Not Your Average Joseph

Of late, I have been moseying my way through the first of the synoptic gospels. In Matthew’s gospel, King Herod and Saint Joseph take up the spotlight as the key actors, setting the scene for the birth of Christ. What is stark to me is that King Herod and Saint Joseph embody two polar modes of living. 

Saint Joseph, for one, “being a just man and unwilling to put [Mary] to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly” (Matthew 1:19). He is not struck dumb by indecision in the face of unanticipated circumstances, such as when your betrothed is pregnant. He has resolve, but in spite of all his goodwill, he is given the rejoinder to defy all his inclinations and take her in marriage. Obediently, he proceeds to subordinate his will to that of the Father. He reconsiders his considerable reasons and his reasonable considerations in order that he might obey the instructions sent him through the archangel Gabriel. 

Herod, on account of similarly unanticipated circumstances—in his case, the rumored birth of One who would be[come] the King of the Jews—is “troubled” and seeks counsel among the chief priests and scribes (i.e. the experts). What is notable is his human, borderline-adolescent penchant for being so vulnerable to the possibility of a future hiccup, something that might frustrate the maintenance of his comfort and disinclination to change. His irrational neuroticism is quite rationally paired with the impulse to consult with experts and seek control.  It appears to me that I, too, am impelled to consult with experts when so cornered. Admittedly, I do so not so much to discover something new but to reach probabilistic certainty to quell my anxieties. My first impulse is to grasp for control.  

Likewise notable, though this may be grounded in my own whimsical reading of the passage, is the fact that Herod was clever and thorough in asserting his will.  By all appearances, it was, for his ends, skillful to consult the chief priests, well-discerned to omit his true motives to instrumentalize the wise-men, and thorough to declare infanticide.  

How often am I skillful, well-discerned, and thorough in my own eyes? How often am I certain of what is good for me?

That is, Herod’s acts adhere to his vision for what is good and safe and right for him, for his future. He identifies himself as king of the Jews unwaveringly.  

How often am I certain of who I am and what the principle of my identity is? How often am I certain about what I am doing here and what I am supposed to be doing here?

So often, I mull over possible answers, and some are of great comfort to me insofar as they grant me some semblance of meaning and continuity. My intimation is that most people have one such identity that strings together a semblance of continuity to affirm and unify their identity and their life.  

For Herod, this defining attribute was his kingship. It was fitting that he was so troubled by the possibility of a life beyond kingship; his life was thus far constituted by his kingship. 

Joseph is given the bold command to marry someone with a child. He is given the doubly bold command to, ironically, flee to Egypt. Upon his second encounter with the archangel Gabriel, Joseph is commanded to take refuge in the nation that capitalized on the oppression of his forebears. What’s poignant to me is the provisional quality of each of these instructions. Joseph is not given a clear end; he has no consolation of a definitive answer to what all this will culminate in for him. Instead, almost facilely, he is instructed to remain there until further notice (Matthew 2:13).  

Herod’s smug self-certainty is the inversion of Joseph’s self-disposing surrender to uncertainty. There is no thread of continuity nor intelligible form to bring together these various moments of Joseph’s existence. According to the criteria of the right-side-up world of individualism and self-creation, Joseph’s life is palpably scattered, whereas Herod’s life is unified and sound.  

I was a bit frazzled upon entering graduate school because, seemingly all of a sudden (though really gradually and upon four years), I am not hedged in by the certainty of next semester and the summative finality of graduation.  That is to say, though fortunately I have been granted another semester, I can’t quite distill the end that makes sense of all the palpable dissonance. Why did I take Differential Equations and Mathematical modeling to graduate with a degree in Theology? Why do I still have confidants all the way in NYC when I’m so deep into my post-transfer life in Boston?  Why did I cry studying for the AP Chemistry test, five years ago?  What is this all for? When I zoom out, everything falls out of focus. 

Even so, if I can sit still for just a second and receive the light of His grace, I can indeed see the continuity between yesterday and today, today and tomorrow. Incipiently, I can trust that there is some end.  

In one sense, it would be nice to be as sure of myself as Herod was.  His identity was clear, yet illusory. We can’t so easily deceive ourselves as Herod. I suppose even Herod could not so easily deceive himself. The sort of anxiety and neuroticism that impelled Herod to take concrete steps based on the possibility of his demise is itself correct. It is a corrective to our self-deception of ultimate knowledge and control. He was right to be anxious because as embodied creatures, bound by space and time, we can’t have certainty. Unless we deceive ourselves, we might discover that we are indeed hanging by His grace. Herod, clinging to self-assertion to quell his existential anxieties, escapes uncertainty. He finds solace in statistical probability and his own prowess. Joseph, despite all appearances and his better judgment, races headlong towards uncertainty, and he does so in hopeful fiat rather than fear. Joseph clings to God in self-denial in the most proper sense of denying his own narrow vision of himself. He makes room for God to show him “according to the riches of His glory […] the breadth and length and height and depth” of God’s love (Ephesians 3:18). God uses him and measures out meaning to unify the disparate scenes of his life as a sojourner. 2023 years later, we recount his deeds because it was not all for naught. Thus, it seems to me that his example inheres with the commendation to likewise cling to God in self-denial, in that proper sense of denying our self-understanding. More importantly, my reading was an affirmation to “rise” —Joseph’s patterned response to each encounter with Gabriel—to get up, when I have no notion of what my life will term in, because if I can just zoom in, I can –by the light of His grace– see His daily provisions and sensitize myself to His daily instructions for me, vestiges of continuity between this hour and the next, and maybe that is enough.