In my previous post I suggested that Advent is less about a countdown to Christmas and more about a crisis. I’m not talking about our usual understanding of crisis as one of those “Aw, shhhiiioot!!” events in which something has gone wrong. I’m talking about the older, original understanding of the word.

It comes from a Greek verb meaning “to separate, judge, decide” and originated in a medical context. It referred to the turning point in the course of a disease when it becomes clear whether the patient will recover or die. 

All of us could tell about a time when we came to a life or death turning point, a make it or break it moment. Life is no longer as it used to be and what will be is not yet known. It’s a time of transition and choices. Maybe you are in that place today. Maybe you are experiencing the crisis of Advent.

That’s where we find Joseph in the gospel for this coming Sunday (Matthew 1:18-25), the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Joseph is in crisis.

Joseph’s Crisis

“Now the birth of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit.” (Matthew 1:18)

That’s Joseph’s “Aw, shhhiiioot!!” moment. Life is no longer like it used to be and not what he expected. It’s a big mess, a problem to be fixed. 

So Joseph, “being a righteous man and unwilling to expose [Mary] to public disgrace, planned to dismiss her quietly. But just when he had resolved to do this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, ‘Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.’” (Matthew 1:19-20)

There’s Joseph’s crisis. It’s a life or death turning point, a choice to either dismiss Mary or take her. 

We know what Joseph chose, but how did he do it? How did he manage his crisis and how might he be a guide and companion for us in our crises? I want to consider four qualities of Joseph and what they might look like in our lives.

1. Joseph’s Silence

We often see silence as a defect or deficit. It makes us uncomfortable, maybe suspicious. Nothing is happening. What’s she thinking? Why is he so stand offish? We sometimes judge the silent one as cold, unfriendly, uncaring, or dumb. We wonder if somebody forgot their part or something is wrong. But what if silence is more about a presence than the absence of sound or words? What if silence is more an inner condition and less an outer circumstance? What if silence is one of the ways Joseph engages the crisis of his life?

Maybe Joseph’s silence is really about his presence and listening; paying attention; showing up; offering himself; not needing to defend, justify, excuse, or prove himself. What if he is creating space for something new to arise? What if his silence is about an openness and receptivity to something larger than and beyond himself? John of the Cross says, “Silence is God’s first language.” What would it be like to learn and become fluent in silence? 

Where is silence in your life today? What would it take and be like to cultivate inner silence? What might you need to change or let go of? What are you hearing in the silence? What is it offering you?

2. Joseph’s Dream

Joseph isn’t a talker, he’s a dreamer. His silence allows him to experience a new and different level of consciousness. He hears a new and different voice. He quiets his daytime voice and hears a nighttime voice. 

“No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it.” That quotation is often attributed to Einstein though many say it is not his. Either way we know the truth of those words and the nighttime experience of Joseph. 

We’ve all had times when we were wrestling with a question or problem but getting nowhere. We were stuck. So we said something like, “I’ll sleep on it.” Or we went for a walk, took a shower, listened to music, engaged in some creative activity, read a book, watched a movie, dug in the garden – and just when we weren’t thinking about what had us stuck an idea, an inspiration, or something new came to us. 

I remember a dear parishioner who used to say, “I don’t know how I know it, I only know that I know it. I know it in my knower.” It’s a different way of knowing. It’s nighttime knowing, creative and imaginative, beyond rational linear thought. Joseph knew it in his knower. 

When have you known it in your knower? What helps you get in touch with your knower? What might you knower being saying to you today?

3. Joseph’s Doubts and Questions

Knowing it in our knower doesn’t necessarily eliminate our doubts and questions. We see that in the icon of the nativity below. Look at the bottom left corner. Who are those two? What’s going on?

But maybe doubts and questions are not enemies to overcome but information and teachers to learn from. Maybe they help us gain clarity, think in new ways, hear new voices, see different possibilities. Maybe they can take us further than answers can. Answers tend to narrow and end the conversation whereas doubts and questions can enlarge and continue the conversation. 

In Letters to a Young Poet, Rilke writes:

“I would like to beg of you, dear friend, as well as I can, to have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question.”

What questions are you living and following these days? Is there a better question, a deeper question you need to ask? If so, what is it?

4. Joseph’s Actions

“When Joseph awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took [Mary] as his wife, …” (Matthew 1:24)

Our actions reflect and are born of our inner life. When we truly awaken we practice our way into the life and world we want for ourselves and others.

• If you want peace, do peaceful things.
• If you want justice, do just things.
• If you want nonviolence, do nonviolent things.
• If you want hope, do hopeful things.
• If you want love, do loving things.

I know that’s easier said than done, but living in Advent is more than passively waiting for God to show up and do something. That’s not faith, that’s just wishful thinking or wishful praying. The crisis of Advent asks our participation. “We become what we practice.” (Kaur, See No Stranger, 27.) Isn’t that what we see in Joseph?

To live in Advent means remaining open to the future and refusing to let the present moment close us in. We don’t turn away from the crisis. We take action.

And if you think you are too small, insignificant. or powerless to make a difference, if you think little actions don’t matter, remember the Dalai Lama’s question to a woman who said that about herself: “You don’t think little things can make a difference? Have you ever tried sleeping in a room with a mosquito?”

What’s your practice? Are you becoming who and how you want to be? What is the crisis of Advent asking of you today? What action do you need to take?

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Image Credits:
Featured image on homepage, no machine-readable author provided. Waelsch assumed (based on copyright claims). No machine-readable source provided. Own work assumed (based on copyright claims). CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons.
1. Photo by Birger Strahl on Unsplash.
2. By Toros Roslin – Walters Art Museum: Home page  Info about artwork, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
3. By Anonymous – Scanned from: В. Д. Сарабьянов, Э. С. Смирнова. История древнерусской живописи. М., ПСТГУ, 2007, Public Domain, Wikimedia Commons.
4. Photo by National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases on Unsplash.