In W.H. Auden’s poem, For The Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio, the master poet takes a long, intense look at the Christmas season and the biblical account of the birth of Jesus. Providing perspectives from several key characters in the narrative, I’m continually grateful for his creative re-telling of Joseph’s perspective when he hears the news of Mary’s pregnancy.
JOSEPH
My shoes were shined, my pants were cleaned and pressed,
And I was hurrying to meet
My own true Love:
But a great crowd grew and grew
Till I could not push my way through,
Because
A star had fallen down the street;
When they saw who I was,
The police tried to do their best.
CHORUS [off]
Joseph, you have heard
What Mary says occurred;
Yes, it may be so.
Is it likely? No.
JOSEPH
The bar was gay, the lighting well-designed,
And I was sitting down to wait
My own true Love:
A voice I’d heard before, I think,
Cried: “This is on the House. I drink
To him
Who does not know it is too late;”
When I asked for the time,
Everyone was very kind.
CHORUS [off]
Mary may be pure,
But, Joseph, are you sure?
How is one to tell?
Suppose, for instance. . . Well. . .
JOSEPH
Through cracks, up ladders, into waters deep,
I squeezed, I climbed, I swam to save
My own true Love:
Under a dead apple tree
I saw an ass; when it saw me
It brayed;
A hermit sat in the mouth of a cave:
When I asked him the way,
He pretended to be asleep.
CHORUS [off]
Maybe, maybe not.
But, Joseph, you know what
Your world, of course, will say
About you anyway.
JOSEPH
Where are you, Father, where?
Caught in the jealous trap
Of an empty house I hear
As I sit alone in the dark
Everything, everything,
The drip of the bathroom tap,
The creak of the sofa spring,
The wind in the air-shaft, all
Making the same remark
Stupidly, stupidly,
Over and over again.
Father, what have I done?
Answer me. Father, how
Can I answer the tactless wall
Or the pompous furniture now?
Answer them. . .
GABRIEL
No, you must.
JOSEPH
How then am I to know,
Father, that you are just?
Give me one reason.
GABRIEL
No.
JOSEPH
All I ask is one
Important and elegant proof
That what my Love had done
Was really at your will
And that your will is Love.
GABRIEL
No, you must believe;
Be silent, and sit still.
In all of Joseph’s confusion, the whispers of the crowd’s gossip, and his plea to God and the angel Gabriel, the common thread through Joseph’s temptation was his doubt. He was tempted to doubt his near-wife’s word and to plead for just some “important and elegant proof” that this was God’s will. Joseph’s urge to doubt is the same that elicited a scoff from Sarah when God promised her a child, the same that left Nicodemus speechless when Jesus told him he must be born again. It is the same doubt that forced Thomas’s hands into the resurrected Jesus’s side.
But the angel Gabriel insists that what combats the choking weeds of doubt is what we are all so reluctant to do. For Joseph and Mary, for Sarah, for Nicodemus, for Thomas, for the parent whose child is off the rails, the cynic whose faith has shriveled up, the addict who can’t kick the urge, the success story who runs towards self-sufficiency in life’s sinking sand, we are called to give up, be silent, sit still, and believe that God holds to his promise of our redemption. In Advent, we are reminded that in stillness, silence, and the darkest of doubts, the light of the world shines.
“For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.”
– Isaiah 9:6-7
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