Joseph Is Not Angry, But He Does Show Fear

Jesus IS Emmanuel: Fourth Sunday of Advent 2025

One of the mistakes people frequently make when they read the Bible, particularly the New Testament, is to project our own experiences into the lives of the saints and sinners we find there. That’s not entirely an error. After all, part of becoming a saint is imitating the saints and seeking their assistance. But that can lead us to misread today’s Gospel from St. Matthew.

If this were a story about a man today who is engaged to a young woman who finds herself pregnant, and her fiancée has not been intimate with her, the fiancée will probably think she has cheated on him with another guy, and he might become angry. But the story we hear today is not about Joe and Jill and some random Don Juan. It’s about the sinless virgin Mary and St. Joseph, who is described in the Greek as being like a “living saint,” and the third party is the third person of the Blessed Trinity.

No, Joseph is not angry, he is tempted to be afraid, which is not the same thing at all. The Fathers of the Church, Origen and Jerome, ask why Joseph might be afraid. You know that he was a virtuous man, and exhibited the gifts associated with virtue. One of these is the “fear of the Lord.” Now that’s not a servile fear, a fear of messing up and getting swatted down. Fear of the Lord is a filial fear, a fear of disappointing God, our Father and ultimate end. The angel who appears to Joseph tells him not to fear taking Mary and her child into his home. That’s a big part of God’s plan, because the child is of the Holy Spirit, and Joseph must be his acknowledged father so that Jesus can be known as a descendant of King David, and the fulfillment of God’s promise to the house of David. Then Mary the virgin mother would be the Queen Mother, reigning next to her Son, Jesus the King of Israel.

Would that we all might have the fear of the Lord that Joseph had, always endeavoring to pursue the plan of Our Lord.

By listening to the plan of God, and acting in accord with the grace of the Holy Spirit, Mary and Joseph gave us the true Emmanuel, God with us, Jesus, who was and is the second person of the Blessed Trinity, and who abides with us sacramentally forever. You may ask, why the confusion of names? In Israelite thought, one’s name of power is the essence of the person. The name Jesus, or Yehshua, means Yah (God) saves. His name of power is Emmanuel, God with us. So Emmanuel is His essence, and Yehshua is His mission.

Mary is the God-bearer, the one who carries God the Son in her womb for nine months and follows and ministers to Him the rest of His life, all the way to His passion, death and Resurrection. The Fathers of the Church taught that she is then also the one Scripture calls the “virgin daughter Zion” and “Ark of the Covenant.” For this reason, we chant Psalm 24 as a meme of the virginal conception of Jesus within Mary. We sing, “let the Lord enter, He is the King of Glory.” Mary is like the gate through which Jesus, our Lord and God, enters the world and enters His people.

The challenge to us, God’s people, that comes through our Scriptures today is to allow God to bring about in our hearts and minds what St. Paul calls the “obedience of faith” for the sake of Jesus’s powerful Name. We believe, that is we accept Jesus as our savior, and we take him under the sign of bread and wine, but we also obey His Law of love, impelled by the grace of His Holy Spirit. That means that this week, undistracted by Jingle Bells and last minute merchandizing, we continue with Christ in our hearts and prayers on our lips, sharing His message of peace and love with everyone, especially our families and our enemies.