Dec. 22, 2019 4th Sunday Advent A
Dec. 22, 2019 4th Sunday Advent A
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| Mary’s Well, Nazareth, Israel |
It is said that in a small town everybody knows everybody’s business. And if they do not know, then people feel free to offer an educated guess. In a small town of 5,000 in the Ozarks area of Missouri, people used to gather every morning in a cafe to discuss over coffee, the weather, politics, and their neighbors’ business. Since the arrival of social media, however, the town folks have moved the conversations from the small cafe table to an online forum to write and comment surprisingly negative posts about one another under the anonymity of the internet. The character assassinations in these posts have caused much consternation in the town; the rumor mill on this social media site has caused fights, divorces, and mudslinging.
It is estimated that Nazareth, the town in which Joseph and Mary lived, had only 400 inhabitants. Can you imagine what kind of rumor mill went around the town when a newly betrothed young woman was pregnant even before she lived with her fiance under the same roof? “Did you hear? Mary is pregnant! Joseph and Mary aren’t even officially married yet… I heard that Joseph is not even the father. How could she do that to him? I wonder who the father of the child is? What a disgrace!”
We cannot imagine the turmoil Joseph suffered interiorly and exteriorly. Perhaps he heard the whispers and saw the looks of his fellow town folk and relatives. He may have been advised by others to see his predicament in a practical, worldly way; Mary was a party to a scandalous pregnancy, and Joseph needed to act swiftly to condemn her as the law prescribed. He himself may have thought about all the reasons why he should walk away from this relationship. Yet, that’s not how Joseph made his decision. He was a man of prayer and integrity. He needed time to ponder, wrestle, and discern God’s way through the situation.
How do we make decision in a difficult situation? Do we pause, ponder, and wrestle with God about the situation? Do we have the capacity to will what’s best for the other, even when we get hurt by the very same person? In Joseph we have a model for making decisions and dealing with doubts. Because he cared about the welfare and safety of Mary, Joseph decided to be kind and sensitive towards Mary and divorce her in secret. In this way she would escape the shame and even death by stoning.
This was Joseph’s plan, but in a dream at night God intervened and invited Joseph to revise his original intention. In the night of faith, Joseph entrusted himself to God who was revealing something that he could not plainly see during the daytime. Through his faith, he was able to believe in what Mary and the angel told him about the extraordinary pregnancy and the child. Like Mary, Joseph said ‘yes’ to the will of God even though he did not understand. He abandoned himself to God and let go of his need to maintain his reputation and standing in his community. He emptied himself of his own plan of what his marriage to Mary should look like. He let go of trusting his own self and instead placed his trust in God. He understood his God-given purpose--to protect, nourish, and provide for Mary and her child. Joseph loved Mary so much that he suppressed his doubts about her chastity to allow himself to be regarded as the father of her child.
In Joseph we see how we should greet changes and surprising stages of our lives. It is easy to be swept up by the voices that prompt fear of the unknown and doubts about our future. All the more we should cultivate our sensitivity to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, ready to obey and respond to what the Holy Spirit might suggest. Emmanuel--’God is with us’--in every stage of our lives. There is never an instance when God is not with us. If we are faced with difficult and doubtful circumstances, let us pray, ponder, and accept directions from God rather than relying on wordly suggestions.
