Mary and Joseph: A Journey of Faith

Mary and Joseph . . .

Over     the centuries, the story of Christmas has been surrounded by everything that is good and beautiful and appealing to people of all ages and cultures and nations.

It has been given a special day for its remembrance, a day that for many has become the most joyful of the year. It is celebrated, as well it should be, with feasting and singing and dancing, with an exchange of gifts and greeting cards, with family gatherings and the happy reunion of friends. Its influence has extended far beyond that of any other Christian feast, even to those who do not believe in God, much less in a God-Man.

This coming of God among us is told in the Scriptures, and the account is shot through with the supernatural and the miraculous. There are accounts of angels who appear to Mary and Joseph. Scripture tells us of a virginal conception. There is a special calling of both the lowly and the powerful to come and worship the new-born King of the Jews; the shepherds come from their fields and the Wise Men come from far countries. The skies are filled with the angelic choir singing of peace on earth and good will to all man- kind. There is an extraordinary light in the heavens, “the star of Bethlehem,” that leads the Magi (or astrologers or kings) to the place where the Virgin-Mother wrapped the Infant in swaddling clothes and laid Him in a manger.

. . . A Journey of Faith

The angel Gabriel had announced His coming to the Virgin of Nazareth in terms that she clearly understood as Messianic. There was no way that any educated Jewish girl of the time could have misunderstood this message. “He shall be great,” the angel proclaimed, “and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give Him the throne of David his father; He shall rule over the house of Jacob forever and His kingdom shall have no end … This holy offspring of thine shall be known for the Son of God.”

But there is also, in these same Scriptures, the astounding assertion that this Son of God who has come to us amid all this out-burst of the miraculous and the supernatural is, as St. Paul reminds us, “… like us in everything but sin.”

For the story of Christmas also contains some reminders, some foreshadowing, of the Redeemer’s suffering and death. He came to save us, not through power and glory and might, but through meekness and humiliation and obedience to His Father’s will, “even to the death of the Cross.”

His mother and foster-father could see those foreshadowings in the events surrounding His birth. There was the long and tedious journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, some 85 to 90 miles of difficult walking through harsh country. It was a journey they were forced to make at the whim of an earthly ruler, even though they were bringing with them the un-born Lord of heaven and earth.

Mary  . . .

There was the search for adequate and decent quarters for the impending birth of the eternal Word of God. There was the angel’s command to rise in the middle of the night and flee into the foreign land of Egypt, the land where their ancestors and the ancestors of their Child had spent so many years in slavery. And there was, some forty days after the Child’s birth, the prophesy of the elderly Simeon in the temple that “… this Child is destined to bring about the fall of many and the rise of many in Israel; to be a sign which men will refuse to acknowledge.” And he foretold that the Child’s mother would suffer along with Him;  “… as for thy own soul, it shall have a sword to pierce it.”

The    holiness of Mary and Joseph, their love for this Child, did not prevent them from asking questions about Him.

Like us, they must often have wondered, discussing it together; “Of course we know that He is God- made-man; but why must He subject Himself to the weakness and frailty of human nature? Why should He suffer, and allow us to suffer? The Lord can wipe out all suffering with a flick of His hands! Why subject Himself and us to tyrants like Herod, and permit the slaughter of innocent children, when He can obliterate monsters like Herod with a nod of His head? And, why must He grow ’in wisdom and age and strength”? After all, He already knows all things and can do all things!

. . . and Joseph . . .

Questions like these are perfectly normal and natural. They do not spring from a lack of faith; in fact, they presuppose a particularly strong and vibrant faith. Nobody asks questions if they don’t believe in something and care about it deeply. It’s the people without faith who do not question. What they do is abandon all queries about God and life and eternity and give way to the capital sin known as slothfulness; a lack of interest and concern about the things that pertain to salvation.

. . .  Had Questions

It has always been difficult for us human beings to accept both the divinity of Christ and His humanity. Not just divinity and humanity in the abstract; any philosopher can do that. But what we have in Christ our Lord is the fulness of the divine in a human nature that subjects itself to weakness and suffering. Christ did not take on the perfect human nature that was presumably given to Adam and Eve in the beginning.

He permitted Himself to suffer some of the effects of their sin; fatigue, hunger and thirst, the capacity for pain, suffering and even death itself.

This was something that Mary and Joseph had to learn from their share in the Christmas story. Their journey through life was like their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem. It was a pilgrimage of faith, a faith that only gradually grew to perfection.  That faith of theirs is an important part of the story of Christmas, a part that we too often overlook. As we kneel in homage before the Christmas crib, as we look at Mary and Joseph and the shepherds and Wise Men, let us offer a prayer that we may share the faith of Joseph and Mary and come to see Christ our Lord as they saw Him; the Light of the world, full of grace and truth.