ONE OF THE THINGS I LOVE about Joseph as the Gospels present him is his spiritual intuition. When he learned that his betrothed, Mary, was pregnant by another source, he thought about breaking off the engagement discreetly. But when an angel, or message from God, told him of the special nature of this particular birth—that the child had been conceived by the Holy Ghost and that he would be the Messiah, who would "save his people from their sins" Matt. 1:21.—Joseph accepted his role as caretaker of the child.
That might not seem too spectacular, but if you consider that King Herod and his minions were actively seeking to kill the baby Jesus, Joseph's acts—such as taking the mother and child to safety in Egypt for a while—reflect genuine courage. In some deep way, Joseph trusted that there really was a divine purpose acting in their lives.
Joseph has traditionally been described as a carpenter, teaching Jesus his own trade. But for some years, I've wondered why Jesus' parables don't seem to offer any carpentry metaphors. Having wielded a saw and hammer (badly) in my own life, I would think that line of work would be a rich source of material. But the Gospels seem silent on the subject.
In The Birth of the Messiah, author Raymond E. Brown gives a possible answer to this puzzle. Evidently, tekton, the Greek word used to describe Jesus in the book of Mark, and generally translated as "carpenter," can be used to describe a broad range of workers in stone, wood, and even metal. But it also has the implication of a skilled worker, not a laborer. With this in mind, Dr. Brown notes that at least some scholars believe Jesus and Joseph could have been of a higher professional level, the equivalent to a shipbuilder or an architect. Raymond E. Brown, The Birth of the Messiah (Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1977), pp.539–540 .
If you review Jesus' parables and examples about building and building terms (foundation, for example) from that standpoint, they take on new meaning. Luke's Gospel tells of a time when Jesus asked, "Which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it? Lest haply, after he hath laid the foundation, and is not able to finish it, all that behold it begin to mock him, saying, This man began to build, and was not able to finish." Luke 14:28–30.
Could this have been based on a real-life experience with a customer? Or did Joseph teach this to Jesus in the course of their carpentry business? Jesus could well have been drawing on his own life in order to provide a powerful spiritual lesson.
Scholars also note that Joseph is absent from Jesus' later life, and they speculate that he may have passed on before Jesus began his ministry. This might be one reason that people asked on one occasion, "Is not this the carpenter's son? Is not his mother called Mary?" Matt. 13:55. Two, not one, questions seem needed to identify the man who, in the context of this encounter, is not very welcome.
However long Joseph may have been a part of Jesus' life, it's clear that he was willing to support the child who grew up to be a brilliantly brave and deeply spiritual man. I wonder if Joseph ever knew that he was fostering a child whose life literally became the foundation for saving the world.
