A House and Home for the Son of David

The once great house of David has been reduced to a stump, if even that.  It’s nothing.  It’s nowhere.  No one is looking for a new king from the house of David anymore at this point.  The “City of David” is no longer the great capital of Jerusalem, but the little burg of Bethlehem, where Joseph must travel with his fiancé, who is expecting a Child, but not his own.

Even so, it is from the stump of David that God the Lord now raises up this faithful servant, this quiet, humble, righteous man of faith, St. Joseph.  He is a carpenter, and he will make a house and a home, a shelter and protection for the Lord.  Not in the way that Solomon once did, with his magnificent temple, but a home on the run, in foreign countries and strange places, under constant threat to the life of his little family — that is where St. Joseph will make a home for the Lord Jesus.

With all of that, it is the Lord who is at work in this way to establish a House for His servant David, and a House for His servant, St. Joseph.  And such a House it is, which this man is given.

Do not romanticize the tales at hand.  These stories are full of grandeur, peace, and joy, to be sure.  But consider that Joseph was a man of flesh and blood like your own, a person much like yourself, living in the world with hopes and dreams, expectations, and plans for his future and his family.  Being a carpenter, I fully expect that he was already working on a little place for his new bride and their family, working to lay foundations and to build not only a house but a life together.

But whatever Joseph’s hopes and dreams might have been, they are interrupted and rewritten by the Word of God in extraordinary ways.  He is called to circumstances that are by no means easy.  And look at what he is given to do.  To take this Woman, who is already pregnant; they have not even come together, but here she is, bigger with child every day.  He believes the Word that God has spoken to him, but what about everyone else?  His family already has a reputation, after all.  Tamar.  Rahab.  Ruth, the Moabite.  Bathsheba, the wife of Uriah.  It would seem that Joseph is now following in the footsteps of his fathers, but not quite in the way that anyone would hope.

And yet, in faith, he takes this Woman to be his own wife.  He covers her would-be shame with his honor.  And according to the Word of the Lord, he protects her, he guides her and leads her — and the little One within her womb, then in her arms and at her breast, but always with her.  Over and over, Joseph is directed to care for “the Child with His Mother,” which is to speak of Christ and His Church.  They travel to Bethlehem, and then they must flee to Egypt, and then to Nazareth.

In all of this, Joseph says not a word, none that are recorded in the Scriptures.  He is spoken to, he listens, and he obeys.  He gets up in the middle of the night, as needs be, and he goes wherever the Word of the Lord directs him.  He is the epitome of the strong silent type.

Perhaps you have known men like this.  Perhaps your grandfather was a man like this.  Maybe you are a man like this.  You don’t speak much, but you quietly go about doing whatever the Lord has given you to do.  Such a man was Joseph.  His solid, steady strength was by faith in the Lord.  And his faith was expressed in a ready obedience to the Word of the Lord, whatever it might be, whatever it might require of him and cost him.  Thus were St. Joseph’s entire life, his name and reputation, all bound up with St. Mary and her Child.

In this a way, under such trying and humble circumstances, even humiliating circumstances, he gathers up into himself the history and the story of his far more famous namesake and forebears.

He is another Joseph like the Son of Jacob.  He is Judah and Israel, fleeing into Egypt in order to save their lives.  He is Moses and Joshua, leading the children of Israel back out of Egypt and into the Promised Land.  He is David and Solomon, a descendant of that family to whom the Lord had promised the Messiah, though it is not from him but from St. Mary that the Son of David is given.

Here with St. Joseph, himself a son of David, the story of the Exodus unfolds again, in such a way that it is now imprinted upon the life of the little Lord Jesus.  The Child goes into Egypt, that God might call Him out of Egypt.  He is brought into the Land of Promise, that He might fulfill that promise in His own Body and Life, and bring His people into that Land in and with Himself.

Consider the responsibility that is thus placed into the hands of this quiet and faithful St. Joseph.  He is given charge of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God.  He is entrusted with the duty to protect and provide for the Christ Child, the very Son of God, your Savior, Jesus Christ.

To do all of that is nothing anyone could do or accomplish by any human strength or reason.  Joseph does it, in frailty and weakness, by faith in the Word and promises of God.  And the Lord is faithful in providing for him.  The Lord protect him, and through him protects the Holy Family.

Joseph is a good and faithful husband and father.  And he is a good example to those of you who are husbands and fathers, to those who will be husbands and fathers, and really to each of you.  He does what God has given him to do within his vocation as a child of God, within his stations in life.  And so are you given your own tasks and responsibilities within your own particular stations.

You have no way of knowing the significance and magnitude of the mundane tasks that you are given to carry out in your own place and time.  It does not matter.  St. Joseph knew the promises of God and the hope of the Resurrection in the Christ, the Seed of the Woman, but he certainly had no way of knowing ahead of time how his own part in the story would play itself out.  He acted in faith in doing the work that was set before him by the Word of the Lord, in the confidence that the Lord would accomplish His purposes for him and others.  It is much the same for you, as well.

It is the Lord who has called you to care for the people He has placed alongside you and entrusted to your responsibility and oversight.  He guides and directs you by His Word and Holy Spirit, and by the messengers of His Word who are sent to you in His Name.

The Lord will accomplish His purposes for you and your family, and for your neighbors, as surely as He did in the case of St. Joseph.  Not because of your wisdom and efforts — though He will surely make use of the strengths and abilities He has given you — but all by His grace, by the wisdom of His good and gracious will.

So you live by faith in the promises of God, and you live according to the Word He has spoken.  And He remains the Creator and Preserver of your life, the Author and Perfecter of your faith.

Now, in the case of St. Joseph again, in his particular office and station, he is also a kind of pastor.  For he is entrusted with this Mother, who is an icon of the Church.  He is entrusted with the Christ Child, who is the Savior of the world, that all might become the children of God in Him.

As with any husband and father, Joseph is given to pray with and for his family, to teach them the Word of God, to take them to the Lord’s House, and to exemplify the piety and practice of faith in his words and actions.  Think of that.  St. Joseph taught the Word and faith of God to the little Lord Jesus.  And if you are a husband and father, you are likewise called to care for your wife and children in those same pastoral ways, that they might fear the Lord and walk in His ways by faith.

For all that, in all his faithful service, St. Joseph bore the Cross that was laid upon him, as you also live under the Cross from your Baptism into Christ, even to the end of your life in this world.  He was faced with difficulties and hardships, which he bore by faith in the Word and promises of God, under the same Cross to which you are called and pointed.  That is the Cross of Christ which was already writ large on the horizon at His birth.  The Cross that marks the entire life of our Lord in this fallen world of sin and death.  The Cross that is given to you and all of His disciples.

Of course, it is not your Cross, nor the Cross of St. Joseph, but the Cross of Christ that saves you and redeems you and accomplishes a great salvation for the world, a divine rescue from sin, death, the devil, and hell — and from all the Pharaohs and Herods that tyrannize this poor life of labor.

St. Joseph lived by faith in the Word and promise of God in the Cross of Christ, as you are called to live by faith in the Word and promises of God in Holy Baptism.  God’s Word will not disappoint you.  Your faith and hope in Christ will not be put to shame, no matter how much you are given to suffer on earth.  He will do as He has said and promised, for you as He has done for St. Joseph.

Live, then, as St. Joseph did.  His sights were set on the Seed of the Woman; the Seed of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; the Seed of David, not by Joseph, but by St. Mary.  It is this Seed, the promised One, the long awaited Savior, who saves you and all people by His innocent suffering and death.

It is in God’s time, not man’s.  It is neither Herod nor Pharaoh who ends this story.  It is God who hangs His Son on the Cross.  It is God who raises Him again.  It is in His Resurrection that you also have life everlasting.  It is the Christ Child, conceived and born of Mary, who reigns forever in the House of David, from the throne of His Cross, with love and mercy and forgiveness for you.

Consider that the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ also entrusts you with His Son.  He places Him into your hands, into your mouth, and into your body, within His Holy Christian Church.  And He sets His Son before you in the person of your neighbor, whether that be your wife or husband, your son or daughter, your brother or sister, your coworker, colleague, peer, or student.

In some cases, your neighbor’s life may seem scandalous.  And yet, there is Christ, an opportunity for you to love and serve Him, and thereby to give thanks to your God and Father in heaven.

Yet, again, it is not the crosses that you are given to bear, but the Cross of Christ Himself, the Son of Mary, that saves you.  It is by His forgiveness of your sins that He strengthens and sustains your faith, so that you are able to live within your vocation and stations in life in love for God and your neighbor.  Indeed, it is by His forgiveness of sins that He gives you that life, in and with Himself, and that He now lives in you, even in the face of death.  So is the Word of God fulfilled in you.

And so it is that God also now calls you and brings you out of Egypt into Paradise, in and with His Son, as a beloved child by His grace, bearing His Name forever and ever.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

The Strong Silent Type

The Scriptures tell us that St. Joseph was a righteous man.  That means, first of all, that he shared the faith of father Abraham, and the faith of his father David.  Not only a general sort of optimism or positive attitude, but confident trust in the Word and promises of God.  He believed that, by the Seed of Abraham, God would bless the sons of Israel and all the nations of the world.  And he believed that God, the Lord, would raise up the Seed of David to reign upon His throne forever; notwithstanding that David’s royal line had ceased and been replaced by the Herodian dynasty.

St. Joseph trusted, hope against hope, that the same Lord God who also raises the dead, who calls all things into being out of nothing, and who gave a promised son to Abraham and Sarah when his body and her womb were as good as dead, was in truth the God and Father of St. Mary’s Son; and that He, who was conceived in her by the Holy Spirit, was the Savior of His people: Immanuel.  St. Joseph had faith that it was so, because he believed what God had spoken to him.

By this righteousness of faith, St. Joseph was also humble and obedient, and faithful and just in his actions.  In each of the several situations that Holy Scripture describes, whatever God told him to do, St. Joseph immediately set about doing exactly that.  No arguments, no balking, no excuses, and no questions.  Not a single word from St. Joseph is recorded.  He simply and swiftly gets up and does what God calls him to do: He rises up in faith to serve his family in love.

The specifics of the case, the particular calling and circumstances in which St. Joseph was found, are certainly unique and extraordinary.  The Church remembers and gives thanks for this particular man because of his special place in the life of our Lord Jesus.  In this respect, by the grace and mercies of God, St. Joseph, his faith and life, and his works of love, were taken up into the Gospel itself; because God the Father chose to accomplish His purposes in this way, in giving us His Son.

But, then again, St. Joseph’s calling and circumstances were not so very different from those of any other husband and father; nor did he have anything else to go by than the Word of God.  True, he did receive some special revelations, by the angel of the Lord in his dreams, concerning the specific situations he was in.  So do you also receive the counsel and guidance of the messengers of the Lord within your own office and station in life.  And yet, the underlying basics are simple and straightforward, for you as for St. Joseph; which is not to say easy or painless.

St. Joseph was called to care for his family, for his wife and her Child, who was legally his own.  He was called to be a husband and a father, albeit under difficult and dangerous conditions, and under great duress.  The challenges confronting him were daunting, and at times overwhelming.  What man’s obligations and obstacles are not like that?  But the Lord had told St. Joseph, the son of David, not to be afraid: Not to be afraid to take St. Mary as his wife, and, therefore, not to be afraid of everything else that would go along with being a husband to her and a father to her Son.

Whether or not he felt the emotion of fear at any given point along the way — and given that he was a sinful man of mortal flesh and blood, it is natural to suppose that he did — yet, St. Joseph was also a man of faith, a righteous man, who lived and worked and carried out his vocation faithfully in the fear, love, and trust of God.  He persevered in the confidence of God’s promises.

And the Lord God was faithful, as ever and always, not only in caring for St. Joseph and providing for all his needs in the discharge of his duties, but also in caring for St. Mary and her Child, our dear Lord Jesus Christ, through the agency and means of this man, the carpenter from Nazareth.

Even more than the glorious King Solomon with his impressive Temple in Jerusalem, it is this son of David, St. Joseph, who is given the privilege and responsibility of making a house and a home for the Lord.  It is a fitting task for a carpenter, if one thinks only of the wood and the nails.  But more to the point, it is a father’s task.  Of all the sons of David, it is only St. Joseph who becomes a daddy to the Son of God: Not by the procreation of his own flesh and blood, but by the Word and will of God the Father in heaven, and by deeds of faith and love as a father on earth: by taking the pregnant Blessed Virgin Mary to be his wife, and by taking the legal responsibility for her Son.

So, think about what that means, for St. Joseph to be a father to Jesus on earth.  It means that he takes care of Jesus, and provides for Him, and protects Him, as every dad should do for any of his children, whether begotten or adopted.  It means, too, that St. Joseph teaches Jesus the Word of God, and how to pray, and takes Him to the synagogue and to the Temple, to worship the Lord; for so do the Holy Scriptures require of a father for his sons and daughters.

In its own way, this work of St. Joseph in being a father to Jesus is no less amazing, and no less important, than the fact that St. Mary became the Mother of God.  The Church rightly marvels that the Lord of all, the Creator and Upholder of the universe, was conceived and born of a woman, and that He who feeds the entire world with daily bread depended on His Mother for nourishment.  Such is the great Mystery of the Incarnation!  But so does He also live and grow and learn and develop as true Man, and, throughout His boyhood years, St. Joseph was instrumental in all that.

When the Boy Jesus is twelve years old, it is St. Joseph who takes the Holy Family up to Jerusalem for the Passover.  At that time, when Jesus has reached the age of maturity in Jewish tradition, there is a transition already at work, pulling Him away from His human parents to be about the work of His Father in heaven.  Even then, He submits to them, and to their authority, in accordance with the Fourth Commandment; because they are, in legal fact, His father and His mother on earth.

All the more striking, in the Holy Gospel for this festival day, when the little Lord Jesus is but a Babe in arms, He is entirely passive throughout.  He does not do or say anything, but is carried about and cared for by St. Mary and St. Joseph.  For though He is the almighty and eternal Son of God, by whom all things are made, He is also now a truly human Infant, and His life, as such, is like that of any other Baby in the world.

The Son of God humbled Himself to share the predicament of fallen man, but, even aside from the curse of sin and death, infants and toddlers are fully dependent on their parents, and so now is He.  In this way, too, He lives as true Man — in the way that Man was created to live — by faith in His God and Father in heaven — by relying on the parents God has provided for Him, for everything.

He becomes true Man in every way, save only without any sins of His own, in order to save His people from their sins.  He takes their place, not only to suffer the punishment of all their sins, but also to fulfill and satisfy the Law on their behalf.  He thereby lives vicariously, for them, and for all people, including each and all of you, in the way that everyone is called to live, but everyone else has failed to do.  He alone does it.  So that is why He is taken into Egypt: Not simply to escape the murderous wrath of Herod, but to relive the time of Israel in Egypt, and then also the Exodus.

In all of this, He is actively the Savior of His people, and of all the nations of the world: from Babylon and Persia in the east, to Egypt in the west; from Bethlehem of Judea in the south, to Nazareth of Galilee in the north; from Jerusalem to Rome, and even to the ends of the earth.  But His active obedience begins with the active passivity of quiet faith and trust in His God and Father.

From His Mother’s womb, to His crucifixion, death, and burial, the Lord Jesus is the Son of David after His Father’s heart.  Certainly, He truly is the Man after God’s own heart; for He is the Son of God from all eternity, of one Substance with the Father, and His human heart and mind, soul and spirit, are always in complete and utter harmony and unity with the divine Will.  So, too, in perfect faith, the Lord Jesus Christ walks in the ways of father David, that is, in the righteousness of David’s faith; although, of course, great David’s greater Son surpasses him, overcoming all temptations, and not committing any sins, but atoning for the sins of father David and all others.

But Jesus of Nazareth is also a Man after the faithful heart of His foster father, St. Joseph, and, in view of the Incarnation, that is not to be overlooked or taken lightly.

As St. Joseph is set before you, in the Holy Scriptures, and by the Church on this particular day, to serve as an example to you, to encourage you in faith and love, so was he also an example to the little Lord Jesus, as He was growing from infancy to manhood, increasing in wisdom and stature.  That is no dishonor to Christ Jesus, our Savior, but a testimony to His faith and life as true Man, that He learned from St. Joseph, from that father’s catechesis in the home, and from the example of that righteous man’s holy faith and works of love.

Dare we say that, as true Man, growing up, the heavenly Bridegroom of the Church first observed and began to learn what it means to be a husband, in the faithful care of St. Joseph for St. Mary.

To be sure, the righteousness of faith that Jesus saw exemplified in St. Joseph, He Himself — and He alone — has fulfilled and completed to perfection: By His life of humble obedience; by His death upon the Cross, in faith toward God and in love for all mankind; and in His Resurrection from the dead, as the Firstfruits of the New Creation.

Not St. Joseph, nor St. Mary, nor any other creature in heaven or on earth could do these things, which Christ Jesus our Lord has done, for the salvation of the world, and for all the people of all times and places.

Whereas St. Joseph was given the privilege of giving the Child of St. Mary the blessed Name of “Jesus,” there is yet no other Name under heaven, given among men, by which anyone is saved.  St. Joseph and St. Mary are instruments of God in giving us this precious Gift, but the Child Jesus has become our Strength and our Song, because He has become our Salvation.

Whereas St. Joseph was the carpenter, the husband and the dad, who made a house and home for the Child with His Mother here on earth, it is the Lord Jesus Christ, the promised Seed of David, who has become the true House of God in His own flesh and blood; whose crucified and risen Body is the Temple of God among men, in heaven and on earth, both now and forever and ever.

Whereas St. Joseph took care of his home and his family, as a good husband and father should do, the Lord Jesus is the new and greater Carpenter from Nazareth, who, by His innocent suffering and death, and in His Resurrection from the dead, has become the Cornerstone of His Church.  By the washing of water with His Word, He has cleansed and sanctified His Church, and has taken her to be His holy Bride, adorned in His own perfect righteousness.  By His Word and Holy Spirit, He conceives and gives birth in her to the children of God; He cares for them, feeds and shelters them, and provides for all their needs of body and soul, by the free gifts of His Gospel.  Upon the Holy Ministry of that Gospel, as upon a solid Rock, He has built His Church to stand fast and strong; not only against the murderous wrath of mortal princes like Herod, but against the gates of hell.

The Lord called St. Joseph to care for the Child Jesus, with His Mother, and through St. Joseph God the Father Himself took care of that precious Holy Family.  It is truly meet, right, and salutary that we should give Him thanks and praise for this grace and mercy of His, and so also for His gift of St. Joseph himself.  That righteous man of faith is a good example for all of us Christians, and for husbands and fathers, in particular.  So, too, we should give thanks and pray for the husbands and fathers by whom the Lord God serves His people here on earth, in this poor life of labor.

In like manner has the same Lord called pastors to care for His Church with the Gospel, to be for her spiritual fathers of grace, mercy, and peace, and to shepherd her with the good gifts of Christ.

Therefore, do not be afraid: The Lord whose Father called Him out of Egypt, who called the Light out of the darkness, and who raises the dead — the Lord who tabernacled with St. Joseph wherever he went, even cradled in the arms of His Mother — He is no less with you in this place, to save you by His grace, by His forgiveness of all your sins, and to feed you with His Body and His Blood.  As He has called you by His own great and holy Name, and as He has established this House for you, by His Gospel, on earth as it in heaven, so as a tender Father will He provide you with all that you need; and as your faithful Husband, He will never leave you nor forsake you.

In the Name + of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.