Two.
Two lives.
One earthly. One heavenly.
One life very much real. One life more thought than reality. Right up until the day that it was clear to her, and to her mother, that her time was late. No, not late. Past! A thousand rapid questions. Angry questions. Shocked questions. Hurt questions. Selfish and loud questions. Joseph’s name spoken with harshness and disdain.
Finally, back in her bedchamber alone, she stares at her still-flat belly. Was there really a Life in there? What of Joseph, her promised? Maybe she could convince him the Life was his. They were legally promised, after all. She knew he awaited their wedding night with impatience. She could wait for him one night at the wood shop. But who would that betray? Her father, her Father, her Joseph, herself? Her rambling thoughts were derailed by renewed shouts from the front door. Joseph.
Joseph and her father hurl accusations at each other. He looks in her direction as she cowers in the background. His eyes filled with hurt and betrayal. Hurt and betrayal…. and love. And disbelief. Out of kindness, he said, he would break their promise quietly. He would not demand her life. She would be a marked woman. The woman who bore a fatherless son.
As he stalks stiffly down the lane away from the house, she finally gives in to the grief. Sinking to the floor, tears flooding her face, she despairs. Please let this be a nightmare and let me wake up soon, she thinks. Suddenly, a wave of nausea sweeps over her and she lurches to the back door only to vomit her entire stomach contents on the step. She continues to retch as she imagines bringing her fatherless child into a world cruel and heartless to those without pedigree.
“Father,” she finally screams into the morning stillness, “Father, why have you forsaken me?” A sense of horror and foreboding overcomes her as she wonders if her scream went further into space and time than she intended. A vision flashes. Would her Son scream the same words in agony one day?
Just as Mary struggled alone, so Israel struggled, rejecting their heavenly Father Who yearned to complete them, to be a part of their very lives. Just as Mary agonized over her Child’s apparently missing Father, so we stumble through our lives, not acknowledging Who our Father is, not admitting that we were conceived to look just like Him, not allowing Him to make us be like Him.
Do you know Who your Father is?
How weird that all the times I’ve focused on this part of the story I’ve only thought about Joseph’s reaction to hearing Mary’s news — HIS shock, HIS disbelief, HIS pain, HIS questions, HIS confusion. I’ve never given HER PARENTS a second thought in this scenario. But since there’s no record of an angel visiting either of them, of course they went through the similar range of emotions as Joseph — anger, humiliation and hurt, as well as self-doubt over what they did wrong that caused this outcome. The poor things must have been beside themselves with grief!
“My God, my God! Why have you forsaken me? Why do you remain so distant? Why do you ignore my cries for help?
Every day I call to you, my God, but you do not answer. Every night you hear my voice, but I find no relief.
Yet you are holy. The praises of Israel surround your throne. Our ancestors trusted in you, and you rescued them. You heard their cries for help and saved them.
They put their trust in you and were never disappointed.”
Psalm 22:1-5 (NLT)
As truly as Christ felt the weight of these words as he called out into the dark night, I was profoundly touched to realize that He was once again quoting scripture. In His darkest hour, as for us today, it was there to comfort Him.