"When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him." Which one of us would have risked so much on the basis of a dream? But Joseph did. His is courage of a rare and particular kind. His faith takes the form of bravery when confronted with real danger and steadfastness in the face of his own doubts and misgivings. He is the reluctant hero of Matthew's nativity story.
The evangelist Matthew is a Jewish Christian who writes his Gospel with the express purpose of proving that Jesus of Nazareth is in fact "the Messiah" (1:1, 1:18), the "anointed one," the true heir of King David, and the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy. Crucial to that purpose is the man named Joseph, the putative father of Jesus, and the embodiment of faithful Israel. Joseph shines like the star of Bethlehem in our reading for today, and then vanishes utterly from the gospel, never to be heard of again.
We are told right off the bat, that Joseph is "a righteous" man (1:19), meaning that he is an ardent observer of the Law of Moses. (Elsewhere in Matthew's gospel such scrupulous Jews are called "Pharisees." And if Jesus did in fact come from a family of Pharisees that would make sense. He shares many of the beliefs of that sect, although he had no time for their narrowness and self-righteousness.) But Joseph combines moral integrity and strict adherence to the Law with the pre-eminently Christian virtues of mercy, kindness, and humility. From Matthew's point of view Joseph is in every way "a true gent," a worthy "Son of David," a perfect Jew and at the same time a model of Christian discipleship.
When he hears of Mary's "delicate condition" he meditates on his options. There is no point in going forward with the nuptials; divorce—public or private--is the only option. But in the character of Joseph righteousness is balanced with compassion. He rejects the public option because of the shame it would inflict, and goes for Plan B. He has decided to "dismiss her quietly" (1:19), and then he has a dream. (Joseph, like his namesake in the Old Testament, is a dreamer.) In the dream an angel appears to tell him not to "be afraid to take Mary as [his] wife" (1:20), that the child she has conceived is "from the Holy Spirit" (1:20). This would have been puzzling indeed; there is no other instance of a conception without a male agent in Jewish literature. Nevertheless, Joseph did what he was told without fully understanding. He believed the message and acted, and his trust completes that which begins in Mary's womb.
Dreams guide the story. Again, after the visit of the wise men, when wicked King Herod threatens the life of the child, Joseph has another dream, and again he responds with obedience and courage, and he takes the child and his mother to Egypt to hide out. For Matthew, the sojourn in Egypt is deeply significant. In his infancy Jesus reenacts the experience of the children of Israel, going down into Egypt with Joseph. And at Herod's death, Joseph is again prompted by a dream (2:19), and he obediently brings the child out. Matthew makes the best use of the journey down to Egypt and back again to underline his message—in sending Jesus the Messiah, the God of the Old Testament has acted as he did in the Exodus, to bring his people out of slavery into a new freedom. This time liberation comes through the Jewish people, but it is intended for the whole world. They are the instrument through which salvation comes, just as Joseph is the instrument God uses to save the Child of Promise.
The person of Joseph is there to bridge the gap between the Old Testament and the New. He is the personification of obedient Israel, the People of the Promise at their very best—the righteous Jew, the kind husband, the faithful follower. The last thing we are told about him is that together with Mary and the child Jesus, "he made his home in a town called Nazareth" (2:23). And we can assume that he went on taking care of things, obeying orders like a good soldier until he was relieved of his duty.
Joseph does what he is told without a fuss, and then he politely steps back and disappears from the story--but not before he has given us what the evangelist Matthew considers the best possible example of what it means to be a Christian disciple and "a true gent."
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