just your average Joe

First of all I want to say: THE LINZ'S WON! Way to go boys and girl! Okay, so I was excited! I'm over it now...What am I going to do now every tuesday at 8?....Maybe I'll actually study...(good one, Lori!)
So there are a few things I've been pondering about this last week. First of all, I've always thought of Joseph (as in, Mary and Joseph) as a distant father that had nothing to do with Jesus...maybe he was embarrased with him and cast him out of the family or something...I don't know. But this week, I started reading in Matthew, and I got a totally different perspective. Here it tells how Gabriel appears to Joseph, not once, or twice, but 3 times in the middle of the night. And how did Joe respond? He obeyed God immediately! First it was to marry Mary and call 'their' son Jesus. Then to leave his family, home, and carpentry shop to move off to Egypt suddenly...no questions asked. Then, when they just start to settle in...oh look, we're supposed to move back to Israel where the former ruler has been murdering innocent babies because he wanted to make sure my son was dead. Crazy! Joe was very concerned about Mary's baby, and took care of him like a true father would, even if it meant sacrificing his reputation and the comforts of home. He obeyed God, and did the best he could to protect his child (even though it wasn't even his). Amazing! I don't know why he wasn't mentioned later on in the gospels...maybe he died, I don't know. I often think about the sacrifice that Mary had to make, but I realized that Joseph also made huge sacrifices in his life for Jesus. What a crazy and miraculous story of regular people saying 'yes' to God when it made no sense at all, knowing that most people would probably not believe the truth. That was my new insight to the Christmas story this week.