Today… Joseph…
If angels are busy and Mary is undignified, then maybe the best word for Joseph is… baffled. In the space of a very few short years he's shocked to find his fiancé pregnant and he undertakes to be father anyway. I can't think of anything more sleep-robbing than being responsible for another human being: two of the biggest and most memorable nightmares I've had were both about becoming a dad, once in the back of a yellow VW Beetle in the Midlands.
"What? What?! WHAT!!!?!" Textbook baffled.
Joseph becomes this woman's protector, this little one's protector, in ways he never thought he'd have to, perhaps in ways he never thought he was capable of. There's not just a long perilous journey making sure no-one falls off the donkey (which may or may not have existed, a bit like Schroedinger's Donkey). There's not just the faint feeling of failure he must get from having to lodge in a stable: he would probably blame himself for not getting there earlier while all the time making sure the journey didn't overstretch or overtire Mary, which is why they were last in.
The BBC's Joseph. A normal, ordinary man. He can do it.
On top of that is the bafflement of all these other guests turning up. And then there's the night he has a dream and God tells him to flee, to become the protector of his wife and toddler while they're asylum seekers in Egypt, not speaking the language but having gold about them, looking like foreigners to be shunned or exploited.
And Joseph rises well to the occasion.
When I was Joseph (aged about four) all I had to do was rat-a-tat-tat. I even got that wrong. I was perpetually baffled at the age of four. Plus ca change…
Anyway, maybe you feel like Joseph. A bit baffled, a bit overwhelmed, a bit Rory Williams, wondering what the next challenge is and whether you can step up to it. The news throughout the BIble is that God takes ordinary people, nervous and nervy people, even complete char lies and he turns us into something magnificent. You may be new to the faith and God might be asking you to do more than you ever imagined. That's okay, that's how I feel most days when I step up to preach or lead a service or take a funeral or school assembly. I realise I'm an adult and I look around for a more adult adult… but it's me!
Rory Williams: often baffled, never shy of stepping up.
From the timid and timorous little boy afraid of praise, to the callow and clueless student, to the long and languorous vicar typing here, it's a good job we have a God who will do with us - for us, through us - more than we can expect or imagine. It's okay to feel like Joseph.
And you don't have to be male to be baffled, although we've cornered the market in general bamboozledness…
A baffled woman, yesterday.
Who have you cast yourself as so far?
Whichever of those you cast yourself as, you can cast yourself into God's hands this Christmas, cast yourself into the everlasting arms of the one whose love is deeper than time and who himself moved heaven and earth to be here on earth with us. You can cast your burdens onto Jesus, because he really does care for you. And you can cast your worries and dreams for the year ahead - whatever angelic errands, Marian indignities and baffling responsibilities it may involve - into the lap of God, and let him catch you and carry you, help you and hold you, love you and lift you.
Or else what point is there in his coming down at all?
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