Joseph of Nazareth learned that Mary, his fiance, was expecting a child! Since they were not married yet, so naturally Joseph knew the baby was not his. So he decided to deforce her, though privately, so as not to publicly disgrace her. But in a dream, an angel told Joseph that Mary's baby was conceived by the Holy Spirit and would grow up to become the Saviour of the world.
So Joseph married Mary. But during the pragnancy, the couple had to travel to Bethlehem in Judea and register their names as the cansus ordered by Augustus Caesar. There was played out the well-known story of the King born in a stable. Joseph named the infant Jesus, as he was instucted to. Then he was warned by an angel that Herod the Great was looking for the baby Messiah. So Joseph fled with his family to Egypt where they stayed until Herod died and it was safe for them to return to Nazareth.
Joseph must have wondered how this normal child would grow to become the Messiah. But when Jesus was 12, Joseph caught a glimpse of Jesus' greatness. As ussual, the family went to Jerusalem to celebrate the annual Passover feast. Afterwards, on the way home among the throngs of other pilgrims, Mary and Joseph noticed that Jesus was not with them. Worried, they hurried back to Jerusalem. There they found Jesus in the temple, carrying on intelligent discourse with the scholarly teachers!
''Why are You here?'' the worried couple demanded. ''We've been looking everywhere for You.''
''Don't you know that I need to be here, in My Father's house?'' He replied.
But He returned home with them and grew an obedient boy.
Joseph of Nazareth was given a special role in history. He struggled as an ordinary father and husband to provide for his family in a captive society. Yet he was the father chosen to provide and nurture to the Son of Man.
*sources from Men of the Bible, Dan Harmon
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