not blood.

What can this mean for us?  Joseph’s acceptance of the circumstances of his life that required him to leave his own desires, bear humiliation, disruption, and raise a child not his own speaks volumes and is in itself a lesson in obedience to God.  But I think there is more.  In his series Pilgrim Year, singer-songwriter Steve Bell claims that Joseph’s adoption of Jesus reveals something of the nature of God who sends his spirit, “the spirit of adoption which makes us cry out, ‘Abba, Father’” (Romans 8:15).  Bell goes on to write, “God, in his humility, confers on us “divine filiation” with the full rights of co-heritage with his Son, our brother Jesus.  Just as Jesus was fully the son of Joseph so too do we, through adoption, become true children of God.”

As adopted sons and daughters of God we live freely and full in the grace of God’s redeeming love.  Thanks be to God.

“Abba’s child

Unfettered and undefiled

Letting grace run wild

I’m Abba’s beloved child.”

- Joanne Collier