Worried Sick

An illustration in Give Us This Day, a small prayer guide, shows Joseph on his bed at night, staring into space, eyes wide open in fear and anxiety.  Behind him, through the window, an angel of the Lord stretches out his wings and hands over the worried-sick Joseph:  Do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.  For it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.  She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."

"When Joseph awoke, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home."

The Book of Isaiah tells us that God's ways are not our ways, nor are His thoughts our thoughts.  Even Joseph, the just man, the good man, a man of God, needed divine revelation to comprehend the ways of God.  Holy as he was, his mind could not wrap itself around what he knew:  Mary was a virgin, certainly --- or had something happened to her on the way to Elizabeth's house three months previously, something so terrible that she could not speak of it?  He knew Mary, had known her perhaps from childhood.  Their families were close, perhaps even related.  He knew her gentleness, her kindness.  There was no better wife to be found in all of Nazareth. 

But he also knew she was "with child," as she had said.  Glancing at her form confirmed her words; she was just beginning to show.  People would begin to talk -- and soon.  They would surely think Joseph had taken Mary at their engagement, even before he took her into his house.  He would share in her humiliation, in her shame.  She would not be stoned, physically, for engagement was as valid in their culture as marriage itself---but she would not be honored either. 

Nothing made sense, nothing.  There was no good solution to this problem.  Joseph could not even begin to guess the outcome of Mary's pregnancy -- for her, for him, for the child.  He could not know that the child would be born outside of Nazareth, in Bethlehem, far from the wagging tongues of Nazareth.  He could not know that they would have to leave Bethlehem and continue traveling away from Nazareth down into Egypt for several years, as the child grew into a toddler and perhaps a young child. 

He could not know that, even then, God was preparing three astronomer-kings from different parts of
the surrounding countries to embark on a journey, with gifts that would support the young family on their flight into Egypt.  Joseph was worried sick -- but, because he walked with God and sought God, he was given an answer: Do not be afraid.  He was given hope and freedom from "worried-sick."

Surely, on the way to Bethlehem some months later, he had concerns--would they find a place to stay among his relatives in the crowded city?  Would Mary's time of childbirth be safe, among friends, among women who had assisted many times?  Would the child wait for its arrival until they were settled comfortably in Bethlehem?  He could not know then that he would continue to receive guidance as he needed it along the way.  He was to receive yet another dream after the child was born.

Joseph and Mary both had to grow in trust on the way -- the One Who sent His Son into the world had to be preparing the way ahead of them, surely. 

Joseph's worried-sick dilemma as given to us in the Scriptures pose a real problem for those who believe that Jesus was the son of Mary and Joseph, a "good man" sent by God as a prophet and teacher, and prepared for by generations of holy people -- so that He has good DNA, presumably. 

Either Matthew's Gospel is a fabrication from beginning to end -- as is Luke's also -- or Joseph was not "worried sick."  If Joseph and Mary had relations before she met Elizabeth, why would Elizabeth cry out with a loud voice, "How is it that the mother of my Lord has come to me?"  As soon as Elizabeth heard Mary's voice, the child in her womb lept for joy -- the same Holy Spirit that had overshadowed Mary also overshadowed Elizabeth, and John in the womb.   And did Joseph forget three months later, when he again saw Mary, what had happened between them earlier? 

If Matthew and Luke both fabricated the story, they had to have been very well-versed in the Old Testament Scriptures and prophecies -- but Luke was a Gentile, not brought up in the Hebrew synagogue, and Matthew had been a tax collector, not likely welcome in the synagogue at all, and certainly not someone who had studied the Scriptures, though he could have been brought up in them as a child.  The point is, though, that if they were writing fairy tales, we should not take any part of the Gospels as truth.  We cannot say, "this part is good; but that one, not so much." 

If we cannot accept that God can break into human history with plans of His own, if we cannot accept the message of the angels at Christmas, that our God has come to save us, then our own hope is entirely gone, and we ourselves will live "worried-sick" all the days of our lives.