ADVENT IV 2019

The Virgin Mary -- Sorollo (1897)

• Isaiah 7:10-16  • 
• Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19  • 
• Romans 1:1-7  • 
• Matthew 1:18-25​

​The readings for this week form a very obvious bridge between Advent and Christmas. The Gospel begins the story of Christ’s Nativity, a story that will unfold more fully in longer readings on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, through Epiphany (Jan 6th) and concluding on Candlemas (Feb 2nd). At the same time, short though it is, this Gospel passage also looks back to the ancient promise of a Messiah. It quotes directly from the prophet Isaiah in the famous passage that provides the Old Testament lesson for this Sunday.

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Since we are not yet in the season of Christmas, we hear only the start of the story. Yet this brief episode does something very special. It enables us, unusually, to focus on the distinctive role of Joseph in God’s salvation history. Jesus owes his humanity, as well as his Jewish identity, to his earthly mother Mary, and accordingly, she has had a widely acknowledged theological role in the mystery of the Incarnation. In a quite different way, however, Joseph too has a key part to play, because he, no less than Mary, could have accepted or rejected it.

St Joseph and the Christ Child -- El Greco

Nowadays, single parents and unmarried mothers are a thoroughly familiar part of life, and while some people still disapprove, the majority take illegitimacy in their stride. One consequence of this is that it requires real imaginative effort to appreciate the impact of Mary’s highly unorthodox pregnancy in a culture so different to our own. At the annunciation, Mary memorably says ‘be it unto me according to your word’. There is undoubtedly great courage and deep faith revealed in this. Yet it is matched by Joseph’s response. Confronted with such socially devastating news, it would be natural for the ‘betrothed’ to feel intense personal rejection as well as moral affront. And Joseph had to face this further prospect -- acute embarrassment, and ridicule from his contemporaries.

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​All along, close at hand, there was an easy, socially approved solution – ‘to dismiss her quietly’, a response that would have been regarded, the Gospel says, as the action of ‘the righteous man’. The angelic voice in the dream tells Joseph to do otherwise. Still, it relies on his having the spiritual insight and moral courage to accept such advice. When he does, his reward is to be given the task of naming the baby, and thus accorded parental status. As it turns out, many years later, this is no small reward. In this week’s Epistle, Paul declares to the Christians at Rome that their whole calling – like ours – is ‘for the sake of that name’. And at the name of Jesus, he tells us elsewhere, every knee shall bow. Each time we do so, we have good reason to remember Joseph.