The Nativity Koan

We in Christian-majority countries are whelmed this time of year in the Nativity. That is, the legend of Christ's birth, with attendant prophetic prognostics. Public emphasis is on the divinity of a baby conceived without sin – functionally, without sex. I could rant about that a bit, but right now another detail preoccupies me.

Namely, why wasn't Mother Mary killed?

Because that's what should have happened. As bluenoses still petulantly carp, past generations, in their presumed moral superiority, hated nothing so much as unkosher sex. And young Mary – about 15 at the time – had only just married the much older Joseph when she came up heavy.

We know from elsewhere in the Gospels that termination of the marriage contract was the least of potential results. Others included execution by having small rocks hurled at you until you died.

By decent good-standing members of the Church, of course.

Under duly-enacted law of a theocratic state.

In short, this act of "restitution" wasn't simply tolerated, it was ordained. In fact, holy.

But that's not what happened, and the solution to this mystery is found in the Shadow Gospel. Turns out, Joseph was a Jew.

Not a respectable Jew.

Not a Biblical Jew.

An actual Jew.

(Frankly, now I think of it, it's a wonder they didn't kill him as well.)

Says Matthew:

…Joseph [Mary's] husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privily.

It goes by fast; did you catch it? Joseph wasn't religious. He was righteous. And in this case, that meant turning his back on human authority and putting moralism – and indeed, the law – aside. Rather than stalking back to his new wife's hometown and thrusting Mary back into the arms of her parents with loud and public remonstrations, destroying her life and theirs – again, his legal and ethical duty – Joseph decides to protect her from the legal and the ethical.

Exactly what Joseph's long game was is a bit hazy, but at this point God dispatches an HR guy to handle the predicament:

But while [Joseph] thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost.

Again, Scripture is vague on exactly how God and his Angels prevented the rest of the Hebrew nation from killing them both, but since childhood, the Nativity paradox has fascinated me: it's facilitated by a deliberate rejection of received morality. As my religious education grew broader, so did my grasp of the import of Joseph's decision, and the risk he incurred.

So this Christmas – a time of opening hearts and auditing egos – I suggest we every one, Christian and less so, meditate on the koan of dogma and Dharma.

Because I suspect it's essential to the difference between what we are and what we're not.

(Photo of Joseph and Mary in private conference courtesy of Tomas Castelazo and Wikimedia Commons.)