“THE ANGELS OF ADVENT: Guardians of our Lord”
Genesis 37: 3-4; 50: 18-20
Midweek One: Saint Joseph, Patriarch: 7 December Anno Domini 2023
Fr Jay Watson, SSP
Saint Joseph! Forget about his coat of “many colors?” The Vulgate and Septuagint translate it as “with long sleeves.” No matter. It most assuredly was not a technicolor musical. Joseph’s life was filled with hard work, betrayal, his attempted murder, slavery, imprisonment, torture, loyalty…and then deliverance by Christ.
Saint Joseph: Patriarch. That grace-filled title is thought to apply to only three men: Joseph’s great grandfather Abraham, his grandfather, Isaac, and his father, Jacob. But it should be applied to Joseph himself. He was a father; father to Ephraim and Manasseh. But more importantly, He was a Guardian of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Who was your father? Who was your guardian? Good, bad, or middling, you had a dad who took care of you and who protected you. Jacob was the father of Joseph. He loved Joseph dearly. Remember that Jacob was re-named by The Lord. His new name (In Christ) was Israel. This name is symbolic of all God’s chosen people, most certainly NOW, the Christian Church; but also, of Christ Himself Who is The True Israel. Joseph is connected to Jacob/Israel by blood and to Jesus by The Blood of The Cross.
Jacob’s great lament, heart-rending tragedy, is that he thought he had let his son down; that he had not protected Joseph. He believed his other lying sons that Joseph had been killed and torn to pieces by wild beasts. If you are a father, or a mother, you too feel as if you have let down your children, your sons. We all stand guilty before The perfect God of not being the fathers, and protectors that we should be. We repent. We are forgiven. We are restored. That all happens in Joseph’s story in Genesis.
Saint Joseph is an Angel of Advent, of God. He a Guardian of our Lord.
Joseph points to Jesus and is a “type” of Jesus. He foreshadows The Blessed Virgin’s husband as well. St. Mary’s ‘soon-to-be’ husband is visited by The Lord several times in dreams. Our Patriarch, as a young man, was also spoken to by God in dreams—dreams that were portents, prophetic predictions of what came to pass. Moses writes: “…Joseph dreamed a dream, and he told it his brethren: and they hated him yet the more…hear, I pray you, this dream…behold, we were binding sheaves in the field, and, lo, my sheaf arose, and also stood upright; and, behold, your sheaves stood round about, and made obeisance to my sheaf. And his brethren said to him, Shalt thou indeed reign over us? or shalt thou indeed have dominion over us? And they hated him yet the more for his dreams, and for his words.” [Gen. 37.5-8] Joseph dreamed a second dream: “behold, I have dreamed a dream more…the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me. And he told it to his father, and to his brethren: and his father rebuked him, and said unto him, what is this dream that thou hast dreamed? Shall I and thy mother and thy brethren indeed come to bow down ourselves to thee to the earth?” [vv. 9-10]
God’s answer was to be YES. Yes, you Israel and all the tribes (your other 11 sons) shall indeed bow down in honor to Joseph, the Vice-Roy of the mighty Egyptian empire in a few years.
But before The Patriarch’s rise to unprecedented power, he would have trials, sufferings, and pains. He held firm. He guarded the deposit of The Faith; he protected his own integrity as a man of God, and he remembered his home, Father, and family. He did not plan revenge or evil payback to the brothers who sold him into slavery—who wanted to originally kill him.
For a short-time Joseph was the administrator in the house of Potiphar, a captain of Pharaoh’s guard. But an evil lie of rape caused him to be thrown into the dungeon. Moses simply records that it was a prison where the inmates were “bound,” but David in the Psalter expounds: “He sent a man before them, even Joseph, who was sold for a servant: whose feet they hurt with fetters: he was laid in iron: until the time that his word came: the word of the Lord tried him.” [Ps. 105. 17-19]
Oh, he was tried. Dark, lonely, starved, and shackled with iron. The Coverdale Psalter reads: “the iron entered into his soul.”
But God protected this Guardian of Israel.
“…the Lord was with Joseph, and shewed him mercy, and gave him favour in the sight of the keeper of the prison…the keeper of the prison committed to Joseph’s hand all the prisoners…the keeper of the prison looked not to anything that was under his hand; because the Lord was with him, and that which he did, the Lord made it to prosper.” [Gen. 39. 21-23]
While still a prisoner he correctly interpreted two highly symbolic dreams of Pharoah’s imprisoned butler and baker. But it was only when Pharoah himself had the troubling dream of the fat and emaciated cows; and the full and blighted ears of wheat, that Joseph was sent for. His reading of Pharoah’s dream—a prediction from God of the upcoming 7 years of plenty, followed by 7 years of famine—saved Egypt and Pharoah. The King made Joseph second in command of all Egypt. Not only did the Patriarch guard and protect the Land of Ham, but he arranged to have his entire family: brothers, sisters, nephews, nieces, and father Jacob—Israel, brought to Goshen in Egypt.
The revealing of who he was; the reunion with his brothers—with his youngest brother, Benjamin; brings tears of joy to one’s eyes when reading. And when the old father, Israel, is brought back and the family is fully restored, the Gospel reigns.
The head, the true Guardian of God’s people—of Israel—is Joseph. Joseph is a type of Christ. And, he literally guards Christ by guarding, protecting, and nurturing his brother Judah—from whose loins The Messiah will come. Joseph is truly an angel (a messenger) of Advent (the coming and final coming of Jesus) because by Grace he forgives his brothers and loves his father until the end! Jacob lived in Egypt for 17 more years, dying at 147.
At the death of Israel, the brothers still not certain of Joseph’s forgiveness, fell on their faces at his feet imploring mercy and promising servitude. Joseph’s statement showed that he truly looked to The Lord and not to his own merits. His response, un-ironically is both right and wrong. “And Joseph said unto them, Fear not: for am I in the place of God?”
Well, no…but yes. Joseph as angel, and Guardian, or as we might say “in the stead and by the command,” was God to them, not Vice-Roy to Pharaoh but Vicar of Christ. His Advent words spoken to his small flock are the words spoken to you: I forgive you all your sins in The Name of The Father and of + The Son, and of The Holy Ghost.
Amen
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