Father In Every Way But One

The sun was low now, the day nearly spent. Tired as he was, he knew there was more to be done before the day could be truly set aside. “Why am I always so tired?” he thought, “I don’t recall it being like this before.” Holding the risk of a brief nap at bay, he rested his eyes a moment and listened to the sound of his home. It wasn’t grand, like a few of the houses in the region, just a simple shelter for his wife and child, a respite from the turmoil of the world outside, and a space to make and create.

Just outside he could hear her sweet voice, still betraying its tender age. Through the curtain came the sounds of his son as he sorted the off-cuts into shelves made for various sizes and use. Like always, the sound brought a smile of wonder to the corners of his mouth, just an indistinct twitch that betrayed the myriad of questions that still swept through his imaginations. Should his wife walk in now to see that small smile, she would know the depth of memories, but few others would. The smile lingered, resting on his face like a weary traveller who was hesitant to begin the next leg of his journey. Joseph had many worries in his hard life, but Jesus wasn’t one of them.

Mary’s song drifted into his musings again, pushing the corners of his mouth ever further across his face. How he loved to hear her sing. It had been her singing that first caught his attention; just a young girl in the market place moving from seller to seller on some mission from her mother, or walking with her friends as her brother kept watch close by, but always with a tune falling quietly from her lips like an early morning dew. The proper conversations were held, the proper payments arranged, and the longed-for introductions completed. The song-bird would be his wife. At first he had worried that it would take too long for the payments to be satisfied, or the home he was building completed—but though he was far from his ancestral home to the South, Joseph was resourceful and skilled with his craft. Even the memory now, these many years later, of the news of Mary’s indiscretion, was not enough to dim the joy that fuelled his broadening grin. Of course, he didn’t smile then. When he had first heard that Mary was with child, he had barely believed it. Surely it was a lie—not Mary. But then it had been confirmed. He remembered the pain of that first night, the betrayal he’d felt, the dreams he began to disassemble and set aside. Yet he could not bring himself to spite her, she was, and always would be, his song-bird. So he had made plans to break the arrangement with her family, yet to do so with discretion and care, hopefully her family would be able to shield and protect her. 

But then he came.

The smile now faltered on Joseph’s face. He still could not recall that night without the cold grip of fear tracing an aching line through his chest. “Do not fear,” he had said. Do not fear? How was that even possible? The flaming glory of a well-rehearsed memory had scorched his face. The burning might of the majesty of God’s holiness had spilled out of some hidden rent in the heavens and washed over him. Joseph truly felt as though he was breathing his last. But then, quieter than expected, and with a gentle sound that felt as though it was stretched thin over an ocean of power, came the voice. “Do not fear.” The rest felt as confusing in his memory as it was clear … “And you shall name him Jesus.”

And so he did.

He remembered walking beside a plodding donkey as they wound their way up to his father’s town. He remembered listening to the gentle rise and fall of the song Mary sung to mask the discomfort she felt. He remembered that cry of pain that split the night, the blood, the fierce determination on the frightened face of a first-time mother. He remembered the men who cautiously approached them with news he would have barely believed a year earlier. He remembered everything.

He remembered holding a little boy, gently placing him on Mary’s breast with trembling fingers. He remembered wiping his face as tears fell unbidden, even as he beheld the face of his precious child—a child like every other, but a child like no other.

Mary had said with strained voice, “Behold, your son,” and the sound of her words struck him. My son? he had wondered quietly. Is he? Even as the questions had battered him, his hand stretched to touch the soft palm of this tender life. Feeling the fingers grip his, holding him, he had wondered at these little hands. He counted the fingers, allowed his eyes to caress the creases hidden in his grip, and marvelled anew at how such a little hand could hold so much.

“Hello, Jesus. It’s nice to finally meet you. I’m your dad. Welcome to our little family.”

A sudden sound startled him. His eyes opened as he sat upright and fought back the encroaching sleep that almost waylaid him.

“Abba? Were you sleeping?” came Jesus’s playful voice.

“No. I was just resting my eyes.”

“Mother, Abba was sleeping again,” he shouted outside. Mary’s voice came lilting back with laughter hiding behind her words, “It’s because he is growing so old.”

Jesus smiled.

Joseph groaned as he stood upright and stepped toward the curtain that hid his workshop from the house, sweeping it aside he scanned the room and assessed his son’s work.

“Well done, Jesus, you’ve made me proud. You may go and play for a while until your mother calls for the evening meal.”

“Yes, Abba. Is it done? Is there anything else you need before I go?”

“No, my son, you have done enough for now. Thank you.”