The Christmas story shines. It sparkles and glistens. It is a story whose words are dipped in silver and gold … words like: alleluia, good news of great joy, peace on earth, glory to God in the highest. No wonder angels proclaim the story in song with harps of gold.

No wonder Brian Jones and the Old South Choir have prepared and rehearsed for this day. They have met and sung and played and practiced. Why? So that this story – this glistening, dipped-in-silver-and-gold story – might find a voice, a vehicle, here and now, and might be reborn in us. They sing and play the story, to try do it justice; to honor it and convey it in ways that the unadorned spoken word cannot.

The images of the Christmas story are luminous: a bright star in a night sky, a manger, a journey, gift giving.

It is a story peopled with exotic magi who travel from distant lands bearing precious gifts; peopled with simple shepherds, who win our hearts for their eagerness and observation; with angels, swift of wing and elegant of tongue; and with the quintessential mother, Mary. She is young, strong, beautiful and faithful to God.

And then there is Joseph. Joe.

The thing about Joe is that, well, he is the one most like us.

He is a man for whom things aren’t going well. One minute he is all set with a beautiful, young bride. In the next minute he discovers she has become with child without him.

He gets wind of the fact that God needs him, only to find that God is looking right through him, back to his ancestor, David. It’s not actually Joseph God needs – God doesn’t need his seed – just his name, his lineage, his royal ancestry. With respect to his contribution as a father, before he even gets to try, Joseph is rendered redundant.

Yet, it is Joseph who reminds us that even with God’s hand in it, life can be confusing and wrenching and not at all what you had planned. Even with God’s hand in it, a family is a complicated and messy configuration of people … not all of them attached to one another by blood.

Joseph is the one to watch in this story. He is the most like us. Buffeted and bewildered. Unexceptional and inarticulate: not a single word he uttered was deemed worthy enough to be recorded. In most Christian art he is absent or, if present, he hesitates in the background, in the shadows, looking old and unnecessary. Mary and the baby, on the other hand, are front and center, bathed in light.

Nor are there many anthems that tell Joseph’s story … and few carols. Compared with the other players on the stage, Joseph is pedestrian, uninspiring.

And, yet, Matthew assures us Joseph was a “just man”. You see, under Mosaic Law, Mary is guilty of a capital crime. She is guilty of fornication. Under the law operating in the Middle East 2000 years ago Joseph can hand her over to the authorities. They, in turn, might ether stone her or, if they were feeling merciful that day, they might put her out … the way one might discard a dog … putting it out to fend for itself.

At the least, the law indicated that Joseph was required to divorce Mary … which would have left her to scratch out a living as an unattached mother, tainted and shamed. Instead, Joseph stuck with Mary. He married her. He parented Jesus and taught him his trade. Joseph was a just man.

It is Joseph who reminds us that while the Christmas story shines, all the sparkling and glistening, all the magic and wonder of it occurs right in the midst of our lives as they are: our broken lives, our buffeted and bewildered lives, our unexceptional and inarticulate lives, our messy and complicated lives. Thank God for Joseph. He is the one to watch … the one most like ourselves.

Most of us are just too complicated, and too urban, to be like the shepherds. We’re too parochial, too rooted to be like the magi. We are too human to be angelic and too much ourselves to be like Mary.

But we could be like Joseph. Joe. He was a just man. He didn’t sparkle. He didn’t shine. But he was just. And that, in God’s eyes, was just what was needed. It was just right.

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Matthew 1:18-25 (RSV)

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to send her away quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins." All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel" (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.