Tag Archives: Joseph Jesus’s Earthly Father

Dear God, I am preparing my Sunday school lesson for this week, and I want to spend some time going over the things I’ve learned about Joseph over the last 24 years, since I first wrote God, Family, Job: In that Order?: A Study of Joseph, Jesus’s Earthly Father. Of course, my interest in Joseph started when I was at a retreat, and I started looking for a biblical man I wanted to emulate as a faithful worshipper of you, a husband, and a father. The list was short. Ultimately, I landed on Joseph and the Prodigal Son’s father. Since the Prodigal Son’s father was a representation of you, I ended up with Joseph. And I’ so glad I did. I’m so glad he was there to be Jesus’s earthly father. I’m so glad his example is there for me to follow.

When I think about Joseph off of the top of my head, here are my thoughts on an outline. Please guide me as I think about this, Holy Spirit:

• His first decision: Divorce her quietly.
  • This decision would cost him and make him vulnerable
  • You needed Joseph to make this decision for your plan to work
• He believed the dream and acted on it.
  • He married Mary but did not “consummate” the marriage
    • Did doubts ever linger?
• He had to find a place for them to stay in Bethlehem
  • With family? In a tent outside of town? We don’t know.
  • What were their conversations like during the journey and before the birth?
• The baby is born.
  • Had to improvise a difficult situation
    • Helping Mary made people unclean
    • Needed a better place but couldn’t find one
    • Doubts? What am I doing here? Was the dream real?
• The shepherds.
  • Affirmation that this was all real! I cannot underscore this enough. If there were any doubts, the shepherds removed them.
• The Temple (Simeon and Anna).
  • More affirmations.
  • Simeon’s warning to Mary.
• The Wise Men
  • They created more problems than they solved.
  • More affirmations some months later.
• The Dream and Escape to Egypt
  • Believing the dream
  • Survivor’s guilt?
  • Starting a new life? Gifts from the Magi?
  • Living in Egypt
• Time to go home
  • More dreams.
  • Couldn’t return to Bethlehem because of Herod’s son. Ended up in Nazareth.
• Lost in the Temple
  • He’s gone!
    • Where could he be?
    • Did Herod’s son, Archelaus, get him?
    • What were the conversations with Mary like for those three days of searching (four days of him being missing)?
  • Found!
    • He’s in the Temple and amazing people
      • Was this a surprise to Joseph and Mary? Had they already been amazed by him? When did Jesus start to display his knowledge and come into his mental maturity?
    • How inadequate did Joseph feel in raising your son?
• Presumed dead
  • Sad that Joseph wasn’t around to comfort and help Mary during Jesus’s ministry.
    • Brothers and sisters seem to have been a hinderance
    • Would Joseph have been a hinderance too?

Father, there is so much for me to learn from Joseph. The least of which is that he, ultimately, considered his life nothing to him, even before his angel visit. He made a huge sacrifice just in his decision to divorce her quietly. I was just reminded of the scene in the first Captain American: The First Avenger movie when Steve Rogers, before the super serum, throws himself on a grenade to save everyone else, revealing the character the doctor was looking for in the man who would get this great power. That’s Joseph. Before you have him this great responsibility, even then, we are allowed to see his amazing character. Oh, Father, help me to be a man like that.

I pray this in Jesus and with your Holy Spirit,

Amen