Nine months before the first Christmas, Mary agreed to bear the baby Jesus, even though she was not yet married, and even though she knew that her decision would cause great pain for her husband-to-be.
“I can’t tell him the Angel Gabriel told me I have found favor with God” she said…”and that the Almighty chose me to bear His child. I can hardly believe it myself …”
“But when Joseph finds I’m having a baby, my baby will be without a father.” She paused.
“I need to talk with Elizabeth,” she said to him.
Why Mary needed to talk with Elizabeth, Joseph did not know. But if Mary said she needed to go, she needed to go.
While she was away, Joseph thought of Mary often, humming as he bent a rod of wood into a staff, dreaming during the day of her kindness, and at night, dreaming of her smile.
“How she chose to marry me, I have no idea,” he thought.
Mary thought of Joseph too, saying ,“By the time I get back home, he’ll be able to see my baby bump, pushing at my clothing.”
So when she returned to Nazareth, she bought time by never letting Joseph see her in a view from the side. But one day, perhaps carrying a basket to him at noon, she smiled as she passed him to set the meal down.
Joseph noticed her midriff, looked away, then looked back again. Then his jaw dropped, he turned his face away, and stumbled toward the shop, knocking his tools to the ground.
Inside the door, he brushed against the lampstand, knocking the lamp to the floor, shattering its clay bowl.
After Mary put the basket down, and walked away, Joseph came out to pick up his mallet and chisel.
“What am I going to do?” he said. “Mary is going to have a baby … and her baby is not mine.”
“My Mary has betrayed me with another man. ”
With shaking hands, he laid down his mallet and chisel, “How could she do such a thing?”
“I cannot marry her,” he continued, “so I must end our betrothal; it’s the only honorable thing to do.” He paused for a moment. “I’ll take her to the marketplace,” he said, “call the elders then tell them what she’s done, and end our betrothal right there.”
Then he took a deep breath, and sighed. “I don’t like these thoughts at all … but right now I want to tell everybody in the world what she’s done.“
He paced around in a circle.
“But I wouldn’t want someone to be treat me that way,” he said.
“I still love her,” he continued. “But I can’t marry her. And I can’t embarrass her in public, either.”
He paused. “I’ll borrow enough money to take care of her until after her baby is born, and I’ll take her to Elizabeth’s … so nobody in Nazareth will ever know what she’s done.”
He paused again. “There, I will tell her ‘goodbye,’ forever.”
He walked inside and paced around the room, his mind teeming with anxiety, confusion, and pain…without realizing he was in danger of making a huge mistake.
He walked back outside and looked at the stars, then came back in and lay down on his bed, finally he fell asleep…and then began to dream.
“Joseph, son of David,” an angel said. “Don’t be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for what is conceived in her is not by man, but by the Spirit of God.”
“Her baby will be a little boy,” the angel continued, “and you will give the child his name. It is ‘Jesus,’ which means he will save his people from self-destruction.”
When Joseph awoke, he lay there, pondering what he had seen and heard. Next morning, he got up early, and walked to Mary’s house, to take her as his wife and to bring her home with him.
When she told him about what the Angel had said, he understood, and wanted to cry.
“I will not leave you,” he said. “Ever. And I will adopt your son, and try my best to be a good daddy.”
A week before Jesus was born, Mary and Joseph had to move to a new home, ninety miles away. They traveled on foot.
“It’s almost time,” Mary said, in the last mile of their journey.
They stopped to rest.
“I don’t know if I can go any further,” she smiled.
But together they did so. In Bethlehem, with no place for them to stay, Joseph found shelter in a cave they shared with some sheep.
In that place his wife gave birth to the Son of God. She absolutely glowed as she gave her baby his first meal.
After he fell asleep, Mary held him to her cheek, then held him out to look at him, then hugged him, and laughed, then cried, then laughed some more. After both fell asleep, Joseph fashioned a cradle from a trough, then lined it with some fabric which Mary brought from Nazareth.
When he took the baby from its mother, he held the sleeping child to his cheek — for a very long time — then placed him in his little bed, and tucked him in.
“Not exactly the way the way we planned,” he thought, as he watched his sleeping family, “but we will celebrate his birthday here.”
He began to hum, somehow knowing the three of them were doing exactly what God wanted…but not knowing that this tiny child –the King of Kings and Lord of Lords — would grow up to single-handedly vanquish the source of all human anxiety, confusion, and pain.
Outside the town, too far away to hear, an army of Angels sang at Jesus’ birth; inside the cave, watching the baby and its mother, Joseph sang too.
And that’s how he got ready for Christmas.
Leon Smith is a storyteller and regular contributor to The Anson Record.