Joseph and Mary: The One Thing We Know

It’s less than a week to Christmas as I write this.  As I think about the Christmas story as given to us in the Bible, it’s always remarkable to me how little we know about Joseph and Mary, and how even some of the things we think we do know are not actually in the Bible.  There seems to be somewhat of a mythology that’s grown up around Joseph and Mary, as if we have a need to fill in the gaps somehow and get a fuller picture of who they were.  In doing so, though, we run the risk of making them who we want them to be rather than who they really were.

For example, you’ll hear it stated as a fact that Mary was very young, a teenager, maybe a young teenager.  That could be, but the Bible doesn’t tell us so.  The Bible says nothing about Mary’s age.  It says nothing about Joseph’s age, either--you’ll hear people say that he was older than Mary, but the Bible does not tell us that, either.  We know nothing about how old either of them were.

You’ll also hear it stated as a fact that Mary and Joseph were poor.  Maybe they were, but again, the Bible does not say so.  The Bible says nothing about their economic status.  They were not out in the stable because they were poor and could not afford a room.  They were there because the small town of Bethlehem was overcrowded due to the census and there were no rooms available.  We know Joseph had a trade--he was a carpenter.  Maybe he made a good living.  Now, had they been rich, they might have been able to offer an innkeeper enough money to kick someone else out and let them have a room instead.  But maybe not--maybe Joseph and Mary were not the sort of people who’d kick someone else out into the cold so they could be comfortable.  We simply don’t know.

There are lots of other things about them we don’t know.  We don’t know if they had siblings.  We don’t know how they were regarded in the community.  We don’t know if they were short or tall, good-looking or plain.  There’s really only one thing we do know about them.  We know that they were people of great faith.  They believed in God.  They trusted God.  And they would do what God wanted them to do.

I suspect that’s the only thing the Bible tells us about Joseph and Mary because that’s the main thing we need to know.  That’s the reason God chose them.  God knew He was asking them to do some really hard things.  Some things that, in human terms, were impossible.  God knew that it would take people of tremendous faith to do those things.  That’s why Joseph and Mary were chosen.  They were not chosen for their age, the economic status, their reputations, their looks, or anything else.  They were chosen because of their incredible faith.

That faith is an example to us.  You and I are called to have that kind of faith.  We’re not likely to be called to do the things that Joseph and Mary did, but we are likely to be called to do some hard things.  Some of you have already had to do hard things, maybe many hard things.  Some of you are doing hard things now.  And some of you will have still more hard things in your future.  So the question is, can we have enough faith to do those hard things.  Can we trust God that much?  Can we trust God enough to face hard things, and follow through with them, even when we don’t want to, even when we don’t understand, even when we don’t know what’s happening or what the outcome can be?  Can we trust God that much?

As we approach Christmas, let’s remember the faith of Joseph and Mary.  And let’s ask God to help us have that kind of faith.