Christmas Through Their Eyes: Joseph, husband of Mary, Christ’s mother

This has without a doubt been the craziest year of my life. Granted, I haven’t even been alive 20 years, but I seriously doubt any of my future years will outdo this one on the craziness scale.

Things a year ago looked so differently than they do today. Mary and I had just gotten engaged and I was obviously pumped up about marrying her. She was the most amazing, blameless girl that Galilee had ever seen. Then, not long after we became pledged to wed Mary, my virgin (or so I thought) fiancé, turns up pregnant. I absolutely could not believe it. I wasn’t sure how to handle it really. I was tempted to make a big fuss about it and give her a bad name (which at that point I thought she deserved), but I knew I couldn’t do that. I decided instead to just quietly end the engagement, which I figured would bring her the least disgrace. Only our family and close friends would have to know.

Then one night I had this bizarre dream. It was different than my usual weird dreams. It didn’t consist of my flying or trying to run but not being able to move or trying to talk to someone but being unable to speak… it was none of that stuff. This was seriously crazy. Here’s what the angel said:

“Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”

And as if that isn’t crazy enough (calling me son of David, speaking specific direction to my life, the fact that the HOLY SPIRIT GOT MY GIRL PREGNANT, and that her baby is going to save people from their sins), I didn’t forget a single word when I woke up. That never happens. It was so out there, and at the same time so clear that it was Yahweh speaking to me. Of course, I knew anybody who I mentioned this dream to would write me off as a nut bag, but nevertheless, I knew it was true.

So needless to say, I decided not to divorce Mary, but instead to stay with her and support her through her pregnancy that I had nothing to do with. The gossip around town was just out of control. It was bad enough that the newly engaged couple that everyone thought was righteous turned out pregnant, and then we could hardly justify ourselves without people thinking we were, again, nut bags. An angel appeared to Mary too. We couldn’t very well justify our virgin pregnancy and our heavenly visitation to most of the church-going people. Anyway…

We endured all the stuff that goes along with being pregnant outside of marriage and “charismatic” in Galilee until we got news of the decree from Caesar that everyone had to go back to their home towns for a census. At that point we were getting closer to Mary having baby Jesus, and I was really hoping that we would at least get to Bethlehem before she went into labor. I didn’t want to think about her having a baby while we were traveling on the donkey…

I’ll opt out of describing the details of our journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, but suffice it to say it was long, and cold, and Mary was, again, very pregnant.

We showed up in Bethlehem pretty late in the evening and quickly learned two things that didn’t go well together: One, there were no places to stay in town, everything was full and, two, Mary was less than two hours away from going into labor. So we did what anyone would do in that situation: We went to a barn that was down the road from the inn.

Again, I’ll chose to leave out the details of the whole birthing process for my wife’s sake, but it was still cold, and as any birth is, it was bloody and messy. It was both disgusting and beautiful at the same time. Life is so amazing. If you could ignore the fact that the angel told us that this baby was the Messiah (which I cannot begin to describe out absurd that is… Mary and I are about the least significant people that the world’s ever seen, and the Messiah is going to save people from their sins…) if you could ignore that, then the birth was pretty normal. Perhaps the least crazy part of the whole story.

Then arguably the most random part of this year happened. This group of shepherds had come in from their fields to visit our new baby Jesus and they said that a whole host of angels had told them how they could find us. They also said that the angels had told them that our baby was the Messiah. Out of control. After the shepherds had sat and admired our baby they left and went back into town telling everybody about our kid. I couldn’t imagine what kind of things people were going to think about us in the days to come.

Neither I nor Mary will ever forget the events of that night. I also doubt that any of us will forget what happened a week later when we went to consecrate Jesus at the temple. I’m not going to explain it in detail, but picture two other, older “charismatics” somehow rejoicing the moment we walked in with Jesus. So crazy. Oh, and I use quotes when I say charismatic because it wasn’t like Mary, myself, or these elderly people were weirdo’s or anything, but people probably thought we were.

So thus ended the craziest year of my life; the year that literally changed everything. I still cannot wrap my mind around the whole thing, but the more I write about it the closer I get (I think). So crazy. It really is.