Genevieve Simms
Another look at the original Father Christmas
He stares across the floor of the hot room watching as the three visitors leave to rejoin their desert entourage outside once more. Although he had not understood their exact words during the previous hour — their tongue was foreign to his ears — the general meaning was clear. Why else would they have presented such lavish gifts of oil spice and precious metal that now lay at his feet? These wise men it seemed much like the herdsmen who had arrived at the foul-smelling stable weeks before truly believed that the infant who now lay asleep in his mother’s arms on the other side of the small room was the son of God.
In holy scripture and popular Christmas nativity tale alike the figure of Joseph occupies a relatively minor position. True support-cast material his job is to listen to others and to allow them to shine on the stage. Mary the archangel Gabriel the three shepherds and three wise men King Herod the innkeeper and even the mute baby Jesus himself all seem to hold the audience’s attention more than the sympathetic but essentially passive Joseph.
This is understandable of course. After all the whole purpose of the nativity tale — as recounted by Matthew and Luke — is to emphasize the divine nature of Jesus. Not just another prophet born into a troubled world but in this case the true Messiah: the Son of God. In such a narrative there can be little room for a man who thanks to angelic revelation has just been reduced to the role of world’s greatest stepfather.
Joseph shakes his head. What is he to do? He’d long wanted a son obviously to learn his trade and to carry on his family’s good name in the city. But rumours about Mary’s illegitimate pregnancy had already begun to spread and although he had quickly married her to nip these sly accusations in the bud his neighbours no longer regarded him in quite the same way. And although he genuinely accepted his wife’s word that she had been with no other man still doubts tugged at Joseph. Could this baby boy ever turn out to be anything but trouble for him?
Yet in many ways Joseph is central to the story of Christianity. After all it is through his lineage — and not Mary’s — that Jesus’s bloodline is traced back to King David and to Abraham father of the Jews (Matthew 1:1-17). Accordingly both Matthew and Luke are keen to emphasize Joseph as Jesus’s legal father (regardless of biological paternity) in order to establish the latter’s place in the unfolding plan of history.
At the same time by accepting Mary’s word and proceeding with their marriage as planned Joseph precludes accusations of adultery being levelled against her or her being found in breach of Jewish law. Matthew’s characterization of Joseph as a “just man” (1:19) hints at his reputation in Nazareth suggesting perhaps that a mere claim to divine paternity might have left Mary a social and economic outcast less able to care for her newly born child.
And it is Joseph not Mary who receives a dream warning him to take his wife and son to Egypt in order to evade Herod’s murderous intentions. Of course this escape triggers Herod’s vengeful massacre of all children in Bethlehem under two years of age possibly Christianity’s first act of enforced martyrdom. Still had Joseph ignored the dream and Jesus been executed as a result Christianity itself would never have been born.
Even the gold frankincense and myrrh are worthless. Joseph dare not take them to the market to trade for such a display of riches would arouse too many questions about the humble carpenter. In any case recent riots against the Roman-imposed census make the market a dangerous place right now. He looks over at the sleeping child once more. His love for the infant is strong but even now — just weeks old — Jesus looks at his father with strangely distant eyes. “Will he ever know me?” Joseph wonders.
Joseph disappears from the Bible shortly after Jesus’s early childhood. We know he fathered at least four other sons and a number of daughters and continued to work as a carpenter. Jesus himself never entered his father’s trade though the parables he would later tell suggest that he had at some point managed to cultivate a certain common touch.
Yet there remains a deafening silence on two key points. First Jesus’s transition from adolescence into adulthood; and second the role played by Joseph in that transition. When we next meet Jesus at the start of his ministry it seems that Joseph is already dead. Is the timing coincidental or did Jesus have to wait for his worldly father to exit before he could openly avow his divine descent?
You don’t have to be Freud to be intrigued by this timing but little has been written on the lingering influence of Joseph on Jesus’s later life. And when Jesus calls out from the cross as death approaches “Father forgive them; for they know not what they do” we’re left to wonder just who those words were aimed at.
