YOSEF, the adoptive father of Christ Yeshua was born in Jerusalem, and is the most overlooked character in the life of Our Savior and the story of the Nativity.
Just as Myriam was chosen by Yahweh to be the mother of Yeshua, so was Yosef divinely selected.
He was a man of solid conviction, and his love for Myriam is unmatched.
So much so, that even though Myriam was impregnated by Ruach Hakodesh ~ The Holy Spirit, after their formal betrothal which was considered a legal marriage, Yosef disregarded all cultural consequences and followed an angel's command to take her out of Jerusalem.
The genealogy in Matthew's gospel indicates that it was through the line of Yosef that Christ Yeshua had the right to inherit the Earthly throne of David as the King of the Jews.
The Davidic line was passed down through the sons of King David, of which Yosef was a direct descendant through King Solomon.
Therefore The Messiah was in the line of succession, because Yosef was his legal father.
Although Myriam was also from the Davidic line in the tribe of Judah, her lineage was not in the exclusively male line of kingly succession through King Solomon.
Myriam was a descendant through Nathan, King David’s second surviving son with Bathsheba.
Yosef, the son of Heli and Rachel, was exceptionally intelligent and talented with his hands.
Intently watching his father hammer, saw, plane and carve cedar, acacia, almond, fig, and olive woods, Heli made him his own little work bench and Rachel sewed him a carpenter’s pocketed apron.
Yosef loved to emulate his father’s creations, by constructing miniatures of them himself.
Also self-taught as a master weaver, he would make baskets of all sizes, implementing local willow and rattan materials.
So beautiful were Yosef’s creations, Rachel provided them as gifts to her friends on Purim ~ the Hebrew holiday dating back to 500 B.C., celebrating the survival of the Israelites from Persian captivity.
Rachel would fill each heartfeltly appreciated basket with her homemade orange honey, dates, figs and raisins.
To broaden Yosef’s talents, Heli made him a tambourine when he was just 4 years of age, that he played at the nearby grotto accompanying his childhood friend Myriam.
A born athlete, Yosef was muscular and deeply suntanned, due to his building large and heavy furniture outdoors, while Heli focused on specialty crafts that he created on his canopied workbench.
Excelling in cross-country endurance running, together with his best friend Aaron, they would sprint most of the 9.5 kilometers from Jerusalem to Bethlehem, where they and their friends enjoyed playing gaga, which in Hebrew means “touch-touch”.
A variant of today’s dodgeball, gaga is played in a pit, and combines dodging, striking, running, and jumping, with the objective of being the last person standing.
And most often than not, that person was Yosef.
Arriving home extremely hungry from all of the vigorous exercise, Rachel was already preparing saffron rice and mixed grilled vegetables, while Heli was roasting a young lamb over sweetly aromatic almond wood.
After the scrumptious meal, the family would play a fun-filled game of backgammon, where Rachel would usually beat the Heli and Yosef father-son team.
In our preparation for the celebration of Yeshua's birth celebrated on December 25:
"Behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said:
“Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.”
And he rose and took the child and His mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.
Even though Yosef was not The Messiah's biological father, he was an extremely loving role model for our Savior, and obedient to Yahweh ~ Yeshua's heavenly father.
As all of us fathers and husbands should be.
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