What do you do with an estranged God?

Maybe estranged isn’t the right word. It surely is strange, though, this whole “Christmas” thing. God becomes human, a human born to a poor family. This is God, right? He’s powerful and what not – couldn’t he be born into royalty or power or wealth? No, that’s not the route he went. Instead he went with Joseph.

I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about Joseph.

What was that like for him? His fiancé becomes pregnant, but swears she was faithful. There’s weird dreams that confirm it, so he decides to hope for the best. He cares for Mary, hears stories of angels and stars and peace for all.

But that’s not the case, is it. It’s not even a few months before they’re on the run. King Herod is killing all the babies. Joseph has to take his family to a country that enslaved his people, multiple times. They are refugees. How opposite is that from peace?

There comes a time where things are more normal. They get to move back to Nazareth. Joseph gets to resume his work. But it’s never the same; he’s a father now… and yet, not.

Mary always had a special connection with Jesus. She was allowed to give part of herself to him. He was from her flesh, from her very self. Where did that leave Joseph? He believed, didn’t he? Surely he saw this as an honor, to have God in his house. He was given the responsibility to protect, teach, and care for this magnificent child. And yet, he was on the outside, always a bit of a stranger.

What was Joseph waiting for? Surely he was anticipating Messiah, but what kind?

It couldn’t have been a baby. Why a baby? I still don’t understand. God used to come with fire and frogs. But a baby? It would be at least thirty years before he turned water to wine, before he did something “real.”

I’m not sure I have such faith. Honestly, that’s not the God I want. I don’t want a baby. I’m too impatient, too stubborn. A baby that’s not mine, but in my world… forever simultaneously near and far, known and Other. How did Joseph stick with it?

An estranged God? No. An estranging God? That could be. A strange God? At least from my perspective.

This was God’s story. He could’ve written it a thousand ways, and this is the one he chose: A baby, Mary, and Joseph. There’s so much of me that wants to fight against it, to whine about what isn’t, but that’s just a distraction from what is.

Flesh, Time, and Otherness. Relationship. Personality.

It’s a divine story full of humanity, and I don’t get it yet. Maybe I need thirty years of my own.

Still Wandering,

Tony