“Upon waking, Joseph did what the Holy One’s Messenger told him to do….” (Matthew 1.24a)
My grandfather was a carpenter. I still have a dresser, and a few toys he made over his lifetime. And anytime I walk through the lumber aisle at the hardware store, the smell of cut wood and sawdust takes me back to standing in his backyard shop as he measured and sawed.
None of that ability, however, managed to pass to me.
Oh, I’ve tried my hand at basic stuff around the house, like replacing the landscaping timbers around the front flowerbed. But my lack of skill is apparent in the pieces that are either a little too long or a little too short, even though I always measure twice and cut once. My problem isn’t so much in knowing the inches and feet but in trusting what they’re telling me.
Joseph is unique in the stories of this season. While both Zechariah and Mary respond to the words of the angel with questions, Joseph simply accepts it and acts. When in a dream he is told not to break off his engagement with Mary, Joseph, upon waking, does exactly what he’s been told to do. Later, after the Magi’s visit, when in a dream an angel warns him that he should take his family and flee. Again, he doesn’t question, he acts.
This willingness to simply do, to act without question has made Joseph, for me, the hardest with which to relate. I’m not like that. Like Zechariah and Mary, I have questions. I need to know about the why and the how. I have struggled to understand Joseph’s ability to simply trust what he’s been told and to act.
But I wonder if that’s just the carpenter in him. Years of practicing his trade have taught him to measure twice, and then cut. It’s the same actions I saw my grandfather do decades ago, he measured, marked, and then put the wood to the saw without hesitation.
Me, on the other hand, I don’t trust my measurements. I’m not confident in what the tape is telling me; so, I question it. I make my mark and my cut a little longer, a little shorter, attempting to compensate in case I’ve measured incorrectly. And, of course, I end up with things that don’t quite fit.
I don’t think questions are bad. I think we’re encouraged and expected to ask questions. But there’s a difference between asking out of curiosity and asking because I don’t trust. I don’t trust myself. Like in measurements and cuts, I don’t trust what is right in front of me.
Maybe it’s no accident that this man was a father to Jesus, showing him from an early age how to measure, to make and trust the mark, and to cut—smooth and even. Perhaps it’s in Joseph’s shop that Jesus learned the trust to step into the river with John, and then to declare the world that was already present, even when he saw where his path would lead.
And, I wonder, if that is what Joseph is here to teach me.