We hear today the Gospel from the holy Evangelist Saint Matthew, which reminds us of Our Lord’s return from Egypt to Nazareth. Because of this, it seems fitting to reflect today on a great Saint who is one of the main characters in the events of Our Lord Jesus Christ’s nativity, including what we just heard, yet who seems nearly forgotten amid the unspeakable glory of the Eternal Word of the God taking human flesh from His mother, Blessed Mary Ever-Virgin. And that great Saint is Joseph. It has been pointed out by a contemporary Anglican bishop that while the amount of spiritual literature about Virgin Mother Mary would fill a decently sized library, the amount of literature about Joseph might fit on a postcard. That is not as much of an overstatement as it might seem. So let us endeavor to paint a simple portrait of Joseph, that we might see Christ’s glory in him.

This Joseph, the husband of Mary, is described by Saint Matthew as “being a just man.” This is but a few words. Yet in the context of Holy Scripture and Holy Tradition, they are quite weighty. The great Church Father S. John Chrysostom wrote about this description of Joseph in this way: “By a just man in this place Matthew means him that is ‘virtuous in all things.’” That is very high praise: not virtuous in some things; not virtuous in many things; rather Joseph is virtuous in all things. To paint more lines in this portrait of Joseph, let us compare Joseph being called “just” with the scriptural person of Job. There, the word “just” is used to describe Job. About Job we find the Hebrew word for “just” is translated into English as “blameless and upright.”

Joseph, in being just, is therefore rightly understood to be blameless and upright. This means he is full of integrity with a high sense of morality, fairness, ethical correctness and righteousness in conduct. As Job is described as fearing God and shunning evil, so is Joseph. As Job is described as a man of prayer, worship, and compassion, so is Joseph. All of this is to understand Joseph as a “mensch,” which is a Yiddish word that means everything we have said thus far. It is among the highest of compliments in Yiddish.

This is important because it is sometimes the case that in reading Matthew’s account of the early days of Mary’s pregnancy – when he writes that “When Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame resolved to send her away quietly”—there are some who interpret this as Joseph believing Mary to have committed adultery and selfishly wanting to distance himself from Mary to save his own reputation. But such a view cannot be true if one understands Joseph to be a just man. Joseph is blameless and upright, having a high sense of morality, ethical correctness, and all the rest I said a moment ago—no, that is not what is going on with Joseph at all.

And here a great detail often overlooked: that when Joseph found out that Mary was pregnant, he at the same time found out that God is the cause of her pregnancy: “she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit.” Knowing this, our portrait of Joseph sees him as totally focused on how to follow God’s will; and while the angel Gabriel did speak to Joseph and give him instructions as to how to proceed, Joseph’s immediate impulse holy and just: it was to protect the reputation of Mary and her integrity, because in ancient Jewish society, women becoming pregnant before marriage means deep shame and scorn upon that woman and her being shunned, not allowing her to be part of the worshipping community.

We must notice as well the high sense of obedience that Joseph displays. Obedience means both to follow the commandments of God, and even in the deeper sense, to listen to God. In all moments Joseph is described in the Gospel, he never disbelieved God’s message about Mary, and he responded fully and completely to Gabriel’s guidance given to him, both in the moment I just described, and in the moment we heard in our Gospel passage today. Gabriel, speaking for the Holy Spirit, said, “Rise, and take the child and His mother, and go to the land of Israel.” In perfect obedience, Matthew says about Joseph that “He rose and took the child and His mother, and went to the land of Israel.” And then Gabriel spoke again in a dream to warn Joseph away from Judea and towards Galilee, the city of Nazareth. Joseph’s perfect obedience protected and guarded Mary and her Holy Child Jesus.

Having painted a holy picture of Joseph already, I want to complete this portrait by sharing what another Church Father, the Venerable S. Bede, has to say about Joseph. Bede calls Joseph symbolic of spiritual teachers; he does so as a kind of aside during his commentary on the infancy narrative in the Gospel of Luke. Bede writes that that when the Shepherds who watched their flock by night themselves were obedient to God to look for the Holy Child and entered Bethlehem, in finding the holy family, the Shepherds found Mary as the symbol of the virginal beauty of the Church; and they found Joseph as the symbol of spiritual teachers. And of course Joseph is a spiritual teacher, because of what he had experienced of God’s actions in and through Mary, and even more so, that Joseph had experienced so much of God’s actions in and through Jesus Christ. His whole being – body, mind, and soul – was drenched in the power of the Holy Spirit, in ways we must call both transformative and mystical.

It is for all these reasons that within the life of the Church, Joseph is held up as a model. And in fact he is seen as a model in several ways. He is the model man, a man who follows Christ; he is the model husband, for his devotion to Mary; he is the model father, who helped bring through childhood and into adulthood He through Whom all things are made; and by extension, relating to Holy Order, he is both the model priest and the model bishop, for his life of holy sacrifice, witness to Christ, and guardianship of the the Church which was the Holy Family. Other than Mary, no one experienced the mystery of Christ’s Nativity and early life as profoundly as Joseph did. All of Joseph’s moments with Jesus and Mary were fully sanctified, fully holy, fully mystical. God wished to entrust the beginnings of our redemption to the faithful care of Saint Joseph. And for this we must marvel and venerate Saint Joseph.

Let us ask the intercession of S. Joseph that may we cooperate in the work of salvation with the same faithfulness and purity of heart that inspired him in serving the Incarnate Word, and we may walk before God in the ways of holiness and justice, through the example and intercession of Saint Joseph; that like him, we all may be made worthy to receive the promises of Jesus Christ, Who lives and reigns with the Father in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever one God, world without end. Amen.

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