The Interior Drama of St. Joseph
Michiel Peeters - To make King Ahaz (7 centuries B.C.) understand that, in the face of the threat of attack by foreign kingdoms, he can stay calm if he trusts in the Lord, God sends the prophet Isaiah to deliver oracles. The one we hear today, about “the virgin [that] shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel,” was, many centuries later, understood by Christians to be a prophecy of Christ.
God, through the prophet Isaiah, invites the king to “ask for a sign from the Lord.” But Ahaz refuses to ask this, saying: “I will not tempt the Lord!” This sounds good, for man shouldn’t tempt God. But things get different when Mystery itself
asks for man’s collaboration, first of all by giving us a heart and the freedom to use it. The fathers of the Church say: “God, who has created us without our permission, doesn’t want to save us without our consent.”
Isaiah reproaches King Ahaz because he doesn’t want to use his freedom in the most elementary and straightforward way—by asking God to give him what he needs.
If we refuse to collaborate, God will still fulfill his plan, but in another way. “The Lord himself will give [a] sign: the virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and shall name him Emmanuel.” Today’s Gospel tells us the fulfillment of this oracle.
Joseph and Mary are betrothed; they don’t live together yet. Mary is “found with child through the holy Spirit.” Joseph, understandably, is baffled. What should he think? The evangelist doesn’t give us details. We only know that he tries to do God’s will and is prepared for the most radical renunciation. Instead of defending himself or becoming angry, he seeks a solution that for him would be a tremendous sacrifice: “[He] decided to divorce her quietly.” When we think of the love Joseph must have had for Mary, these phrases contain an impressive interior drama. Joseph’s love was pure, strong, and generous.
As any true love, it desired to be with its object. Now, the circumstances seem to make him understand that this “being with” is not possible. Then Joseph tries to do God’s will and decides to do what’s most painful to him: to leave her quietly. He is just, and therefore, he understands that any genuine love relationship can exist and last only by obeying God’s will. And since he really wants this relationship, he first wants to obey God.
Can we understand this? Because Joseph really wants this relationship, he first wants to live it according to God’s will, even if that means leaving her. When we understand the reasonableness of this, our lives would benefit greatly.
The moment Joseph is prepared to make this sacrifice to do God’s will—like with Abraham, who was ready to sacrifice his own son—an angel intervenes to tell him that the solution he is thinking about is not the one intended by God: “Joseph, son of David, 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.”
This intervention, made possible by Joseph’s desire to do God’s will, liberates him: a new road for “being with” Mary is opened, a singular one: a road made of a deep, strong, and growing love for her, in the respectful distance that characterizes the fruitful experience of virginity. This is how Isaiah’s prophecy is fulfilled, this is how Emmanuel, “God with us,” enters this world of ours.
