Joseph of Nazareth
Joseph, earthly father of
Jesus the Christ, was quiet Jewish man in 1st century Palestine, and was a
direct descendant from David. He was a righteous and gracious man who kept the
laws of Judaism. God honored Joseph's integrity by entrusting him with a great
responsibility of being the earthly father of Jesus. He was a builder by trade,
and often had to travel to get jobs, however, since King Herod, was one of the
supreme builders of the ancient world, had built or redesigned many of the
cities in his kingdom, there was always sufficient work. Thus, the building
trade was remarkably good.
Highly respected in his community, Joseph was
a man of meager means but, nonetheless, he was an honorable and faithful man. He
was betrothed in the
traditional way to marry a young girl he’d known since childhood. Mary, his
betrothal, was happy with the arrangement, and they both expected to have a
conventional, and enjoyable life.
BUT, something happened. Something unexplainable, something
unforeseen and unpredictable transpired. Mary became pregnant. She was a
virtuous girl without any previous hint of scandal, so Joseph was perplexed;
there just seemed no understandable and palpable explanation. When Joseph found
out about Mary's pregnancy, he must not have believed that she was pregnant by
the Holy Spirit but that she had been unfaithful to him. Even though they were
engaged and not married, to break up the relationship, Joseph would have had to
divorce Mary. In fact, adultery in engagement was even punishable by death in
some cases! Joseph did not want to disgrace Mary, so he planned to divorce her
in private. This only needed two witnesses rather than going through the Jewish
courts and no formal grounds needed to be given for the divorce.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a
dream and said,
"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. She
will give birth to a son, and
you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will
save his people from their sins."
All this took place to fulfil what the
Lord had said through the prophet:
'The virgin will be with child and will give birth to
a son, and they will
call him Immanuel' - which means, 'God with us.'
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel
of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave
birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
Having a vision in a dream from God was a sign of God's approval, so this would have made Joseph pay attention and do what the angel had said!
We're not told who the angel was, but it could well have been Gabriel, who is God's chief messenger angel.
......to be continued
Playwright Janet Irene Thomas
Founder/CEO
Bible Stories Theatre of
Fine & Performing Arts
www.biblestoriestheatre.org
No comments:
Post a Comment