# Be Ready - Friday, 2025.12.19 ## Joseph - Part 2 On 2025.12.06, I wrote about the interaction between Joseph son of Jacob and an angel of the Lord as recorded in Matthew 1.18-25. In that post, I talked about Joseph's righteousness. Although much of what I am writing about today is not explicitly in scripture, I think the thoughts and conclusions discussed in this post are reasonable. For example, Matthew 1.24-25 say that Joseph did as the angel commanded. In particular: - He embraced Mary as his wife - He had no union with her until after she gave birth - He named the child, Jesus What's NOT discussed in Matthew or Luke are all the days between dream and birth. The Bible doesn't record any of Joseph's thoughts or behavior. In order to meet my publisher's deadline, I'll just make up stuff and project my less than righteous character onto him in the next few paragraphs. Considering the culture that shamed out-of-marriage-sex, I would be surprised if Joseph didn't receive a lot of abuse from the whole community. I would guess that most people assumed Joseph was the father and seriously questioned his "righteousness!" I am quite certain, I would have been able to hold things bottled up inside for a period of time, then when people least expected it, I would have exploded on them. Next was the trip to Bethlehem with a VERY pregnant "wife." According to Grok, it would have taken Joseph and Mary 5-10 days to travel from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Considering her condition, it was probably on the upper end of that range. Again, the Bible doesn't record any of Joseph's thoughts or behavior so again, I'll use me as the affect surrogate. It is probably a good assumption that most people were not happy about having to travel as commanded by the Romans so close to Christmas. Not only is Joseph dealing with a lot of conflicting feelings about his "wife" but he and everyone else on the road were probably getting all fired up about the Roman abuse. {Luke 2.1-5} Finally, we come to the actual birth of Jesus as recorded in Luke 2.6-7. First, if it were me and if I felt any love for my "wife," I would have been very put-out about having to sleep in a barn! Second, have you ever thought about the actual "birth" of Jesus. There is nothing in scripture about OB-GYNs, midwives, doulas, etc. in that barn. It is highly probable that Joseph delivered Jesus. Talk about an epic tree-topper! To bring this to a crowning head (I get double pun points for that one): - Joseph had to endure 9-months of abuse from the community - No union with his "wife" - Arduous travel as commanded by the evil Roman empire - Slow travel to Bethlehem because of Mary's condition - Sleeping in barn (I'm sure that is her fault too) - Delivering another man's (actually, it was the Holy Spirit's) child One thing for sure, Joseph was much more righteous than me!! Father, please give me Your mercy for my failures and please fill me with Your grace so I can properly represent You in this world!