St. Joseph by the Rev’d Stuart Ansell

For someone who had such a famous son, Joseph has a very low profile indeed in the gospels. We know much less about Joseph than we do about Mary. And some of what we think we know is based purely on tradition or on some of the very questionable "apocryphal" writings which emerged at the beginning of the second and third centuries but which were so unlikely or so bizarre that they were never accepted into the canon of the New Testament.

We know from the gospels that Joseph was a descendant of the House of David and that he was born in Bethlehem, hence the journey back to Joseph's birthplace for the census at around the time when Jesus was born. We know too that he was a builder or mechanic or carpenter, since the Greek word "tekton" can mean any of these. But early tradition placed him firmly as a carpenter and that tradition has continued to this day.

We don't know for sure who his father was, for while both Matthew and Luke give Jesus' genealogy, they differ in their account of Joseph's father. Matthew thinks Joseph's father was Jacob (Matthew 1:16), while Luke thinks he was Heli (Luke 3:23). And that just about sums up our actual knowledge of Joseph. But early tradition has added a little more.

Most early traditions say that Joseph was considerably older than Mary, although they differ as to his actual age. According to one tradition, when he was forty years old, Joseph married a woman called by some Melcha or Escha, but called Salome by others. They're said to have lived together for forty-nine years and to have had six children, two daughters and four sons, the youngest of whom was James the Lesser, called "the Lord's brother" in the gospels. This conveniently makes all Jesus' brothers and sisters into half siblings, thus retaining Mary's purity and renunciation of sex despite the fact that she had given birth.

As it happens (so the legends tell us) just a year after the death of Joseph's first wife, the priests announced through the region of Judea that they wished to find a suitable man as a husband for young Mary, from the tribe of Juda. Joseph was one of the candidates who went up to Jerusalem and by some miracle God selected Joseph as the perfect husband for Mary. But bear in mind that at this point Mary would have been twelve to fourteen years old, whereas Joseph must have been ninety! No wonder the Annunciation is said to have taken place two years later. 

Whatever really happened, tradition has always cast Joseph as an older man, and although he was still alive at the time of incident in the temple at Jerusalem when Jesus was twelve years old (Luke 2:40-52), he's thought to have died from natural causes before Jesus started his ministry. There is no further mention of Joseph in the gospels from the time when Jesus was twelve. According to the apocryphal "Story of Joseph the Carpenter", Joseph reached his hundred and eleventh year when he died, on 20 July (A. D. 18 or 19). St. Epiphanius makes him ninety years old at the time of his demise, and if we are to believe the Venerable Bede, Joseph was buried in the Valley of Josaphat. Actually of course, we have no idea when Joseph died or where he was buried, but it's most probable that he died and was buried at Nazareth.

Interestingly, no word is uttered by Joseph in any of the Biblical accounts in which he features. Saint Bernardine of Siena says this is an early sermon on Joseph:

What emanates from the figure of Saint Joseph is faith...Joseph of Nazareth is a "just man" because he totally "lives by faith." He is holy because his faith is truly heroic. Sacred Scripture says little of him. It does not record even one word spoken by Joseph, the carpenter of Nazareth. And yet, even without words, he shows the depth of his faith, his greatness. Saint Joseph is a man of great spirit. He is great in faith, not because he speaks his own words, but above all because he listens to the words of the Living God. He listens in silence. And his heart ceaselessly perseveres in the readiness to accept the Truth contained in the word of the Living God. We see how the word of the Living God penetrates deeply into the soul of that man, that just man. And we, do we know how to listen to the word of God? Do we know how to absorb it into the depths of our human personalities? Do we open our conscience in the presence of this word? 

Joseph comes across as a very human character, but as Bernadine says, someone who was open to God's voice and who was able to identify the right path. He must have been devastated when he discovered that the young Mary was pregnant, for he seems to have known that the child was not his. But as today's gospel reading says, because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly. He could have called for the full penalty of the law, which was such terrible disgrace that the woman would be turned out on the streets and would either be forced to live a life of prostitution or to starve. In the worst cases, the woman could be stoned to death (Deuteronomy 22:21-23). But Joseph couldn't do any of that to Mary, so opted for quietly getting rid of her.

Then he had the first of his dreams, in which an angel told him that Mary was pregnant with a very special baby who would save his people from their sins. As far as we know, Joseph immediately accepted the angel's incredible words and obeyed the angel in calling the new baby "Jesus", just as the angel had commanded.

Joseph's second dream occurred a few months later, after the baby was born. This time the angel told him to take his wife and baby son and flee into Egypt until he received further instructions to return, because King Herod was going to search for the child, to kill him. Again, Joseph asks no questions despite the fantastic nature of both the angel's appearance and his words, but immediately obeys (Matthew 2:13-15).

Whether or not Joseph was the natural father of Jesus, he seems to have been devoted to the child. We're told in Luke 2:22 that both parents took the baby to the temple and sacrificed in thanksgiving for his birth as the law demanded. And when old Simeon praised the baby in the words we know today as the Nunc Dimittis (Luke 2:29-32), we learn that both parents marvelled at what was said concerning their baby (Luke 2:33). Joseph proved to be a good father, for when they had done everything required by the Law of the Lord, Mary and Joseph returned to Galilee to their own town of Nazareth. There the child grew and became strong; he was filled with wisdom, and the grace of God was upon him (Luke 2:39-40), something which is virtually impossible without good parenting.

And so, despite his lack of spoken dialogue in the gospels, we do have a picture of Joseph as someone strong and purposeful yet soft and gentle at the same time. Above all, he was someone who listened to God, and perhaps this particular characteristic is highlighted by his silence. Because he was able to listen, he was also a man of great faith, obeying God without question when many a lesser mortal might have laughed at the ridiculous nature of the revelations he had through his dreams.

Perhaps we have plenty to learn from Joseph, from his wisdom and integrity, his faith, his humility and his life of prayer. And perhaps if we too are able to follow such a life, we too will hear God's words and obey them immediately instead of perhaps dismissing them as impossible and ridiculous.