As we enter Christmas week, the spotlight predictably falls on the Baby in the manger and on Mary, serene and glowing in every nativity scene ever enacted. Rightly so. But somewhere just outside the frame stands a man who rarely gets centre stage.
Joseph.
The man holding the lantern. The one clearing his throat politely while history happens around him.
Imagine Joseph for a moment. A carpenter. A practical man. Someone who believed that wood should be measured twice and cut once. And suddenly he is asked to accept something that cannot be measured, tested, or explained. His young wife is expecting a child not his. Any normal man would have reached for the exit sign. Joseph reached for obedience.
Picture him that night in Bethlehem, knocking on doors that refused to open. And all the while Mary grows weary, the child ready to arrive, and Joseph has nothing to offer but reassurance and faith. No room at the inn. No backup plan. No complaint lodged with heaven.
Just quiet persistence.
That is faith of a dangerous kind. Not the comfortable sort that believes when outcomes are guaranteed. Not the polite faith that nods approvingly during sermons. This was blind faith. Faith that trusted God when logic resigned. Faith that aligned itself completely to a plan that offered no explanations and very little dignity.
Joseph surrendered his reputation. The whispers would have followed him forever. He surrendered his rights. The child would never bear his bloodline. He surrendered control. A carpenter who could fix broken furniture could not fix this situation.
And yet he stayed. He protected. He obeyed.
We like to think faith is heroic when it looks dramatic. Joseph’s faith was heroic because it was ordinary. He did not preach. He did not perform miracles. He simply did what was required of him each day. He walked. He carried. He waited. He trusted.
That is perhaps why Joseph unsettles us. His obedience leaves us with very few excuses. He did not ask God for a presentation or a roadmap. He did not negotiate terms. He did not say, let me think about it. He aligned himself fully with God’s will and stepped into it, even when it made him uncomfortable and misunderstood.
In a world obsessed with recognition, Joseph teaches us the holiness of obscurity. In an age that demands answers, he models trust without explanations. In a culture that celebrates control, he shows us the power of surrender.
What a man was Joseph. Not because he understood everything, but because he trusted the One who did.
This Christmas, as we admire the manger and sing familiar carols, perhaps the real imitation we are called to is his. To trust when things do not add up. To obey when the path is unclear.
Total surrender even when it costs us something…!
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