Epiphany

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Liturgical Seasons, stained glass

Epiphany and Joseph

The Magi have arrived their long journey from the east, okay from the back of the church, is over and they now take their place in the crib.  For one day the crib is full, tomorrow the shepherds return to their fields, otherwise known as a box, and the magi remain until Candlemas when all the figures from the crib rejoin the shepherds for a different kind of hibernation. 

Since Christmas the crib has been home to the shepherds, looking on with awe at a baby in a manager, now the poverty and tough life of the shepherds with their Jewish background is to be replaced with the wealth and seeming comfort of the Gentiles who have come to kneel in adoration.  Through it all there is Mary and Joseph.

I often wonder about Joseph at this time of year, he is a bit like a groom at a wedding along to make up the numbers.  We know about Mary, we certainly know about Jesus, of course the shepherds didn’t stay for 12 days and scholars say that the magi didn’t appear till up to three years after Christ’s birth, but we know their role, but what about Joseph?  He had taken Mary as his wife despite the fact the child she was carrying wasn’t his, yet he is hardly mentioned again.  Is he the unsung hero of Christmas, giving Mary and Jesus a home, security and respectability, so that Jesus could grow up healthy and strong to full maturity and then proclaim the love of God for everyone?  Is his role, so underplayed in the Christmas story, the one which most echoes the love and unconditional acceptance of God to all people?  Maybe, just maybe it is time we started to look a little more closely at Joseph.