Anton Raphael Mengs)
"Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary"
Matthew 1: 18-24
The Word: https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/121822.cfm
The interpretation of dreams is an interesting study of the human imagination and how the brain basically never shuts itself off. I think that’s a good thing considering what might happen if it did!
There are certainly many websites, books and maybe
magazines that take a variety of positions about what we dream and the meaning
of those often-strange images. Some of the publications raise questionable
interpretations; alleged psychics present themselves as able to “channel” the
dead who speak to the living. One past radio personality even asserted to speak
to your long dead dog or cat and tell you what they are “thinking and feeling”
in the spirit world and what your pets are saying to you now. (There really was
someone on the radio who claimed this ability!) Watch out for these deeply
misguided folks.
But do our dreams predict the future for us or do the
weird and often disjointed images like climbing a mountain in your bathrobe or
flying through the sky next to pigeons predict some future event?
Yet, there is some legitimacy and good science to make
sense from our dreams and with the right guide we may come to appreciate more
deeply what is going on in our life and how we might find solutions. And there
is certainly evidence that God may use those moments when our defenses are down,
and the images speak to us during prayer or even sleep.
As we begin these final week of the Advent Season the
Gospel for this Sunday presents Joseph, the husband of Mary, who faces a
troubling moral dilemma. He appears along with John the Baptist, Mary, and
Zachariah as a key player as God sets the stage for the central character to
appear.
Faced with the shocking pregnancy of his wife Mary, for
betrothal was essentially a marriage relationship, and the brutal lawful
treatment of those caught in adultery, Joseph is sensitive to Mary’s reputation
but wrestles with what is the right thing to do. How can he continue with a now unfaithful
woman? He logically presumed she has violated
their promised vows. Recall that Mary stated to the Angel that,". . . I have no relations with a man,” meaning
Joseph and I have not been intimate, nor have I been with any other man.
The Gospels reveal very little about Joseph so we must
read between the lines. We read that
Joseph was a good and just Jewish man. We can imagine him among other Jewish
men in the Synagogue and in Temple worship in Jerusalem. He was familiar with the
prophecies of the coming Messiah. He
heard the words of Isaiah we hear in today’s first reading: “The Lord himself will give you a sign: the
virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.”
What he personally believed about the meaning of those
prophecies we do not know but most likely he was instilled with the common
hopes of the Jewish people that God would directly intervene to save his people
at some future time and send a “Christ” the anointed Messiah. It is the eternal
hope kept alive even to this day in the Jewish community.
But I think we can safely also presume that Joseph never
imagined that in his simplicity and obscurity those very words of Isaiah would
take flesh in his wife Mary. That the
two of them would become the human instruments through which God would directly
enter the world through the ordinariness of sacred marriage and a human family.
God entered the world silently, secretly, almost as if undercover.
So, when Mary revealed her pregnancy to Joseph, whenever
he came to know, he would see it as a tragic turn of plans on a social and moral
level that clearly troubled him deeply. The Bible rarely makes reference to the
emotions of a character, but we can safely presume that this was agonizing news
for Joseph. Nonetheless, that was about
to change.
God directly sent his angel to deliver the truth to
Joseph and gradually brought the light of understanding to this good man – at a
time that Joseph’s defenses were down, in sleep in a convincing dream. The long-awaited sign that Isaiah prophesied
is now fulfilled in Joseph’s dream and message. Amazing how silent it appears.
“Joseph,
son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home. For it is through the Holy Spirit that this
child has been conceived in her. She
will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people
from their sins.” Then the angel quotes the verse from Isaiah
we hear today and that which Joseph surely heard during synagogue worship at
some earlier time.
When Joseph awoke, there was no need for interpretation. There
was no hesitation on his part as to his next move. With trust, “. . . he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his
wife into his home.” It says a great deal, without words, about the nature
of this man who became the husband and presumed father of Mary’s child.
Then he remains silent and we hear essentially only a
reference about him but a connection that implies this man was extraordinary:
he travels to Bethlehem with Mary where the Christ is born, he guardedly flees
with the holy family as they dash to Egypt to avoid Herod’s rage the later safely
returns to Nazareth then twelve years later as he and Mary desperately search
for Jesus in Jerusalem only to find him among the learned teachers in the Temple. Years later in the synagogues of Nazareth
where the adult Jesus now preaches, we hear a comment on him as “Joseph’s son” at
the beginning of his public ministry. At this point, Joseph presents us with a
model of receptivity. He is an example
of readiness with the posture of an open heart and mind. Joseph “did
as the angel of the Lord commanded.” Not only did he act with confidence to take
Mary as his wife, but he also received the message of the angel with trust and faith as
one from God.
Joseph’s conviction was an internal one; a movement of
his heart and mind to see the child of his wife as a sign from God of his mercy
to humanity. He welcomed Mary and her
son. He was ready to receive them. He nurtured and protected them.
Can we do any less with the coming of the Christ? Shouldn’t Jesus also be for us God’s great
sign of his mercy and one who will “save his people from their sins?” It is
time to ready ourselves, to open our hearts and to seek his mercy to make the
path straight
Joseph was ready – are you? Are we?
Pour forth, we
beseech you, O Lord,
your grace into our hearts,
that we, to whom the Incarnation of Christ your Son
was made known by the message of an Angel,
may by his Passion and Cross
be brought to the glory of his Resurrection.
Who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
(Collect of Mass)
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