'And the lessons I taught my stepson...'
There was a poem read out at the kids' Xmas carol service last year that begins with "I am Joseph, husband of Mary..."
I'll have to paraphrase the rest since Google is not helping me find the actual words:
"This wasn't what I had planned. I wanted a simple life: A wife I loved, and a son of my own to raise to be a carpenter like me. But God had a different plan, and that meant I couldn't have the things I'd wanted. I was raising his child, not my own, and for his purposes, not mine.
And I didn't even get to choose the boy's name.
But I was a stubborn lover, and I didn't cease to love Mary because she had a child who wasn't mine. And I loved the child, though I knew that in the end I'd lose him. So, I got on with things and did what was best for both of them."
It ends with the line: "And the lessons I taught my stepson: endure, love, give..."
I should probably declare at this point a lack of belief in an actual deity. But a strong interest in religion and how it affects people and societies.
So, anyway, that poem places the key teachings of Christianity firmly in the hands of a human being, not God, and I think that's very important and interesting.
The Old Testament has a tone along the lines of "These are the rules. If you break them there's going to be some serious smiting around here." whereas the New Testament places emphasis on mercy, pity and forgiveness more than on administering justice.
Now the Messiah could (assuming you believe such things) have appeared as a full grown adult surrounded by a divine light and pronouncing teachings with absolute authority.
Instead though, he appeared as an infant, unformed and undeveloped, with no preconceptions and no actual plan. A human infant who was then raised by human parents in a normal little town that was nowhere special really.
It was Mary and Joseph, not God, who taught Jesus what it was to be human, and Joseph who taught him what it was to be a man. And it is the humanity of his teachings, not the (if you believe it) divine authority behind them that are their key feature.
And God had to do it that way, because, while God may be many things he/it is not and cannot be human, and therefore couldn't teach his son to be human. He needed to surrender control of the child to his parents and trust them to do a good job of raising Jesus to be who he needed to
be.
God needed to step back from his position of absolute authority and to learn the lessons that his creation could teach him.
And as for Joseph, he was presented with a difficult thing, a decision taken out of his hands, and a change of all his hopes and plans that he couldn't possibly have forseen.
Yet he made the best of it, and lived his life with generosity and as much joy as he could manage.
He didn't say "This is the job I've been given and I'll do my duty"; he said to the child: "You are loved." He didn't stick around and raise the illegitimate child his wife had presented him with out of a grim sense of obligatiion, he stayed because he loved them both.
Because, in spite of everything, that was where his heart truly was.
I'll have to paraphrase the rest since Google is not helping me find the actual words:
"This wasn't what I had planned. I wanted a simple life: A wife I loved, and a son of my own to raise to be a carpenter like me. But God had a different plan, and that meant I couldn't have the things I'd wanted. I was raising his child, not my own, and for his purposes, not mine.
And I didn't even get to choose the boy's name.
But I was a stubborn lover, and I didn't cease to love Mary because she had a child who wasn't mine. And I loved the child, though I knew that in the end I'd lose him. So, I got on with things and did what was best for both of them."
It ends with the line: "And the lessons I taught my stepson: endure, love, give..."
I should probably declare at this point a lack of belief in an actual deity. But a strong interest in religion and how it affects people and societies.
So, anyway, that poem places the key teachings of Christianity firmly in the hands of a human being, not God, and I think that's very important and interesting.
The Old Testament has a tone along the lines of "These are the rules. If you break them there's going to be some serious smiting around here." whereas the New Testament places emphasis on mercy, pity and forgiveness more than on administering justice.
Now the Messiah could (assuming you believe such things) have appeared as a full grown adult surrounded by a divine light and pronouncing teachings with absolute authority.
Instead though, he appeared as an infant, unformed and undeveloped, with no preconceptions and no actual plan. A human infant who was then raised by human parents in a normal little town that was nowhere special really.
It was Mary and Joseph, not God, who taught Jesus what it was to be human, and Joseph who taught him what it was to be a man. And it is the humanity of his teachings, not the (if you believe it) divine authority behind them that are their key feature.
And God had to do it that way, because, while God may be many things he/it is not and cannot be human, and therefore couldn't teach his son to be human. He needed to surrender control of the child to his parents and trust them to do a good job of raising Jesus to be who he needed to
be.
God needed to step back from his position of absolute authority and to learn the lessons that his creation could teach him.
And as for Joseph, he was presented with a difficult thing, a decision taken out of his hands, and a change of all his hopes and plans that he couldn't possibly have forseen.
Yet he made the best of it, and lived his life with generosity and as much joy as he could manage.
He didn't say "This is the job I've been given and I'll do my duty"; he said to the child: "You are loved." He didn't stick around and raise the illegitimate child his wife had presented him with out of a grim sense of obligatiion, he stayed because he loved them both.
Because, in spite of everything, that was where his heart truly was.