Session One: St Joseph in the New Testament – Jesus’ Birth

I think it’s interesting that when you come to look at people in the New Testament, it is often surprising how little there is in scripture. Sometimes it seems that the stories of key people are just glossed over, and they find themselves barely mentioned.
Of course, the New Testament is not that long. The important message from the Gospels is the Good News of our saviour, Jesus – so some other people do tend to play “bit parts”, “supporting roles” along the way.
St Joseph is just one of these people.
And indeed, despite there not being a great deal written in scripture about Joseph, he is one of the more popular saints.
His saint day is celebrated on March 19th. The Roman Catholic church also celebrates him as St Joseph the Worker on May 1st, as an example to all of us in our daily work.
He is the patron saint of many things – among them:
• Families
• Expectant mothers
• Immigrants
• Craftsmen, and
• Engineers
He is also the patron saint of a number of countries, including:
• Mexico
• China
• Belgium
• Korea, and
• Austria
He clearly is a very popular figure!

I should say here that St Joseph is a personal favourite of mine. When I was young, I went to a church school, and we would often be taught the stories of the saints, using their lives up as particular examples that we could learn from.
This is something that I have continued to find interesting – and as an adoptive father myself, I have found the life of St Joseph inspiring.
I have a statue of a dreaming St Joseph next to my bed. It is a tradition to place notes of particular prayers and petitions under a statue of a sleeping St Joseph, in the hope that he will intercede with God on our behalf.

So, if I were to ask you what you knew about Joseph, what would you say?:
• He was the husband of Jesus’ mother Mary
• He was Jesus’ earthly father, his adoptive father on earth
• He was a carpenter
But I wonder what more there is to know….

Of course the natural place to look is in the Gospel narratives and see what they have to say about him.
Joseph is mentioned in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, particularly when dealing with the story of Jesus’ birth. Mark doesn’t mention him as he dives into Jesus’ story much later, with an adult Jesus being baptised by his cousin John the Baptist.
The Gospels also stress the lineage of Joseph (Matthew 1 and Luke 2) – as a descendant of King David. This is important because Jewish tradition and prophecy made it clear that the Messiah would come from the line of David. Stressing this connection for Joseph, placed Jesus as a descendant of this line.
This clearly gives Joseph an important position as Jesus earthly father. This is also shown in two places in John’s gospel where Jesus is referred to as the son of Joseph.

Let’s look at the circumstances of Jesus’ birth.
In Matthew’s gospel we learn that Mary had been promised to Joseph, except that the marriage had not taken place yet. In Jewish custom, betrothal was a form of engagement; the marriage vows were spoken at the betrothal, which made it more binding than what we would call an engagement today and could only be broken by divorce.
Custom also stipulated that the couple did not consummate marriage until after the wedding ceremony, and any unfaithfulness by the betrothed was treated as adultery and was punishable by death according to Jewish Law.
It was during this betrothal period that Mary found out that she was pregnant.
Luke begins with the Annunciation to Mary at Nazareth, where the angel Gabriel tells the young Mary that she is going to have a child by God. Now, not surprisingly, this is all rather overwhelming, so she leaves Nazareth to see her cousin Elisabeth in Judah and stays there for three months. (Luke 1:26-38) before returning home.

I think we can assume that Joseph had stayed in Nazareth. He was probably confused as to why Mary has left so suddenly. Of course, this would have all become very clear when the pregnant Mary returned home three months later.
This leaves Joseph in a moral dilemma no doubt very well aware of the consequences.
This situation was scandalous for its time, but what should he do?
And here we start to see the character of Joseph. Rather than make a spectacle of Mary, and to spare her the embarrassment and public disgrace that would attach to her, he decides to privately divorce her.
But before he has a chance to do that it was Joseph’s time to receive a message from an angel. Matthew tells us that in a dream,
“an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save people from their sins.’” (Matthew 1:20-21).

Here, we see some of the reason that God chose Joseph to be Jesus’ earthly father. He received this command and an explanation, and, without questioning, follows these instructions.
There is none of the doubt that Zacharias, John the Baptist’s father showed. Joseph just followed with quiet faith and obedience, married Mary and made sure the baby would be called Jesus.

So, this brings us to the end of our first session about St Joseph. I wonder what strikes you most about the story so far. It interesting to look at the birth of Jesus from Joseph’s point of view – rather than the point of view of Mary.

Before we move onto the next session, here a few questions to discuss and think about.
• Were you surprised by anything in these accounts?
• What sort of picture of Joseph do you have? What do these stories of Jesus’ birth tell us about Joseph’s character?
• Are there things missing that you would expect to be there?
• What does it tell you about Joseph as a father figure?
• How would you react to the circumstances that Joseph faced?
In our next session, we will move on to look at what the Bible tells about Joseph after the birth stories of Jesus.