This is the last Joseph image I'll offer this year --on now to Mary!

I call this image Last Chance Joseph because, indeed, the dream came at almost the last hour. We all know a decision is to cut something off, decide which way to go, and our story from Mathew, which deals with Joseph and not Mary, tells us of a terrible decision Joseph was about to make, or of something he had already decided. Thanksfully, he was sensitive to his dream and made a different choice --decided for Mary instead of against her and therefore for Jesus and not against him.

Do we decide about such vital things in similar ways? Absolutely! We decide important matters all the day long --the trouble is we don't realize how each thing matters.  When you look at this story, told in the context of the Christmas narratives, it may not seem like Joseph had much of a choice or that God would have worked something else out, --that omnipotence idea overriding our mortal choices --that sort of thing. But the more I've thought on this the more I want to imbue this part of the story with a great value in Joseph's choice and what the act of choosing can mean for us.

--Pastor Jack