Joseph: (at table with tea mug)
I had the wildest and weirdest dream last night. It was so clear and vivid that it is almost like it wasn’t a dream, but actually happened. What is it saying to me?
So often I don’t remember my dreams. I wake up and know the dream was there, it is on the tip of my memory, but it slips away like sand through my hands. Just disappears. All I am left with are the emotions I was feeling in my dream, and no matter how much I try, I can’t bring back the content. But this was different. I know there was an angel and a message and I moved through the dream from utter fear to a strange sense of calmness.
I haven’t been sleeping well lately. Maybe that’s why. Too much on my mind. Too many fears. Too many decisions to make. It’s all about Mary and what to do now, given our ‘situation.’ Mary, how I love her… but what to do. The plan was so simple, so straightforward. I have known about Mary and her family since we were kids running around the neighbourhood. She was always the quite one, the sharp one, the one who when she did speak knew just what to say in a situation, and with a maturity well beyond her years – a kind of wisdom that always impressed me, like she was pondering things in her heart. She had such integrity. I always liked her, and now we were getting serious. We had taken the proper steps before a few witnesses to get engaged, to prepare to be married. We were about to tell the broader family and make the announcements. They called it betrothed, that year where we would start to use the names husband and wife, but before the wedding itself and celebration with all of our families, when we would start to live together in our own place. These things have an order and an expected pattern.
But then I find out she is with child. I couldn’t believe it! I was angry, disgusted … sad, forlorn, empty. This puts a wrench into everything. I don’t know what to do? What choice do I have? The obvious choice, the wise choice, the proper choice, is to simply get a certificate of divorce, on the down low – keep it quiet. Don’t ruffle too many feathers. But inevitably people would find out. It’s hard to hide a pregnancy! People would ask questions. She would take the blame. And who knows the consequences, the public shaming. She would become a public pariah. I’ve heard that in some places, it can even lead to a stoning for adultery. I can’t let that happen, not to Mary. But… But…
We had dreams too you know. I’ve always been a bit of a dreamer. Maybe that’s why I had this vivid dream last night. It’s probably because of my name sake – that famous Joseph from the Scriptures. He was a dreamer too, with his colourful Dreamcoat, and his strange and wonderful dreams about his family, his country and beyond. I wish I could interpret dreams like he did. Then maybe I would know what to do. Of course, his dreams did get him into all sorts of trouble. His family turned against him. He ended up in jail, with accusations from Potipher’s wife. His integrity was challenged. His life turned upside down… Maybe I have more in common with that Joseph than I even thought. We’re both dreamers. Being a dreamer doesn’t guarantee a dream life, that’s for sure.
Hmm…. What would Joseph do? When it came down to it, even when things looked the most dire, when the future was totally blurry, Joseph kept on trusting Yahweh, kept trusting a larger dream that only God knows… Maybe I need to trust that dream from last night. But that’s crazy… The angel told me not to be afraid. And to take Mary as my wife. To name the child Emmanuel – God with us.
I think I’m going to be a Father.
Joseph (wearing a tool belt)
Who knew that dreams could turn into nightmares. I can’t believe how innocent and un-prepared Mary and I were. It seems like a lifetime ago. All that debating I did about what to do with Mary being pregnant. That hardly matters anymore. There were soon so many much bigger issues to deal with. I knew from the moment that baby was born, that he was ours, that my love for him, and for Mary, was bigger and more expansive than anything I could ever have imagined, and that I would go to any length to comfort and protect that baby.
I figured my dreaming was over, but then there were more dreams – 3 more in fact. When the baby was born, all we wanted to do was return home from our journey to Bethlehem and the census and start caring for this baby, watching him grow, eat his first solid foods, take his first tentative steps, and keep warming his way into our hearts. Who knew it would take several years to arrive back here to Nazareth. It was just after the remarkable visit by those travelling Magi, that I had another vivid dream, and this time the angel was not smiling and spoke with an urgency I had never seen before. ‘Get up, take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.’
Destroy him. No way I was gong to let that happen! We snuck away that very night, and none too soon from what we heard later with Herod’s brutal purge. I can’t even go there – it was unimaginable terror. Every time I see a mother now, about Mary’s age, I wonder, was she one of them that lost her baby. I can see it in the bloodshot eyes, even now. There is no consolation, no getting over – only weeping, wailing, loud lamentations – refusing to be consoled. It is like our ancestor Rachel, who died giving birth to Benjamin. She called him Benoni as she took her last breaths, meaning Son of my sorrow. Rachel cried out from the grave in the time of the prophet Jeremiah, so many children died then too with the exile, with the conditions of a foreign land. Rachel has certainly been crying out now.
Exile. Displacement. Always longing for safety. Never really having a home. That has been our people’s story so often. For Mary and I, it was escape to Egypt, back to that place of both refuge and slavery for our people. It was my name’s sake Jospeh that brought our people there. Egypt was our saviour. But nothing stays the same. No place is forever safe. Egypt was also our captor, from whom we needed to escape under Moses. It was now our place of safety too for Mary and I, even as we knew it was never home. We were called names – foreigner, migrant, illegals – go back from where you came from. Go far enough back, and this is where we came from. It was an uneasy life to start raising a son.
Then there was that third dream, and not too long after, a fourth. ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ We get back, but nothing is the same. And there is a new threat, Herod’s son Archelaus, who is just as brutal. That final dream confirmed to me that we shouldn’t stop until we got here, in this out of the way, back country of Nazareth. Maybe now we can finally be safe, and feel at home, raise a child without always looking over our shoulders.
I am going to teach him carpentry, like my whole family line before me. These are practical skills, but also something of beauty – to do the slow behind the scenes labour of working with wood, which is so solid and yet so forgiving. To work with your hands. To build things up. It is time to lay low. He can be with me in my shop, tucked away from the world to ever find him. Secure. Sheltered. Protected. Safe! No more nightmares. No more dreams.
But try as I might, that first dream keeps seeping into my mind, that dream that seems so long ago, the promise of a Son. We were to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins… Something tells me that he will become more than a carpenter.