He's mentioned in passing twice ... in the last verse of the first Chapter Joseph "does not consummate the marriage until she gives birth to a son and they name him Jesus."
The beginning of Chapter 2 is "After Jesus was born ..."
No baby in a manger ... not even a manger! ... no overcrowded Inn ... or shepherds keeping watch over the flocks ... Heavenly choirs or any of the stuff the Gospel of Luke introduces to the world, though he was Greek bringing all of the flowery imagery of Hellenist writing.
Matthew's Nativity is all terrible lineage, bad dreams, corrupt Government and personal scandal with no baby as a character.
How can you have Christmas without the baby Jesus?
How can you have Christmas without the baby Jesus?
Matthew pulls it off and, if anything, the baby's merely a reason to do things.
There is no romance, just the grittiness of life and a man doing what he believes is right for the strangest of reasons when the entire world knows he's a damn fool.
The whole Nativity story in Matthew is about Joseph ... not Jesus or his Mother.
Matthew's Christmas only has the slightest reference to a baby being born.
What is it about Joseph that cast him as the lead in the Christmas story?
Where's Jesus in all of this?
Of course, all of the time we're asking ourselves that question, "Where's Jesus?"
"Hey Jesus! I could really use you right now! My child has died ... I've lost my job ... I'm being evicted ... I have cancer ... Where are you?"
And the answer is ... silence.
And while we're asking the right questions, maybe we're missing the answers because we're looking for one thing when God's saying another.
Objectively looking, Joseph is one screwed up dude.
It all starts off okay ... he's got a good job, falls in love, gets engaged and his entire life is looking good spread out before him.
Then it all goes to Hell!
Mary gets pregnant ... in shock he wants a divorce ... starts having nightmares where Angels tell him it's God's baby and to marry the girl anyway ... and ... he listens to his dreams.
And his dreams are crazy!
"Take Mary as your wife because the baby is conceived by God" ... "Take your wife and baby and flee to another country!" ... "Leave your new country and return home" ... "Don't go to your actual home but raise the boy here!"
Joseph does it all.
Mary has a baby and they name him Jesus.
That's about it as far as Mary and Jesus are concerned.
Everything else is about Joseph, his crazy dreams, the fact he believes God's talking to him through them and he listens.
Jesus doesn't show up in the story for another 30 years when he asks John the Baptizer to dunk him under.
There's nothing in Matthew's Nativity about Mary saying "Thank you" for not embarrassing me and getting married when you don't know if it's yours.
There's nothing in the Gospel about Jesus ever acknowledging the man who saved his life by dragging them across the world as they knew it until the time was right.
There's no baby in the coming of the Messiah in Matthew.
There's simply the belief that he's here.
And if you know he's here ... like Joseph did ... you do crazy things ... things you know God wants you to do ... though they seem stupid as Hell ... you do them anyway and it all works out somehow.
It's a funny way to start a Gospel.
What was Matthew thinking?
Except perhaps he's trying to tell the story of Jesus as he's lived it.
There's this baby you really want to be present ... this new beginning ... different way of living ... whole new life ... but you're stuck in this world left with the choice of accepting it or ... believing and acting with everything inside of you ... a new world's not just coming ... but it's here.
And it starts with you.
Not a baby.
I think that's what Christmas is all about to Matthew and maybe to us too.
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