Joseph: Believing in Hope

My good friend Gil Ott is a Vietnam Veteran. He spent most of his time in the jungles of Vietnam. It was a living nightmare for him. He spent all of his time in Vietnam high on drugs. He lost over half of his platoon. The fighting in the jungle was brutal. It was total chaos and darkness.

One night, Gil was fighting the Viet Cong, just shooting his machine gun into the darkness like a madman, over and over again. He had no idea where the enemy was, but he was firing madly all around. And then, for reasons he never understood, he just stopped.

There was total silence. He saw the new rays of the morning sun filter through the leaves of the trees. He felt this incomprehensible peace.

And then the fighting resumed again and he began shooting like crazy again and the madness returned. But he never forgot that moment, when the light came. He had touched peace just as the sun had risen.

I want to talk to you tonight about someone who is often overlooked in the Christmas story. Without this man, Mary would have been stoned to death or cast out of her village. Without this man, the child who was the Christ would probably not have survived. History as we know it would have been completely different. I want us to look deeply tonight at the man who was Joseph and into the battle that must have raged on in his mind.

Joseph was a carpenter by trade. He would have studied and apprenticed another carpenter, perhaps his father. It would have taken Joseph years to establish his own practice, to gain the confidence of the people of Nazareth. He would have been much older than Mary by the time he was able to take a wife. He would have waited until he could support her, until he could make enough for them to eat, until he had a home of his own. Getting married was one of the greatest milestones in life. It was the mark of a man.

Joseph would have seen Mary in the village but he would not have spoken to her. A man did not speak to a woman who was not his wife or relative. But he would have seen the young girl as she grew up. He would have seen her going to the well for water, walking with the other women. And he would have decided that she would be a good wife.

How did Joseph find out that Mary was pregnant? Did her father tell him? Did he hear it in the village? Was it obvious because she was already showing?

Can you imagine the humiliation? This was the woman he had chosen and someone had violated her. Someone had ruined her. A woman back in this time was not considered a person in her own right but was considered a vessel for the purpose of bearing children. Mary was Joseph’s property! It was the ultimate insult to Joseph’s manhood, all his careful plans ruined. Was he angry? He must have felt such shame.

But Joseph was a gentle man. He did not rage. I think that Joseph must have loved Mary even before they were to be married, for when he discovers that she is pregnant, he wants to “dismiss her quietly”, hoping that by not publicly shunning her, he would save her life.

What sadness and humiliation to cast aside the woman he planned to marry! Someone had violated her. The purity of a woman was vital in those days. How else could a man know that the children she bore were his own? She was no longer viable, no longer an option as a wife.

Did people make fun of him? Feel sorry for him? They must have told him to move on, to let her go. Who wants a woman who is unfaithful? Women were killed for such things. They were considered lower than the animals. Can you imagine the gossip in a village the size of Nazareth, where everyone knew everyone? It must have been the talk of the town. The scandal of the day. The ruin of a young woman. The shame of a young man.

Joseph’s mind must have been in turmoil. He must have been so worried and upset. I believe that this must have been why the angel appeared to him when he was asleep. That was the only way for the angel to get Joseph’s full attention, for he must have been too upset to open his mind to God while he was awake.

In the dream, the angel calls him by name and tells him that Mary has had a child by the Holy Spirit. Take her as your wife, the angel says. She will bear a son and you will call him Jesus.

When Joseph awakens, he has a choice to make.

Do what everyone tells him to do. Do what will save his reputation. Do what seems reasonable. Do what everyone would do.

Or believe in a dream. Believe in a hope. Believe that God is really in charge even when everyone is telling you that Mary is a whore. Believe that God has a plan for you that may seem crazy to everyone else. And trust in the goodness of a young woman.

Joseph chose to trust his dream and his choice changed everything. Because of his choice, Christ was born into the world. Without this man’s choice to believe in the goodness of God and of this young woman Mary, our world would not have been the same.

The world is full of darkness. All of us feel as crazy sometimes as my friend Gil, fighting everything, worrying about everything- the violence in the world, politics, government, our families, our loved ones, illness, money…We try and try to do what is right and often we just get crazier and crazier, trying to cope with the chaos.

And then every once in a while, the light invites us in. Angels appear out of nowhere and ask us to believe in the goodness of people, in peace, in the possibility that God might love us all despite our mistakes.

My friend Gil spent years drunk or high on drugs after Vietnam. He wanted to die. For years, he hid in the darkness of his despair. But deep down inside, that moment when he had seen the light in the forest would not leave him. Five years after the war ended, Gil wandered into a Quaker Meeting and he found the peace that he had touched so many years before that in the jungle. He found hope.

When I met Gil, he was at Yale Divinity School studying to be a Methodist minister. He decided to believe in the light. Despite everything, he decided to try to bring Christ into the world.

On this Christmas night, I ask you to remember Joseph and all those before us who have chosen to find the light in the midst of the darkness. You can bring Christ into the world, you know. You just have to choose to invite him to come. You just have to choose the light. It is up to you. Do you hear me? It is up to you.