Mary and Joseph

"Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously." (Luke 2:48)

So often, when we consider the Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, we think of a loving family centered on the existence of the precious Christ child, a family that faced difficulties, to be sure, but persevered in trust and service to each other. Such a portrait is good and right.

But what of the marriage of Joseph and Mary? Imagine the events as they develop (Luke 2:41-52). The Passover is finished, and Joseph, Mary, and Jesus are to return to Nazareth. At least while they are leaving Jerusalem, they must be travelling in a very large company--hundreds, perhaps?--since the parents could not see their son, but were not at first concerned. At some point, however, the thought must have crossed Joseph or Mary's mind: where is Jesus? Very soon, as any parent can attest, the question gave way to quickly rising anxiety, as Joseph and Mary began to ask, to fall behind in the group, to pass the urgent request on, if anyone had seen Jesus...

By nightfall, Joseph and Mary were alone, back in Jerusalem, the great and holy city of David where they had been so many Passovers before. They found lodging, ate perhaps only a little, and shared a deep pain of loss together. Truly, a man and woman married to each other: an experience of sorrow, of talking, of attempting to comfort. Mary Ever-Virgin was still Mary, a woman; Joseph, guardian of this family, was even more so Joseph, husband of Mary--surely he held her close to comfort her, to love her, to comfort his own heart aching at the disappearance of their son, still just a child at twelve. Perhaps in their talking they reminded each other that Jesus the child of twelve was now Jesus the young man of twelve; he had a good head on his shoulders, and Joseph and Mary knew his independent spirit, but also his practicality--after all, he was a carpenter's apprentice, he knew how to handle himself with people, such as those for whom Joseph worked...

The second day was bleak and bitter. The terrible weariness that comes with grief was making itself felt. The couple racked their brains, trying to think of clues. Where had they seen Jesus last, before they left the city? Who had he been with? What were his favorite places to eat? What streets to saunter through? Joseph and Mary pursued all these questions, but their quest was futile. Nothing, no clue, no one had seen the boy since the Passover. As evening fell, they asked each other: what do we do? What can we do? Is he truly lost? Is there anything we can do? Should we simply... go back to Nazareth? That seems to be all that is left to do...

The third day. Perhaps Mary and Joseph have made their hopeless decision. There is no more asking to be done, no more possibilities to pursue. Truly, they bear together a heavy grief, a sharing of a chalice of bitterness. As they prepare to leave--three days is a long time--one of them suggests: let us go, before we leave, to the temple (Luke 2:46).

"Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted." (Matthew 5:4) Brokenhearted, Joseph and Mary return to the temple, which doubtless they had visited a few days before in joy and confident trust. Now, life is weariness, grief constricts the heart, fewer words are shared, but closeness remains, for now they are all they have, each other, Mary and Joseph. The temple of the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, the Presence of Glory, the Deliverer of His People, the One who spoke from the bush, who held back the waters of the sea, who spoke in cloud and thunder on Sinai...

And they heard a boy's voice. Their hands, held tight so often for three days now, part in a rush of chaotic emotion that only a parent's heart can experience, they run, they see...

"And when they saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, 'Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for your anxiously.'" (Luke 2:48)

A small company of only three now travels back to Nazareth. The exhaustion of joy and relief is tempered by an awkward silence: after all, they had not understood Jesus' answer (Luke 2:50), and the young man seemed impenitent for the sorrow he had caused them. At this moment, Mary and Joseph certainly understood each other much better than they understood their child, their son. And, as all parents of twelve-year olds must do, they had to accept what they did not understand. Between themselves, they mused on possibilities, motives, reasons, but in the end, they knew that their child was growing now, that the separation was beginning, that the self-identity of adulthood had entered into Jesus' life. At the same time, after the sorrow and anger--perhaps even by the time they reached Nazareth a few days later--they were quietly proud of their son. Where had they found him, after all? Safe, sound, upright, and good, as he had always been, in the temple of the Living God... his "Father's house." (Luke 2:49) 

And so, through their "loss and gain," Joseph and Mary experienced the true dynamic of any marriage: an unexpected sorrow, a test, a strain, a moment of risk, to grow apart or grow together. Their relationship reached a new level of intimacy, the intimacy of shared grief, of generosity to the other even in the moment of one's own fear, truly as husband and wife. This was not lost on Jesus--the child who had learned so much from Joseph, about carpentry, and about fatherhood, had now seen the selflessness of Joseph and Mary, the giving of one's own strength to the other--even surely to the point of death they would have been willing to do this.

No, this was not lost on Jesus. Surely not in Gethsemane, place of fear; surely not on Calvary, place of the skull; surely, not in the tomb, place of three days...