The humiliation of Joseph

A childhood drama makes him particularly sensitive about the man in the background

I don't remember much about the Christmas presentations I was involved with as a kid. But one sticks in my mind from when I was about 9 years old. We were presenting the nativity story as a slide show, which entailed us putting on the usual mix of dressing gowns and hessian dress-ups, and going to the Whyalla wild life park where we were photographed in various tableaus. Why this really sticks in my mind is that, in the challenging role of inn-keeper, I was photographed turning away Mary and Joseph from what was, in fact, the entrance to the ladies' toilet block. For a 9-year-old boy, to be forced to stand in the entrance to the ladies' loos seemed one of the biggest humiliations I would ever be forced to endure.

In recent years, I've found Joseph in the Christmas story to be a very compelling character. And as I think about Joseph, I understand what humiliation is, in a way my 9-year-old brain could never grasp.

Joseph knows true humiliation in many ways. He's endured the experience of knowing he's not the true father of the child she's carrying — seeing the pointing fingers, hearing the sniggers. And now this — not a photograph he doesn't want to be in, but the prospect of a night in squalor with animals and a very unhappy fiancée. I picture the look Mary is giving him. I see her as hot, tired, and very uncomfortable. And I sense the familiar sensation Joseph feels, as he tries to look after the woman he's betrothed to, while he's reduced to begging this innkeeper for somewhere to stay. I wonder — on that night, did Joseph look to the heavens and ask God why he'd been dealt that hand in life?

This Christmas, I will again try to turn my mind back to that quiet carpenter. And as I reflect on Joseph, I'll remember that, out of the humiliation and despair of that night, he was the man charged with one of the most monumental responsibilities anyone has ever faced — the care and protection of the most precious infant that has ever been born. And I'll think about how the "Why me?" that he may have asked in despair in Bethlehem, just may have transformed to a "Why me?" of wonder and awe over the months and years that followed.

Steve Loffler