“A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,” the prophet Isaiah foretold. We read and sing about that lineage every Advent and Christmas, “O come, thou branch of David’s stem.” Yet the shoot of Jesse’s stump, the descendent of the great King David, is Joseph, not Mary, according to the genealogies of Jesus in the gospels of Matthew and Luke. (Mark and John do not include Jesus’ birth or genealogy.)
“Jesus, when he began his ministry, was about thirty years of age, being the son (as was supposed) of Joseph … the son of Adam, the son of God.” (Luke 3:23-384:1)
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham … and Jacob was the father of the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” (Matt. 1:1-16)
A question one may ask then, is how is Jesus from the root of Jesse when he is not the natural son of Joseph? Perhaps we should ask instead, what did it mean to be identified as the son of one’s father in that culture? And what does it mean for Christians today to acknowledge Joseph’s indispensable role in the miraculous birth of his earthly son?
Both gospels stress the importance of the virgin birth of Jesus; Luke tells it from Mary’s perspective and Matthew tells it from Joseph’s. Although Mary’s answering to God’s call to her is given special attention in our liturgy and hymnody, Joseph’s is not so widely appreciated. Yet he is the link to David, the son of Jesse, and to the Messianic hope of a king from David’s line so often spoken of in the psalms and prophets.
First, it is important that Joseph and Mary are betrothed; they have chosen each other as husband and wife when the story opens in both gospels. When she hears Gabriel’s announcement that she has been chosen to conceive in her womb and bear a son, Mary responds, “‘How can this be, since I have no husband?” (Literally in the Greek, employing the Hebrew figure of speech for sexual intercourse, “knowing,” “I have not known a man”)
It is translated in the New Revised Standard Version as “since I am a virgin.” But it’s not so much about what she is but what she has not done – —the marriage to Joseph has not been consummated. She believes the angel that the power of the Holy Spirit will overshadow her and the child will be called the Son of God,” so she gives her free assent to God’s call.
Joseph’s annunciation from an angel comes soon thereafter, although we don’t celebrate it with a feast as we do with Mary’s. Matthew writes that before they had come together —i.e. consummated the marriage —she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit. Only Mary could have told him that. But how could he believe her?
He is a righteous man, so he does not act hastily but considers what to do, including divorcing her quietly. The angel in his dream – —he is a dreamer of dreams like his namesake Joseph, son of Jacob-Israel – —addresses him as “Joseph, son of David,” and tells him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife because the child conceived in her womb is truly of the Holy Spirit. The angel gives Joseph the name Gabriel has given Mary for the child, “Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Matthew explains that this was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by Isaiah:
Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
And his name shall be called Emmanuel
(which means. “God with us”.) (Isa. 7:14)
Joseph is heroic in his swift answer to God’s difficult call: he takes Mary as his wife, thereby giving the child his name and grafting her and him into David’s line, much as a man still usually gives and his wife takes his name when they marry; she becomes a part of his family and their children take his family name. Matthew, like Luke, emphasizes that Mary is not just a virgin when she conceives but when she gives birth by adding that Joseph, “knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.”
Mary is not an unwed mother. All the world assumes she is carrying Joseph’s child; he claims the child as his from the moment of their marriage. In Luke, when they are traveling together to Bethlehem, it is because of Joseph’s lineage from David, not hers. Luke calls her his “espoused wife,” not because they are not married in the eyes of their society, but to emphasize that, as in Matthew, the marriage has not been consummated at the time of the birth. It is a virgin birth. And it takes place in the “city of David,” Bethlehem, as foretold by the prophet Micah. (5:2).
After the visit of the Magi, who had aroused King Herod’s insane jealousy and fear of the new “King of the Jews,” Herod ordered all the male children under two 2 in Bethlehem to be killed. Joseph is warned by an angel in a dream. “Rise, take the mother and child and flee to Egypt and stay here until I tell you.”
He believes the angel and starts out that night to save the child Jesus’ life, becoming the savior of the one who will save us from our sins. Again, Joseph receives messages from an angel, telling him first when it was safe to return from Egypt, and then not to return to Bethlehem, but to go to Nazareth. Joseph is not just a dreamer of dreams but one who believes the angel in his dreams and acts decisively to obey God’s word to him.
Luke calls both Joseph and Mary Jesus’ parents, without any mention of the virgin birth, in the account of Jesus’ circumcision and, later, of taking him to Jerusalem when he was 12 for the feast of the Passover. When Jesus stays behind there and his anxious parents find him in the Temple talking with the elders, Mary says, “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been looking for you anxiously.”
Jesus’ reply implies that he is aware of his divine origin, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” His parents do not understand what he is saying, although “Mary keeps these things in her heart.” From then on Jesus was obedient to them and for all the world around him, he is Joseph and Mary’s son and thus descended from King David through his father Joseph. (Luke 2:21-52). That was a very important point for the first Jewish followers of Jesus; the true Messiah was to be from David’s line; it was a necessary, if not sufficient, prerequisite for the Messiah
Jesus himself, however, never mentions that in his teaching and preaching about himself. Later, Gentile converts to the new faith did not consider that an important fact about Jesus; the most important fact about Jesus was his resurrection. St. Paul, however, begins his letter to the Romans by proclaiming both; “Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ…who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord…” (1:1-4).
When Jesus begins his ministry in Nazareth, after he teaches in the synagogue, the wondering people say:
- “Is not this Joseph’s son?” (Luke 4:22) and,
- “Is not this the carpenter’s son? Is not his mother Mary, and are not his brothers James and Joseph and Simon and Judas? And are not all his sisters with us? Where did this man get all this?” (Matt. 13:55-56) and,
- “What is the wisdom given to him? What mighty works are wrought by his hands! Is not this the carpenter, the son of Mary and brother of James and Joses and Judas and Simon, and are not his sisters here with us?” (Mark 6:2b-3)
Jesus, even as he performs miracles and preaches with amazing authority, is assumed to be the son of Joseph the carpenter and Mary, the oldest of several brothers and sisters – —in other words, – a person they knew as he grew up, someone just like them. His fellows from childhood call him by his parents’ names and they don’t mean it as a compliment, but it is profound. (This incident is the last mention of Joseph in the Gospels.)
Because Joseph answered God’s call as Mary did, Jesus was born into an intact family, was loved and protected by both parents, and was brought up in a normal Jewish family home without some special education or residence or training.
He took his father’s name and heritage as his own and thus is of the house and lineage of King David. He was the one of whom the prophets spoke, the miraculous child born of a virgin who would save his people from their sins and usher in the longed-for Kingdom of God. But he was also one of them, one of us —Emmanuel.
The Rev. Jean McCurdy Meade, PhD is a retired priest of the Diocese of Louisiana and formerly the rector of Mount Olivet Church in New Orleans. She lives now in her hometown of San Antonio, Texas, as well as Santa Fe, New Mexico, and New Orleans. Her publications include The Last Word A Study of the “Revelation to John” and the Fourteenth-Century Tapestries of the Apocalypse of Angers, France (Wipf & Stock, 2025).
