Strange Story: The Birth of Jesus Part 5 Joseph’s Dilemma

To Joseph, the story about an angel held no credibility at all. He was disappointed in her for making that up and thinking he would buy that story. Each of the women in Jewish history who had been blessed with a miraculous pregnancy, usually because she had been barren, also had a husband! The thought that God would make her pregnant without a husband was ludicrous. He refused to give it another second of his time because he had some serious thinking to do.

He knew what his options were, and he didn’t like any of them.

But he had to make a decision, so he kept turning his options over in his mind again and again.

He knew the Law of Moses well. His options were, 1) Divorce her publicly (with formal accusations), 2) Divorce her quietly (no accusations), 3) Marry her and accept the consequences. He wished there was a fourth option, but there wasn’t.

He analyzed each option more carefully, focusing on its consequences.

His first option was to accuse her of having an affair with another man. Since they were betrothed to one another, he was considered her husband in a partial way, and he shared responsibility for her with her father. By having sex with another man, she had violated the authority of her “husband”, Joseph. Therefore, he was right to think of it as a violation of their marriage.

“The one who is increasing” had replied, “But father, if such a thing had been going on, surely, we would have heard people talking about it already, because, in a small town like this, everyone knows everyone else’s business. I’m just saying I don’t think it will be as easy as you think. I don’t know why they would do this, but maybe it was a family member, in which case we will never get the truth out of them.”

His father replied, “If you didn’t do it, then I want the bride price back so I can use it to find a proper wife for you. Maybe we can catch the girl when she is alone and torture her. We need to somehow find the truth.”

“The one who is increasing” said, “Don’t you remember, Dad, that Jewish girls never go anywhere alone, and now her male family members will be protecting her all the more. They will not let us get close to her at all.”

His father said, “But we need to do something!” Then he stalked away.

For an instance, the visual image of him being the first one to throw a stone at Mary flashed through his mind. He pushed it aside. He preferred to avoid any participation in her stoning.

Even though his father had walked away from the argument, “The one who is increasing” continued it in his mind. What his father had not said was, “And you know that her father will be looking for evidence that it was you that got her pregnant, so you can get stoned along with her if you refuse to take her as your wife.”

Just to make things totally clear he called after his father, “Dad, you can be sure that her father will not find any conclusive evidence that it was me.”

Dad was right. They would assume it was Joseph and he would suffer a bad reputation and loss of work opportunities because of it, even though he was innocent.

This is the type of thing that could easily divide a small town like “The Holy Sprout”.

For “The one who is increasing” the option of mounting an investigation and making a formal accusation was untenable. He would not make a big deal into a bigger deal by participating in a formal trial.

However, like his father was pointing out, the second option didn’t look much better. Divorcing her without a formal accusation would make people think it was him and he was trying to cover it up. If he divorced her quietly, she would still be stoned by the community, and her father would be looking for evidence that proved Joseph had gotten her pregnant. If he succeeded in convincing the town fathers, Joseph would be stoned along with Mary. There was a degree of risk in this option too.

First of all, he tried to follow the Torah faithfully, therefore, he wanted a wife that was pure. He did not want to constantly wonder if she might do this to him again. He did not want a miserable marriage. Marrying her would mean accepting the guilt, and the corresponding payments, for something he had not done. Furthermore, he did not want their oldest child to be a constant reminder that their marriage started off on the wrong foot.

If he chose this option, “The one who is increasing” could expect to be weighed down with heavy payments to Marry’s father as long as her father lived.

This would put a huge strain on the relationship between him and his own father. His father and his family would also suffer irreparable shame because of what had happened. It was understandable if his father disowned him over something like this.

It would also ruin his reputation. He would be considered irresponsible and undisciplined by the community; this would likely hurt his business dealings. He would not be able to find work locally and would have to walk to a larger city every day.

This option was also unacceptable to him. He could not bring himself to marry her; as a good Jew he wanted to start his marriage the right way by marrying a girl who was a virgin. He knew that one cannot be a virgin and be pregnant at the same time, despite what she claimed about some message from an angel.

By the time he had finally made up his mind it was the middle of the night. He would tell her what he had decided in the morning.

Then he fell into a fitful sleep during which he had a dream. It was not a normal dream; it was true; it was real. When he woke up the dream was still there in perfect clarity. A messenger from God told him that “The Rebellious One” was telling the truth! She was indeed pregnant by the Spirit of God, not by another man! Therefore, he should not be afraid to take her as his wife. The messenger also told him what to name the child – “God Saves.”

This changed everything! He would accept “The Rebellious One” as his wife and gladly pay whatever fine her father imposed on him. He would be able to trust his wife. He would have a happy marriage. What’s more, God had entrusted the two of them, poor though they were, with a great privilege and responsibility. They would be the parents of the Messiah!

And then another realization struck him – the Messiah was not going to be what all the Israelites had assumed he would be. He would not be a man infused with God’s power. He would be a strange mixture of the divine and the human, maybe half man, half God? But wait, in the Jewish way of thinking, God would not reduce himself to be half of Himself. There could be no such thing as “half God” when talking about the true God. Did that mean the Messiah would be fully God and fully man at the same time? How would that work and what would that look like? There was no name for such a thing because it had never happened before. Yes, he had heard about the demigods of Greek mythology, but they sounded like poorly contrived inventions whereas this was real, and it was happening to him and his betrothed.

How would he train such a child? Would he be able to teach him anything?

He was beginning to stress his mind almost to the breaking point, so he told himself he would not be able to figure all this stuff out. He could only trust.

He finally fell back to sleep. This time his sleep was peaceful. Even though he did not sleep long, he woke up at his usual time feeling refreshed and invigorated.