#as promised here is a companion piece to my marian reflection from last year

[ah-bright-wings]

Something New - A Christmas Reflection

The rise and fall of the baby’s chest is steady. Joseph watches it, straw prickling his back. Mary is asleep with her head on his chest. He has an arm around her. The staff in his hand stretches over her legs like a shield.

The rain has stopped, though the night air remains cool and damp. Joseph stretches to adjust the blanket over the baby, marveling over him again. He is so small. When Joseph held him while Mary washed herself, the baby’s head fit in one of his calloused hands, scalp downy soft beneath his fingers. 

He’d been afraid to hold him. All his life, he has served his God. He says his daily prayers, and he knows the scriptures. Like all the rest, he has waited for Messiah to free them and set all things in right order. But this, surely, this dirty straw and muck, is not what God intends. His created hands are not meant to hold his Creator.

Joseph is no zealot. He is no priest. Some days, walking beneath the shadow of hillside crosses, he wonders where his God might be. Where might he be, the one who made the rivers of Egypt run red with blood? Does he see the blood on Galilean hills? Where is the Lord Almighty, above and before all things, who gave man his breath and who comes swiftly to save his people? Where is he?

Here he is. Joseph knows him, even as he draws the blanket over tiny curled toes, too afraid to touch this Holy of Holies. Scripture comes to his mind unbidden, Isaiah’s words as fresh and sweet as dew on his tongue:

“Behold, I am doing something new. Do you not perceive it?”

He is made still by the words, breath caught in his chest. His hand shakes. He draws it back. The baby grunts and kicks in his sleep, and Mary exhales softly. 

Joseph had a plan. He had several plans over the years, each polished and made beloved in his mind. Once, his world was only wood shavings and Joachim’s daughter with her stuck-out ears and blue veil. He saw her drawing water from the well, and it felt to him like she was Rebekah, and he, Abraham’s servant, seeing and knowing it must be her. He had never been more certain. Her father was a good and holy man, and her mother as virtuous as she. He built her a home. What little he could offer, simplicity and safety, he would, and it would be enough for them.

Then one day, his brother came to the door, and whispered through it what he’d heard in town.

Gossip is idle, and of no good use. Joseph was certain Mary would set his heart at ease when he came to her, quiet and ashamed to repeat the story. But she did not ease him. She took his hands, and her smile was tremulous. His plans were no more.

Joseph wept in his empty home, knees curled to his chest, with no one to hear him but the Almighty. What did the Almighty care for the small dreams of a carpenter from Nazareth? He wanted to curse God, but kept his teeth closed against the words. Better that he be struck dead than disgrace the name of his Lord. He would not make Mary a spectacle. He would be quiet. 

It was yet another plan brought to ruin. 

In the silence of that night came the angel, terrible and holy, and Joseph covered his face for fear. “Do not be afraid,” the angel told him, as it had told Mary. She speaks even now with such calm about her own visitation. Joseph, when he thinks of his, though he had been dreaming, shakes anew. “Do not be afraid,” the angel had said. “Take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Putting her aside would have been easier. The angel spoke, and he trembled and hid his face, sat in the rubble of his plans like Job. How could he not be afraid? He is afraid now, sitting here with straw pricking his back, with Mary’s head on his chest, with his God asleep in a feeding trough, cushioned by Joseph’s own cap. Oh God, he is afraid. He is afraid. He is in awe.

Is this the better way, Lord? he wonders. The one for which you have toppled all my plans? 

Slowly, he reaches out to touch the baby’s chest, feeling the steady rise and fall of it. A fragile heart flutters beneath his fingers. It stirs in his breast something strong and fierce, and his eyes turn to the mouth of the cave, as if wild bandits or wolves might suddenly spring forth to devour this helpless God. His grip tightens on his staff.

The rain begins again, drumming lightly. It will keep the streets empty. The shepherds in the fields will be soaked, they and their flocks. Praise God for this cave, cold and damp though it is. Praise God for his ratty cloak, and the straw to lie on. 

Here is his God. His eyes are drawn again to the baby. Softly, so as not to disturb mother or sleeping child, he leans over to kiss the downy hair and thumb the stuck-out ears. The baby turns in his sleep. Joseph takes a deep breath.

“Behold,” says the still, small voice, “I am doing something new. Do you not perceive it?”