The Episcopal Church does not make much of Joseph, not as much as we should. Here in our Church we have that statute and a much beloved one -- with candles flickering every Sunday. But we are the exception to most Episcopal parishes. And that is a shame -- he was a good man, such a good man. One of the most appealing men ever to have lived. Joseph, the supreme man of honor and quiet dignity. Not seeking the defense of his own reputation, but the will of God, and the tender care of the one he treasures and loves, all through circumstances so unique that even with the inspiring word of the angel of God in his mind and heart, a man who cannot fully have understood, known what to make of it all. For all of that, no, he probably was not polished or clever, probably was trusting of all others in his little Galilean village, maybe to the point of being naive. A man from the country, and of the country, a rural man, a villager. But no bumpkin. The blood of the kings of Israel in this villager's veins. He was not well-to-do, well-traveled, but still -- he was of the House of David - the most honored, most revered lineage anyone Jew could have. And he met a young woman who was, from our point of view, simply the best, the most remarkable human being who ever lived. Probably from his point of view as well. A devout young woman, an exemplary daughter of Zion, a girl, a virgin whose name was Mary. Both of them faithful, devout, pious, so wonderfully, thoroughly dedicated to the Law of God and the godly traditions of the people Israel. And then this heart-breakingly decent man found that this perfect woman, his beloved betrothed had slept with someone else on the eve of the final formalization of their marriage. The virgin whose name was Mary, the girl he loved and adored, was already pregnant and not by him. A man who could have, should have, had the finest, dearest, best young woman in Galilee. And instead ... Was there anger, a sense of betrayal, hurt, fury, righteous indignation, understandable vengeance, justifiable homicide? Evidently not. He loved her too much for that, he loved her surpassingly. But the Law and his faith and his religion and his devotion and his spirituality and his peoples' teaching and his God gave him no choice. They all agreed, and there was one solution and only one. Divorce her. Get rid of her. Scorn and spurn her, and let her reap her well-earned disgrace. We have glorious Gospel story or his actual reaction: "But her husband Joseph, being a just man, was unwilling to put her to shame, and so he resolved to put her away quietly." What a position for anyone to be in -- his strict, faithful, devout adherence to his religion and the law of his God was in dreadful conflict with his sense of justice, his compassion, his mercy, his love. There ought not to be a conflict, but sometimes there seems to be one. If I do what I know is right, what needs to be done, what happens when my heart breaks and says it is unwilling to put someone to shame, unwilling to hurt and humiliate and condemn. If I really believe in this course of action and want to follow it faithfully and consistently, I might need to be willing to reject that person's suggestion, to decide they are wrong, and to quietly put away things I long to hold. That is the heart-rending Joseph dilemma. How could he disgrace Mary whom he loved? Why was it that fidelity to the Torah and honor and faithfulness why did that require that he sacrifice his love? What was a just man to do? And then an angel of the lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, and said “Fear not Joseph to take Mary as thy wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.” This is called The Annunciation to Joseph. A term we may not be familiar with. We all know what the Annunciation is, and it is to Mary. Well, there are other less spectacular, less well-known, less widely-painted Annunciations, like this one to Joseph, like the ones to us, like the several or many that will come to us during our lives when we do not know what to do, how to proceed, when it looks like there is a terrible conflict between two things two ideals, two beliefs, two loves we hold dear and precious. A Joseph-like Annunciation is not a cheap and easy out, it is not designed to help you to a win/win result. Annunciations are provided by God to show, to manifest, to reveal that his will and you own best good are not in conflict. Your religious devotion and your seriousness about your faith and its standards are not in conflict with reality, with the way things are, with the faults and frailties of people you love. God showed Joseph another, unsuspected unimagined way - not really a way out, a way around, some inconvenience or some dilemma, but a way through, through something he did not understand. Only God can see that underlying redemptive unity of purpose, only God can make it known, show it to us. The season of late Advent and then Christmas, the time preparing for and celebrating the Incarnation, is, and should be, a time to discover, to listen again to the purposes of God and the solutions he brings to conflict and the reconciliation of conflicting hopes and dreams that he will reveal. Joseph was a just man, a gentle man, a good man, a tender man, not willing to hurt or even humiliate the woman who seemed to have betrayed his trust. Did that make him a weak man, a vacillating man, uncommitted, inconstant, frightened, timid? Hardly. But it did make him unwilling to act with that searing fanaticism of extremists everywhere especially religious fanatics who will hurt and terrorize and murder diplomats and car-bomb children in order to make a religious point, to show their fidelity to God. Joseph was not wishy-washy or superficial. He fully acknowledged the tension between the rigors of the Law of Moses and its demands and the situation in which he finds himself, the love he feels must also be a gift from God, just as the Law is a gift from God. When we are torn and confused, faced with choices that seem to require that we be heartless or unaccommodating or cruelly judgmental, we can remember Joseph, that appealing man, that shining example, that wonderful man, that just man, and seek to be a little more like him.