Marrying Mary

Do you have a TV show that you’ve watched a few times all the way through?

Right now, I’m rewatching Lost with a few friends. It’s just so good. There’s something about the third (let’s be honest) or fourth time watching a show that I catch new details that make me fall in love with it all over again. Have you ever had that experience with a series, song, or story?

This year, I’ve had that sort of experience reading through the accounts of Jesus’ birth. I grew up in church, and more specifically, I grew up in a 90’s mega-church, so I’ve experienced every play, production, poem, and song of the Christmas story there could possibly be. It’s easy for me to mindlessly breeze through it, yet like every good and, dare I say, true story, something about the Christmas story caught my attention and stirred me anew this year as I read Matthew 1. When you think of the Christmas story who comes to mind?

What is currently moving me about Christmas isn’t Jesus or Mary or angels or shepherds or Herod or Magi. What is moving me this year is Joseph (don’t get me wrong, Jesus is great). 

I’d honestly never really given Joseph much thought before. He is not the father, so most times I’ve read about Joseph, he has seemed pretty irrelevant. I’ve always thought of him as a character just along for the ride, but I’m starting to realize how much more is going on here. 

First off, Joseph is engaged to Mary. Now, don’t think of down on one knee and then a few months to plan a wedding. By the time she said yes (so to speak) Joseph would have paid a lot of money to Mary’s family as a custom. Joseph and Mary would, in many senses, be legally bound together, but would wait a year to have a ceremony and of course, to have sex. A reason behind this waiting was to ensure that the wife was not unfaithful and pregnant while engaged. 

In a twist of events, Mary was found to be pregnant. While many of us in 2020 already know the story by heart, Joseph did not. I would likely have a hard time believing it too. I mean, really? Pregnant by the Holy Spirit? Joseph was not unfamiliar with how babies were made and truthfully, no one in Joseph’s town would have believed Mary. 

This creates a complication for Joseph. Mary has presumably been unfaithful, but if he divorces her (again, think high value placed on engagements), then she would bring shame upon her family. Her status in society would be “that girl”. It would dishonor her name and the names of those she is associated with. Not only that, Mary could have been stoned for adultery. 

So Joseph, not believing her, but wanting to be kind to her, attempts to divorce her quietly, a genuinely honorable thing to do. Instead of publicly outing her, he tries to quietly get out of the situation. Joseph could have taken back the bride price he paid her family, but instead of using this situation to his advantage, he does things discreetly.

How would you describe Joseph’s behavior? Some would call it kindness. Some would call it mercy. What would you call it? Some Bible scholars translates Joseph’s behavior as being “faithful” to the law and many others call it “just”. 

The Bible has such a high view of justice and faithfulness. To be just, at least in this moment with Joseph, is to not only do the bare minimum, but it is actually to go so far as to be compassionate and merciful to those who wronged you. If that’s not a word for our day and time… 

God’s people are to be a people marked by compassion and mercy.

That’ll preach, but that’s not really what has captured me most about Joseph. Fast forward the story. An angel visits Joseph and says, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.” Joseph marries Mary.

I always read this story as Joseph needing to be convinced of what really happened, and I’ve never faulted Joseph for that. Let’s be honest, I’d be asking for the same sort of proof. “Look Mary, if God visited you once, you think He can visit me and let me in on the game plan too?” I mean, Joseph probably wouldn’t be asking for much if he asked this. 

What has really captured me about the story this year is the very high price Joseph paid for stepping into God’s plan. When Joseph marries Mary, he is making one of two public statements. He is either (1) marrying a woman who got around, or (2) he is saying that the baby is his and admitting to premarital sex. Remember, as far as we know, no one else gets an angelic visit, and no one else hears who this baby is. Mary knows, and Joseph knows. 

When Joseph marries Mary, he takes on her shame.

That is so moving. Joseph willingly subjects himself to rumors, to social shaming, to being married to “that woman”, to being known as a guy who couldn’t wait til the wedding night. Remember how some Jews called Jesus an illegitimate child in John 8 (and that’s the kind way of saying it)? Rumors went around about Mary, and Joseph, knowing good and well what may happen, counted the cost and stepped into Mary’s shame. 

Now if you’ll entertain me for a moment, maybe that is part of where Jesus learned that from. Jesus grew up in a house where His (step) father took on the shame of his mother. Jesus grew up in a house where he watched a just man subject himself to unnecessary hardship. Maybe Jesus had an earthly father as an example of what it looks like to wear the shame of his bride. Maybe Jesus had an experience of the beauty that can come from adoption (interesting to note that Jesus became a part of the line of David solely because he was adopted by Joseph). 

I’m not saying that Jesus wouldn’t have done all of those things already, I’m just imagining that Jesus saw some of what he would do for humanity modeled in his household. Joseph willingly got into a complicated story, and later Jesus would do the same for humanity.

I know I have times that I don’t want to get involved in people’s stories. I’m aware that if I get involved it’ll cost me time, energy, reputation, mental space, and emotion. Being involved in people’s lives when it really counts is a commitment, and sometimes, like when Joseph married Mary, committing to be in the middle of what God is doing puts you into a mess.

In many ways, Christmas is about stepping into the mess. Yes of course, Christmas is about how God steps into our mess, but we even see a small piece of that story as Joseph steps into Mary’s mess. Christmas is a pretty messy story, and in so many ways that’s why I find it so deeply compelling.

Life is messy, but Christmas says that God gets in the mess, and then invites us to do the same.

Me elated after finding the first two seasons of Lost at Good Will, October 2020.