Joseph is one of my favorite characters of the nativity story. I think it's because
he not only shows an incredible amount of obedience to the Lord, but more importantly
he shows a great level of kindness and forgiveness to those around him.
Joseph was a carpenter or craftsmen most likely of stone, not of wood as is often depicted
in art work. According to Matthew 2 Joseph actually lived in Bethlehem, not in Nazareth,
as the Lukan account records. According to Jewish custom we also know that Joseph was
most likely quite young. In fact, he was probably only about seventeen to twenty years old when
he was engaged to Mary. We also know that Joseph knew the scriptures and the law, and
more importantly, he not only knew them and knew how to obey them, but he knew how to
use the law to bless the lives of those around him.
To better understand the story of Joseph it will help to have a historical setting for
the marriage process during the time of Christ. There were three parts of the Jewish marriage:
first, there was the betrothal, then there was a waiting period, and then there was the
actual wedding feast.
During the betrothal, the groom and the bride would actually exchanged wedding vows, very
similar to what we would have in a modern day wedding. During this time, they were literally
considered man and wife. During the next phase, the waiting period, the groom would prepare
a home and the family would prepare for the enormous wedding feast that would occur. The
third phase was the actual wedding feast. On this night, the groom would go to the bride's
home, followed by a huge procession of lights and torches and lamps. There he would take
his bride back to his home, or to his parent's home, and the feast would begin! The feast
would be huge, which would help you understand why they needed a year to prepare for this,
and would often last up to seven days long. At the end of the night, the bride and the
groom would consummate their marriage. However, up to this point they were still were considered
husband and wife. So if the wife at any point during the betrothal process was found to
be pregnant, according to the law, the husband had to divorce her.
Now naturally there are two ways for a woman to become pregnant. First, she would break
her vows that she had made by committing adultery, and second she would be raped, which would
mean she would still be innocent.
If the husband found out that his bride was pregnant, he had two options. He first could
bring her to court, where there would be witnesses and a judge who would try to determine whether
she was guilty or not of committing adultery, and second the groom could divorce his bride
privately. Now this does not mean that it would be private in the fact that nobody would
know about it, everybody would still know about it! Nazareth was a very small city and
everybody would know about what was going on. Now by divorcing her privately, Joseph
not only saved Mary from humiliation by having to be brought before a court, but also preserved
her life and because the fact the accusations were never brought against her, nobody could
actually accused her of being guilty of committing adultery.
As we study the life of Joseph, we learn several valuable things about who he was and about
his character. First, we learn that Joseph really loved Mary, even though it was an arranged
marriage. The fact the he decided to divorce her privately shows that he cared more about
Mary then being vindicated for something that had been done wrong to him.
Second, everybody knew the story Joseph and Mary. Everybody knew what had happened, or
at least what they had accused them of what had happened, and Joseph by taking Mary as
his wife shows great character that he was willing to do whatever it took and to deal
with whatever would come in the future because he knew what the Lord had commanded and he loved Mary.
Third, it shows how much he cared for Jesus Christ. The fact that he actually names Jesus
as the Matthew account records shows that he not only was willing to take Mary in, but
he was actually taking Jesus in as his own adopted son. By naming Jesus, Joseph literally
is adopting him legally into his own line, which is the reason that Jesus Christ can
be called the son of David, just as Joseph was the son of David.
We learn that Joseph immediately acted. In the scriptures, it reads "then Joseph being
raised from sleep did as the angel of the Lord had bidden him and took unto him his
wife." In other words, Joseph was quick to act and did exactly as the angel told him
the very next day. From this, it would seem that there was no wedding feast that actually
occurred, dashing all the hopes and dreams that Mary and Joseph would have had. The huge
feast, the lights, the torches, the music all would have been cancelled and forgone
because of the fact that Jesus would be born to Mary. And yet this does not discourage
Joseph to the least degree. He knows what is right and he acts.
It is often said that Mary was chosen by the Lord because of her faithfulness and her devotion
to the Lord, which is absolutely true, and I would say it is just as true that the Lord
chose Joseph to be the adopted father of the Savior because he knew who he was.