Scripture
Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be pregnant from the Holy Spirit. Her husband Joseph, being a righteous man and unwilling to expose her to public disgrace, planned to divorce her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do 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 as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
“Look, the virgin shall become pregnant and give birth to a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”
which means, “God is with us.” When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife but had no marital relations with her until she had given birth to a son, and he named him Jesus.
Meditation
This is not where I thought I would be. I don’t mean the road from Nazareth to Bethlehem—of course I knew I would be traveling to fulfill the obligations of the census. No, I mean I never dreamed this path I would be traveling… I, Joseph, son of the law, the righteous man, the just man. I never imagined the path I would be on just now with my wife. That I would find myself taking on marriage, a child not my own, a future I can’t even imagine. Mary is resting now. It has been a grueling day of walking and riding, even more so for a woman as advanced in pregnancy as she is. She looks so young while she’s sleeping—just like a child, a young girl not yet married. But she is not a child. In a week or two, she will be a mother. And here we are, on this road neither of us ever dreamed we’d travel.
Ours was an arranged marriage, like nearly all the marriages of people in our small town, Nazareth. I had seen Mary growing up—a nice girl, nothing remarkable, perhaps a bit too pious for my taste. But she was from a good, hardworking family, and she had a spotless reputation. Never was a word spoken about her that either of her parents couldn’t hear. She was quiet, she was a proper daughter of the law, she attended services in the Synagogue. There was nothing wrong with her.
So when our families arranged the match, I was satisfied. She would make a good carpenter’s wife, a conscientious runner of a home. She was pleasing to look at. My friends teased me: “Joseph, you’ve won a prize. Now go increase her value, build her up.” Always there are such jokes about babies, even before the marriage is finalized. So I went to my shop, and took out my tools, and selected wood, and began to saw and shape and plane and sand. I began work on a table for our home.
As the days and weeks went by, our families allowed us to spend more time together. I began to learn that there was a sly sense of humor behind that demure exterior. I was engaged to a woman who could make me laugh! Let the other men pine after dark eyes and little glimpses of curled hair… I realized as the months passed that a real treasure is found in someone you can carry on a conversation with, someone who takes an interest in your work, someone who eases your burden with the right, light words. My heart began to ache in a peculiar way I was unaccustomed to feeling. I began to look for her at the well, at the market, in the synagogue. I began… to long for her.
The day of our marriage approached. I worked feverishly on the table now, adding an ornamental curve here, sanding it even smoother there. I bought expensive oil at the market, raising the eyebrows of the men purchasing their supplies. I began to imagine meals at that table, fragrant bread just out of the oven, dark red wine, sweet dates. And Mary, leaning across the table toward me, with that quizzical look in her eyes. As the day approached my joy increased. I was going to marry this… jewel.
One day, about a week before the wedding, she appeared at the door of my shop. I was rubbing the expensive oil into the tabletop. I looked up to see her and broke into a grin at the familiar silhouette. “You’ve come to see your wedding present! Here it is!” I stood back and waved my hand at the table. I know I had sweat dripping down my face. I couldn’t quite see her face; the sunlight from outside poured in behind her.
Mary walked forward and lightly rested both her hands on the table. She stooped over it, inhaling the oil. Then she straightened up and looked at me. For the first time I could see her face clearly. Her eyes were swollen and red, and her mouth was strangely tight. “It’s very nice,” she said. And then, after a pause, “Can you make a cradle?”
It’s hard for me to remember exactly what was said after that. All I know is that pious, irreproachable Mary, my virgin bride, who had only recently allowed me to carry her water for her from the well, told me that she was carrying a child. I know I felt like I did when my brother Ephraim punched me in the stomach. Only it was much, much worse, because the pain came from within rather than from without. I very quietly asked her who had wronged me—for you understand, of course, that the man would have to be dealt with. He had trespassed on my territory, plowed and planted, so to speak, my field. She said there was no man, told me some nonsense about it being God’s will, God’s plan. I told her to go home, that my father and I would be around to make the arrangements after the workday had ended.
When I am angry I become quiet. I cannot say the same about my parents. They raged. My mother cried, all her plans for my building up her house with grandchildren in ruins. Then she began to quote from the Torah, about the penalty for this crime, which, of course, is stoning. “We’ll call the rabbis in to make their judgment,” she railed. The rabbis don’t really enforce it anymore, but everyone knows: Engaged couples are as good as married, and adultery is a stoning crime. If Mary had been carrying my child there would have been no harm to anyone. A few raised eyebrows and perhaps some grins at the marketplace, nothing more. But Mary had broken the law, the civil law and the religious law, and she carried the evidence of her crime in her womb. After a moment or two I spoke. My voice was, perhaps, a little louder than usual.
“There will be no rabbis, and there will be no stoning.” My parents took this in, a surprised silence falling over the room. “There will be no rabbis, and there will be no stoning,” I said, a little louder. “Mary has a cousin in Jerusalem, Elizabeth, married to a priest serving in the temple. She can go there; she can tell people she is a young widow.”
My father burst out, “Joseph, do you know what you are saying? This girl has wronged you, and she and the man must pay. What kind of Jew are you, if you don’t even keep the law?”
What kind of Jew am I, who don’t even want to enforce this law? I couldn’t reconcile my own words with what I, myself had been feeling not an hour before—my desire to avenge this terrible, terrible betrayal. If I don’t keep the law, am I a Jew? I wonder. And yet… this girl I no longer was sure I knew. I had loved her, even if her news had crushed that love into something else. Hadn’t I loved her? So, which would it be for Joseph the Just: would it be law or love? Which would I cling to? On which side would I take my stand? Is it possible that the law could meet a new situation it wasn’t equipped to deal with? Is it possible that the law, finally, must be changed?
As I opened my mouth to speak words came out almost before I knew what I was saying. “I have not been wronged. She is frightened. She thinks it’s God’s will. No harm will come to her or the child. I don’t care about the man. There will be no rabbis.” I left the house and walked away, towards the town gates. I came to a stop near the well that stands just beyond. It was dusk, and Sabbath was beginning; the streets were deserted. Most families were gathered around their tables, lighting the candles and saying the blessing. “Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu, Melech ha-Olam… Blessed are you, Lord our God, the Ruler of all the Universe….” I wondered what the scene was like at Mary’s house; were her parents railing against her as mine had? I sat on the ground with my back to the well. I thought of her small hands on the table I had made. I thought of her leaning across the table towards me with a smile on her face, shadows from the firelight dancing on the walls. I began to cry. As night fell I fell into a deep sleep. Then, I began to dream.
In my dreams I wandered in a strange place, where there were great stone buildings with large, terrifying faces on them. There was a sinuous river, dark and frightening. “Joseph, Joseph.” I turned at the sound of a voice, and I was standing before a golden throne, with a man seated on it. I could still see the dark river flowing somehow beneath the throne. He couldn’t have been a Jew, because his face was clean-shaven, and his eyes were rimmed with black paint. But when he spoke, he spoke the language of my ancestors. “Joseph,” he said again.
“Here am I,” I said. He smiled. “Joseph, son of David, son of my brother Judah.” He paused while I took this in. It is unusual to hear one’s genealogy in a dream. “Here am I,” I repeated.
“Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Shekinah, the Holy Spirit of God.” In my dream I had a vague recollection of Mary’s words to me, “It is God’s will, it is God’s plan.” And I remembered, in my dream, with sudden, stunning clarity, something else she had said. “He is God’s child.”
I took a step towards the throne, but the foreigner held up a hand to warn me back. “Mary, your bride, will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins. As the prophet wrote: Look, the young woman has conceived, and will bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel: God is with us.” At these words the river began to swirl and rise, and to creep upwards around the throne; I felt myself sinking into the water, and flailed out my arms to stay afloat. I started, and I was awake, leaning against the well by the town gates. The sun was creeping upwards, and the sky was taking on a pink and orange glow. My back was aching from my night spent against the hard stone. Young girls, coming to draw water, whispered together at seeing me. I pulled the bucket up by its rope, and drew a ladle of water for myself, to drink, and then to wash my face. Standing, stretching, I walked back to my father’s house. I roused him and my mother, and had them dress in their Sabbath cloaks. We walked together to the house of Mary’s parents, and I called out through the door the words of our ancestor Solomon: “I come to my garden, my sister, my bride. Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is as strong as death, passion as fierce as the grave.” My voice echoed in the house, only for a moment, and then the door opened, and Mary came forth, dressed as a bride.
***
This is not where I thought I would be. But the Holy One does not reveal the secrets of the Divine heart to carpenters. The Lord reveals what is necessary only, to accomplish the divine purpose. I hope I have done the right thing. My parents still shake their heads, but I can see the excitement in their eyes as the time for the baby approaches. No one knows why I took this pious, pregnant girl to be my bride. The question of whose baby it really is still hangs in the air, largely unspoken. But I don’t care. For six months she has leaned across the table towards me, and for the last month, she has practiced rocking the empty cradle with her foot while she spins. I don’t know how to explain it. I am irrationally happy. But I hope into my past. I hope that it was all for the best. I hope I have done the right thing, even though, strictly speaking, I have not followed the letter of the law. I hope in this dream, which God or the angel revealed to me, I hope in its truth. This is not where I thought I’d be. May Adonai bless my unexpected path, and Mary’s, and the child’s.
Thanks be to God. Amen.