Matthew 1: 18-24
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/122125.cfm
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,
God, for ever and ever.
(Collect for 4th Sunday of Advent)
The interpretation of dreams is an interesting study of the human mind 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 British 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!) Be careful around these well meaning (?) but misguided folks: https://www.caninejournal.com/pet-psychic/
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?
As we begin this 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 in the infancy narratives. Joseph sets the stage for
the central character to appear.
Faced with the shocking pregnancy of his soon to be wife Mary, for betrothal was essentially a marriage
relationship, and the brutal lawful treatment of those caught in adultery could be a death sentence by stoning, 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 her 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. So Mary was
faithful.
The Gospels reveal very little about Joseph so we must
read between the lines. No words of his are recorded in the scriptures, which I find surprising. Nonetheless, 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 hope
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 for Joseph to
imagine that it would be his wife Mary and that he would play a key role, was
just too much.
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, before he came to know the origin of Mary’s
pregnancy, he would see it as a tragic turn of plans on a social and moral
level that clearly troubled him deeply. The Bible rarely refers 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 defences 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?
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