On the word of an angel, he marries a pregnant woman he never slept with and accepts a child he did not father.
He quietly endures the shame of having his pregnant wife give birth in an animal stable because he couldn’t find a better place for them.
He stands by quietly – overlooked and minimized – as strange people give gifts in honor of this child.
Without understanding why, he uproots his young family and flees to a foreign country to protect someone else’s child from the homicidal threats of a conniving king.
Joseph supported this remarkably gifted ward who grew into an uncommonly wise adolescent, knowing that he could claim nothing in the young boy was from his own seed.
When his wife’s 12 year old son stayed behind in Jerusalem, unbeknownst to the rest of the family who were returning to Nazareth, this dedicated guardian frantically returns back to rescue him. But when they found the young man in the temple his response to why he had stayed behind was that he had to be about his father’s business.
By the time the boy he raised became a miracle-working man, this unsung father had faded from the scene – a forgotten bit player in history’s most significant narrative.
And when the grown man Jesus suffered and died for the sins of humanity, his mother and friends buried him in a grave borrowed from another Joseph.
He accepted, he endured, he protected, he supported, he rescued. He stayed.
In honor of Joseph – Jesus’ earthly father; honoring the many men who raise children who are not their own.
The ELL Word 