No one had to introduce Joseph to Mary. He had known her his whole life. No dating services in those days, unless you count arranged marriages. Who knows? Perhaps a yente did the honors of officially connecting them and their families. The perfect match, she might say. Its the way things used to work, the way things still work in some places. You westerners, said a student from the Far East, fall in love and get married. We get married and fall in love.

Tradition calls Joseph a carpenter, but the word tekton (Isnt this the carpenters son?) actually can mean stone mason, which means the man had superior technical skills. Joseph the builder living in the Galilean backwoods probably earned his keep and honed his craft in cities like Capernaum and Sepphoris. It may not have earned him a kings ransom, but a man with gifted hands usually does pretty well. Any idea what plumbers make these days?

Joseph enjoyed at least one other skill not often praised in Christmas-loving circles. He paid close attention to his Bible. An engagement interrupted by a pregnancy could get a woman killed in those days. A Bible reader could easily justify it. How did Joseph, reading the same Bible, decide to divorce her quietly and so protect young Mary? What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly? (Micah 6:8). Thats how. He did the best he could, until he knew better. What would have happened if Mary had been engaged to a mean man?

The old, odd pronoun trouble of the KJV, male-stacked genealogies, verses yanked way out of context all serve as flimsy proofs of the Bibles sexism. But as the Gospel unfolds, and through the leaves of history, Joseph takes a back seat to mother Mary. Joseph may be the patron saint of happy death, since he died in the arms of Mary and Jesus. But he could easily be the patron of all those unnoticed, forgotten holy ones. Those who keep this world spinning with their uncommon kindnesses.

The Rev. Eugene Stockstill is pastor of Ebenezer United Methodist Church and Myrtle United Methodist Church in Union County.

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MEDITATION: Joseph shows what it means to study Bible - Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal