Joseph Also Dreamed
This year, our little wooden Joseph lies flat on his back on top of our fake fireplace. Knees bent, still clutching that helpful staff even though he is not a shepherd, his wooden eyes stare wide open in wonder at the ceiling. Who can say what he has seen? In several days dear Joseph will have the opportunity to kneel upright and be reunited with Mary. But for now, Joseph is dreaming.
For most of my life, I have regarded Joseph as simply “that guy who wasn’t a jerk about it and marries Mary”—a hesitant yet benevolent Nativity tagalong. If I think of him at all during Advent, it is typically something like: “How nice of Joseph to sponsor this event.” But everything changed one night last November in Dublin when I dreamed about Joseph.
In my dream, I had a strong sense of the Trinity. Though I could not see them, the Trinity was present, was in love, was warm and dancing for joy while also existing with such depth and truth. At some point they communicated to me how much they absolutely love Joseph up in Heaven. In Heaven, they told me, he goes by Joe. (If you ever wondered, now you know). And then my dream ended.
For the rest of the night as I tossed and turned, wide awake with jet lag, I refreshed the memory of the dream over and over because it felt important. I hadn’t been thinking of Joseph at all the day before—in fact, I couldn’t remember the last time Joseph came to mind. The next morning at breakfast, I told Drew, “Hey. Did you know that the Trinity really loves Joseph and that in Heaven he goes by Joe?” And then because I am a nerd I pondered aloud, “I wonder how Joseph is spelled in the original Biblical texts, because there is no hard ‘J’ sound in Hebrew.”
(How do I know this? I took one semester of Hebrew in college and now rehearse the Hebrew alphabet like a madwoman when trying to fall asleep at night because it’s all I have left of that class and I want to stay sharp just in case that career in ancient Hebrew manuscript translation ever comes to fruition, all because I can say the alphabet).
“There’s no hard ‘J’ in Greek either, right?” Drew, who bless his heart has retained a robust working knowledge of his one semester of Greek, confirmed this: “They use the letter ‘I,’ typically followed by a vowel like ‘O’—the same is true for Latin.” We then reasonably concluded that in Heaven, Joseph goes by “Yo.”
Our plan for that day was to see the Book of Kells on display at Trinity College. We were unreasonably excited about this, and had even watched The Secret of Kells three times over three years in hopeful anticipation of this moment. The Book of Kells is a 9th century illuminated manuscript of the four Gospels—beautifully adorned with intricate paintings, lovely hand lettering, and gold leaf. As we walked to Trinity College, I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be cool if God confirmed my dream in some way at this exhibit, like if one of the monks who worked on the book was named Joseph and I see his tiny fading signature on the corner of some crumbling page?” When I walked through the door, the first thing I saw was a giant informational plaque on ancient lettering which read, “Did you know? There’s no ‘J’ in Latin!”
What.
“Yes I do know this,” I said to myself; “I confirmed that reality just this morning.” I pulled Drew over and he stared at it with me, both of us a little giddy and a lot surprised by this strange coincidence. Since it seemed like we were on a roll, I looked for Joseph’s name throughout the exhibit but could not find it. “Oh well,” I thought, “I’m pretty content with that ‘no J in Latin’ thing. That was cool.” At last the time came to view the book itself, which is housed in an entirely black room in a glass case at the end of the exhibit. Each day, the book is opened to a different page which is illuminated by a faint light source that does not damage the quality of its pages. Upon first glance at the Book of Kells, I felt a bit disappointed. Where were all the vibrant colors and beautiful paintings which the entire exhibit had promised me? The page itself was plain and dull with a list of black names accented by red. Deciding to lean as closely as possible without smushing my nose against the glass, the first words and only words I read were these:
Iacobus paternum Iosef.
Jacob was the father of Joseph.
There it was. In that moment, something of heaven connected with my earthly reality and I felt a rush of wonderment and joy. After virtually cuddling the glass case for perhaps a bit too long, I stumbled towards the exit with tears in my eyes. I felt awe and gratitude that for some reason, God decided to prepare me to view this particular page from Matthew’s genealogy with a dream about Joseph the night before.
Do you know who else God prepared for a particular purpose through multiple dreams? Joseph, father of Jesus, husband of Mary. Joseph, beloved of the Trinity, who goes by Joe in Heaven.
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Joseph’s name in the genealogy of Matthew comes at the end of a long line of dreamers. First there is Abraham, who in a dreamlike state receives God’s covenant promise to the Israelites. Then his grandson Jacob dreams of a ladder connecting heaven and earth while fleeing the wrath of his brother Esau. Jacob’s son Joseph is sold into slavery because of his dreams, yet rises to power and saves Israel by interpreting four dreams for the pharaoh of Egypt. Joseph’s descendent David longs to build a temple for the LORD but is warned through Nathan’s dream that he is not the one God has chosen to do so. David’s son Solomon does build the temple after asking God for wisdom in a dream. But of all the list of noteworthy predecessors from the time of Abraham to Joseph, the first and last verses of this genealogy are my favorite:
This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham…and Jacob (was) the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.
(Matthew 1:1,16)
This is the genealogy of Jesus—Jesus, who is called the Messiah. I love these verse because of how clearly they indicate a partnership between heaven and earth. The Messiah was the son of God sent from heaven, yet his lineage came through his earthly adoptive father Joseph. Each name in Matthew’s genealogy serves as a rung on a long ladder connecting heavenly promise to earthly fulfillment. Do you see how loving of God it was to use Joseph’s lineage as his own—to entrust Joseph to father God’s one and only son? Of course the Trinity loves Joseph. I now believe that the God of no coincidences chose Joseph just as much as God chose Mary to protect and nurture the life of Jesus. Joseph was no random accident, the guy who happened to be on the scene when Mary got pregnant. No, Joseph was a dreamer from a particular line of dreamers—chosen and deeply loved.
Like his predecessor, Joseph had four dreams which resulted in the salvation of not just Israel, but the entire world. In his first dream, an angel reassures Joseph that everything is going to be alright despite his fear and confusion about Mary’s pregnancy.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
(Matthew 1:20-21)
In his next three dreams, God warns Joseph to flee to Egypt from the murderous wrath of Herod, lets Joseph know when it is safe to return, and tells Joseph to raise Jesus in Nazareth. Each dream furthers and confirms God’s promise to bring salvation to the world through humankind.
So what does this mean for us?
If you’re anything like me, perhaps you’ve been more drawn to the sparkly figures of the Nativity, like Mary and the Angel—even the shepherds with their cute sheep and the gift-laden Magi. I believe it is different in the Catholic tradition, but in the Protestant tradition we tend to merely admire Mary and tip our hats to Joseph. Maybe we’ve tended to overlook Joseph because if we’re honest, he reminds us the most of us: human and afraid, yet trying to have faith in spite of it all. None of us will receive an angelic Annunciation and immaculate conception, but all of us are faced with Joseph’s dilemma each day of our lives:
Will we lean in and adopt the birth, life, and death of Christ as our very own, or will we shrink back in fear, loving safety more than risk, settling for an association with Christ but quite honestly a little embarrassed to be seen with Him?
Joseph’s dream invited him to see the shameful circumstance of his fiancée becoming pregnant without his assistance through heavenly eyes. What about the present circumstances in our lives that make us cringe—realities we’d rather keep hidden or not face at all? Could we, too, learn to see the painful and fearful events of our lives with heavenly eyes? Wonder of wonders, we worship the God who transforms dead ends and devastation into divine doorways to a richer, fuller life than we ever dreamed.
This Christmas, may we remember Joseph and take heart. May our places of fear and failure, sin and shame become ladders connecting Heaven with earth.
Joseph chose looking like a fool for the sake of love, and his life and the fate of the world were forever changed.
Will we?
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May you receive Madeline L’Engle’s poem, written in Mary’s voice, as a benediction for your journey:
O Sapientia
It was from Joseph first I learned
of love. Like me he was dismayed.
How easily he could have turned
me from his house; but, unafraid,
he put me not away from him
(O God-sent angel, pray for him).
Thus through his love was Love obeyed.
The Child’s first cry came like a bell:
God’s Word aloud, God’s Word in deed.
The angel spoke: so it befell,
and Joseph with me in my need.
O Child whose father came from heaven,
to you another gift was given,
your earthly father chosen well.
With Joseph I was always warmed
and cherished. Even in the stable
I knew that I would not be harmed.
And, though above the angels swarmed,
man’s love it was that made me able
to bear God’s love, wild, formidable,
to bear God’s will, through me performed.
Amen.
To Go Deeper: Spend some time dwelling in this painting by Janet McKenzie. What do you notice? Where are you drawn in? Where are you tempted to avert your gaze?
Bonus: This incredible poem by Luci Shaw.
Onlookers
Behind our shield of health, each
of us must sense another's anguish
second-hand; we are agnostic
in the face of dying. So Joseph
felt, observer of the push
and splash of birth, and even Mary,
mourner, under the cross's arm.
Only their son, and God's,
in bearing all our griefs
felt them first-hand, climbing
himself our rugged hill of pain.
His nerves, enfleshed, carried
the messages of nails, the tomb's
chill. His ever-open wounds
still blazon back to us the penalty
we never bore, and heaven
gleams for us more real,
crossed with that human blood.