Joseph’s Dream

Bizarre. I guess that’s about the only word I can find to describe what was going on there. I mean, now, to look at Jesus running around playing with the other children, everything seems so natural. But there was nothing natural about his birth, or, for that matter, His conception.

I thought my mother was going to pass out when I told her about Mary. My dad just sat down and wept. He didn’t speak for hours. My uncles were full of it. “Put her away son. It’s clear that that’s the only thing you can do. There’s nothing you can do to salvage her reputation but think of your own.”

I just remember being so sad for so long. I spent a lot of time out in the fields on my own. Nobody would speak to me anyway. I will never forget that night I had a dream and it was all so clear.

An angel came to me in the dream. Not that I know a whole lot about angels or talk to them all the time. But I know one thing. It was an angel who spoke to me that night, as sure as my name is Joseph.

What He said made such sense and no sense at the same time. It was surreal to think that God was using my wife to be as a catalyst for the Messiah. And yet it restored my faith in her and it tallied with what she had said and with what had happened to her cousin Elizabeth. It squared with all I knew about her as a godly and beautiful person.

After the dream I remember having an unshakeable conviction that this was from the Lord. I didn’t know how to explain it but I knew that God was in it. And just like His cousin John, this baby was to have a special purpose in life and I was to be a part of it. A big part of it as it turns out.

They were hard times too, as well as unusual. There was the look on Mary’s face when there was nowhere to sleep and we were both exhausted from travelling. She smiled disbelievingly when we were put in the pen but at least it was warm if nothing else. They say, “If you didn’t laugh you would cry”. Well we did both.

Then just after the baby was born we had visitors. I thought the shepherds had come to tell us that we were sleeping in the wrong place and could we kindly move on, but they didn’t. They just bowed down and wept with joy at our baby boy. They were saying all sorts of things about Him and everything pointed in the same direction. What the angel said; what Mary said; what I was saying; all of us were saying the same thing: this baby Jesus was truly Christ the Lord. This was the fulfillment of Scripture. This was the Hope of Israel. This was God with us. And I had to look after Him.

I was filled with a sense of awe, of wonder and worship. I still am, but I guess I’ve just got to get on with it and do my best. The One who called us is faithful and He knows what He is doing. May His will be done, in His life as well as mine.

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