Joseph and Mary, Jesus Christ’s earthly parents, seemed like ordinary residents of an ordinary ancient Middle Eastern town. That is, until heaven opened and God sent word to them that they would play a unique part in His plan for humanity’s redemption. They were given the awesome responsibility of stewarding the Son of God from infancy onward. Mary lived to see that the journey ended in a very unexpected place: a cross on Golgotha.
So, who were these two people?
When Did Joseph and Mary Learn that They Would Have Jesus?
The four gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John introduce readers to Jesus in very different ways. Matthew’s gospel is the only one to tell of the revelation to Mary and Joseph. Mark begins his gospel with John the Baptist, then introduces an adult Jesus. The gospel of Luke tells of the Angel Gabriel speaking to Mary (Joseph is not mentioned here); the gospel of John doesn’t use Mary and Joseph to introduce Jesus; they don’t appear in his narrative until later.
From what we learn about Joseph and Mary in the Bible, they had character. They weren’t asked beforehand if God could use them, but when the time came, they willingly followed God. They handled the situation with great faith, joy, and love.
Luke’s gospel tells us in his first chapter that God sent the angel Gabriel “to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David.” (Luke 1:26-27) The angel told her not to be afraid (as anyone seeing an angel would be) and that she had found favor with God. Gabriel said, “You will be with child and give birth to a son and you are to give him the name Jesus” (Luke 1:31). He then told her of all the magnificent things that would happen in and through Jesus. When Mary questioned how she could be pregnant since she was a virgin, the angel said the Holy Spirit would come upon her and the “power of the Most High will overshadow you” (Luke 1:35). Gabriel also mentioned that her relative Elizabeth was pregnant with another kind of miracle child (from an earthly father, but pregnant at an unusual age).
After the angel left, Mary went to see Elizabeth. She stayed for three months before returning home to her family and her betrothed.
Why Did Joseph Consider Divorcing Mary Quietly?
We must turn to Matthew's gospel for a picture of what happened between Mary and Joseph between the angel’s announcement and Jesus’ birth. There, we see the same angel encounter, but we get details about the dilemma that the news made for Joseph and Mary.
Ancient Jewish culture took marriage, infidelity, and premarital sex very seriously. For a woman to be with child without a husband meant that she had broken Jewish law found in Deuteronomy 22:23-24. Both the father (if he was known) and the woman would be stoned to death. The same penalty applied if a man slept with a virgin pledged to another man. Being betrothed was a serious public matter: both families agreed to the marriage, a dowry was exchanged, and everyone’s honor was at stake if things didn’t work out. So, Joseph couldn’t simply cancel the wedding, and everyone would move on with their lives. It was a precarious position for both of them.
Since Joseph was a “righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly” (Matthew 1:19). That meant he would break the engagement, which meant she wouldn’t be judged publicly or punished. The marriage would never happen, but if he handled things quietly, Mary would still live, and there would be as little embarrassment for her family as possible.
Before Joseph could do this, an angel of the Lord came to him in a dream and said not to be afraid to take Mary home as his wife because the Holy Spirit had conceived the child—not just any child, but one who would save people from their sins. Joseph followed the angel’s orders to take her home as his wife but had no relations with her until after Jesus was born.
Why Did Joseph and Mary Go to Egypt After Bethlehem?
Bethlehem was located in Judea, where King Herod Antipas ruled. Herod was the son of Herod the Great, the Jewish king appointed by Rome to be in charge of that region–to collect taxes, keep the peace, and anything else Caesar in Rome ordered. Herod Antipas was in charge when Jesus was born.
Sometime after His birth (not, as we often imagine, on the night He was born), three “wise men” came from the East. They stopped in Jerusalem to meet King Herod. They spoke about a prophecy they followed in the Jewish writings that said a new king would be born, and His sign would be a new star in the sky. Herod was ignorant of such a prophecy and furious that another king could take over his throne one day. Once he learned the child had been born in Bethlehem, he ordered that his soldiers would kill all boys in that area under the age of two.
Meanwhile, the wise men make their way to meet the holy family. The death of Jesus as a child was not part of God’s plan, so after the wise men completed their visit, an angel appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him” (Matthew 2:13).
But why Egypt? Matthew Henry noted in his commentary that “Egypt was infamous for idolatry, tyranny, and enmity to the people of God; it had been a house of bondage to Israel, and particularly cruel to the infants of Israel . . . God, when he pleases, can make the worst of places serve the best of purposes . . . ” It certainly would have been a test of faith for Joseph and Mary. If Jesus was who God said Jesus was, the Messiah to save Israel’s children, it must have been strange for God to call them to take Israel’s savior to Egypt.
As Moses led God’s people out many years before, the Son of God would return and live where His people had been in bondage. But as with everything in Jesus’ life, people—including his own family—would constantly wonder what God was doing through Jesus and why God’s plan for the world was unfolding in unexpected ways. As Joel Ryan writes, “Thankfully, Joseph and Mary held on to these words and obeyed God’s instructions, trusting in His power, provision, and promises, rather than the oddity or uncertainty of their situation (Luke 1:38). They had taken risks, but a risk taken in line with God’s instructions came with the promise of His strength and favor.”
What Happened to Joseph and Mary After They Returned to Nazareth?
Matthew recounts that after Herod Antipas died, an angel appeared again to Joseph and told him to return with Mary and Jesus to Israel, where the boy would now be safe. According to Matthew, they settled in Nazareth, which fulfilled prophecies about the Messiah being born in Bethlehem but being called a Nazarene. In other Bible passages, we know that Joseph and Mary had more children, who were also raised in Nazareth, and Joseph earned a living for the family as a carpenter.
When Jesus got older, he left Nazareth. At some point, he was baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan River (the very start of His ministry). But once His ministry was underway, He returned to Nazareth and began to teach. The townspeople doubted and said, “Isn’t this the carpenter’s son? Isn’t his mother’s name Mary, and aren’t his brothers James, Joseph, Simon, and Judas? Aren’t all his sisters with us?” (Matthew 13:55-56).
Mary is present at Jesus’ first miracle, the wedding in Cana, where He turned water into wine. At some point, she apparently began following Jesus’ travels. Mary shows up in other passages where Jesus teaches people, including the scene in Nazareth (also written in Mark 6:3) and Acts 1:14, where Matthew gathers with the disciples after the Ascension. She is also present at his crucifixion, burial, and ascension.
On the other hand, Joseph is not mentioned after a family pilgrimage to Jerusalem when Jesus was 12. The Nazareth residents don’t mention him directly in the passage above—they know of him but don’t mention him by name, like Mary and Jesus’ siblings. So, we assume people remembered him, but he had died by the time Jesus began His public ministry.
What Can We Learn from Joseph and Mary Today?
We can learn much about our relationship with God and how to respond to Him through the lives of Joseph and Mary. The following traits were evident in their lives:
1. Faith. Joseph and Mary trusted what the angel told them. We may not appreciate how challenging this was. We have God’s complete word available to us, so we know the full story of Jesus’ life. They had to trust without knowing the story’s end.
While we may not have supernatural encounters like they do, we still need faith that God’s message and promises are true. There is never a downside to trusting in one of God’s promises. As Jesus reminds us, we know the end of the story, and it is good:
“In My Father's house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to Myself; that where I am, there you may be also.” (John 14:2-6)
2. Loyalty. Mary could have just stayed with her cousin Elizabeth and had her baby, living in fear that someone would find out that she gave birth out of wedlock. Joseph could have had her publicly disgraced for being an impregnated virgin. Yet they respected the agreement between their families and one another. They were called to change their marriage plans to travel several times in the first couple of years, but there was never a sense that they complained or were disloyal to God or each other.
Instead, we get a picture of a couple taking each step by faith and waiting for direction from God while doing their very best to raise the Son of God and understand all that meant. It was loyalty to an overall calling from which we can glean lessons. If God calls us to do something, we must remain loyal to God by doing our best. It may be as simple as giving weekly to a certain ministry or as difficult as doing missionary work in a hostile area. But remaining loyal to our calling, with the help of the Holy Spirit, can earn rewards we never could have imagined.
3. Humility. Nowhere in the gospels do we see Joseph and Mary “throwing their weight around” as Jesus’ mother and father. It would have been very easy to tell everyone they were raising the Son of God, especially when others began to see that Jesus was different. One gets the impression that they raised Him like all their other children, which is perhaps why his brothers and sisters didn’t believe He was the Messiah. They didn’t seek fame, fortune, or extra favors from God. All of us could use the same humility throughout our lives. We must beware of being prideful of anything (even when I tell my daughter I’m proud of her, I remind her that everything she can accomplish is from the Lord). Jesus modeled humility and told His disciples to live the same way. He said in Mark 10:43-44, “But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all.” Did He learn this as much from his earthly parents as from His heavenly Father? I wonder . . .
Photo Credit:©GettyImages/rudall30
Mary Oelerich-Meyer is a Chicago-area freelance writer and copy editor who prayed for years for a way to write about and for the Lord. She spent 20 years writing for area healthcare organizations, interviewing doctors and clinical professionals and writing more than 1,500 articles in addition to marketing collateral materials. Important work, but not what she felt called to do. She is grateful for any opportunity to share the Lord in her writing and editing, believing that life is too short to write about anything else. Previously she served as Marketing Communications Director for a large healthcare system. She holds a B.A. in International Business and Marketing from Cornell College (the original Cornell!) When not researching or writing, she loves to spend time with her writer daughter, granddaughter, rescue doggie and husband (not always in that order).
This article is part of our People of Christianity catalog that features the stories, meaning, and significance of well-known people from the Bible and history. Here are some of the most popular articles for knowing important figures in Christianity:
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