December 19: Two Josephs: Family Protectors
♫ Music:
Day 19 - Thursday, December 19
Title: Two Josephs: Family Protectors
Scripture #1: Genesis 45:1–8 (NKJV)
Then Joseph could not restrain himself before all those who stood by him, and he cried out, “Make everyone go out from me!” So no one stood with him while Joseph made himself known to his brothers. And he wept aloud, and the Egyptians and the house of Pharaoh heard it. Then Joseph said to his brothers, “I am Joseph; does my father still live?” But his brothers could not answer him, for they were dismayed in his presence. And Joseph said to his brothers, “Please come near to me.” So they came near. Then he said: “I am Joseph your brother, whom you sold into Egypt. But now, do not therefore be grieved or angry with yourselves because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life. For these two years the famine has been in the land, and there are still five years in which there will be neither plowing nor harvesting. And God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So now it was not you who sent me here, but God; and He has made me a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and a ruler throughout all the land of Egypt.”
Scripture #2: Matthew 2:13–15 (NKJV)
Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, “Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him.” When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, “Out of Egypt I called My Son.”
Poetry:
“Recitative” from For the Time Being: A Christmas Oratorio
by W.H. Auden
Fly, Holy Family, from our immediate rage,
That our future may be freed from our past; retrace
The footsteps of law-giving
Moses, back through the sterile waste,
Down to the rotten kingdom of Egypt, the damp
Tired delta where in her season of glory our
Forefathers sighed in bondage;
Abscond with the Child to the place
That their children dare not revisit, to the time
They do not care to remember; hide from our pride
In our humiliation;
Fly from our death with our new life.
TWO JOSEPHS: FAMILY PROTECTORS
My nephew Joe is named after his great grandfather Joseff. This gesture reminds our family of a legacy of kindness, truth, hard work, and loving protection––all characteristics of my grandfather. Joe’s name jolts our familial memory, it enables us to link the present day to the past and encourages us to remember the Lord’s faithfulness when he called my grandfather Joseff out of the darkness of his unbelief into the freedom and protection offered by the Gospel.
Today’s readings also link two Josephs; Old Testament Joseph sold into slavery by his brothers and New Testament Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. Our theological memory is jolted not by their shared name alone, but also by a shared location. In both accounts, we see the Josephs following the Lord’s guidance and experiencing the Lord's protection and blessing in the most unlikely setting - Egypt. Old Testament Joseph confesses to his brothers that God’s plans were to ‘preserve life’. He says, “God sent me before you to preserve a posterity for you in the earth, and to save your lives by a great deliverance “(Genesis 45:7, KJV). The focus of Joseph’s words is on the Lord acting through his servant Joseph to bring about a deliverance from famine, not through any power and authority of Joseph alone. Similarly, in our New Testament reading Joseph, the earthly father of Jesus, is directed by an angel in a dream to move his family to safety, he is told to ‘flee to Egypt’. Again, the focus is on the Lord’s direction and not on the ability of Joseph to solve a problem. How often do we worry, invent, and reinvent plans to fix situations that arise in our day to day lives? May we be reminded by the two Josephs that the Lord God holds all nations in his hands and directs the futures of both individuals and states with equity and wisdom––He will direct our paths.
Today’s poem connects the Egypt of our two Josephs with a history of bloodshed:
Abscond with the Child to the place
That their children dare not revisit
There is precedent for Herod’s edict. The fleeing Holy Family reminds the poet Auden, not only of the captivity of the Israelite people in Egypt, but also of Pharaoh’s parallel command in Exodus 1:16 for midwives to kill the male Israelite children. In these biblical accounts, the constancy of Yahweh’s covenantal love is revealed in the most unlikely of places––he protects his people. He turns a place of death into a refuge of life. Egypt, once a threatening place for God’s people, becomes the safe haven for the Holy Family as they flee Herod’s wrath.
Look at today’s artwork. See how the Sphinx acknowledges with an upward gaze that the work of protecting the sojourning Messiah is directed by the Almighty, the Maker of Heaven and Earth. He who places and numbers the stars in the sky, places the Holy Family out of the reach of Herod––in Egypt.
It is true that my nephew Joe reminds our family of another Joseff from the past. However, his name, meaning “He adds or increases,” also points to the future. We see glimpses of this generational hope in our readings today. The Lord who protected Old Testament Joseph and New Testament Joseph and their families will similarly guide and protect his future people for the extension of his Kingdom and ultimately for his glory. Let that be a generational hope for us all!
Prayer in Praise of God:
You are holy, Lord, the only God,
and Your deeds are wonderful.
You are strong.
You are great.
You are the Most High.
You are Almighty.
You, Holy Father, are King of heaven and earth.
You are Three and One, Lord God, all Good.
You are Good, all Good, supreme Good,
Lord God, living and true.
You are love.
You are wisdom.
You are humility.
You are endurance.
You are rest.
You are peace.
You are joy and gladness.
You are justice and moderation.
You are all our riches, and You suffice for us.
You are beauty.
You are gentleness.
You are our protector.
You are our guardian and defender.
You are our courage.
You are our haven and our hope.
You are our faith, our great consolation.
You are our eternal life, great and wonderful Lord,
God Almighty, merciful Savior.
Amen.
––––Francis of Assisi
Sian Draycott
Instructor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Rest on the Flight into Egypt (overall and detail views)
Luc-Olivier Merson
1879
Oil on canvas
71.8 x 128.3 cm.
Museum of Fine Arts
Boston, Massachusetts
Public domain
Fleeing persecution at the hands of Roman authorities, the Holy Family takes refuge in Egypt. Joseph dozes beside a dying campfire while his donkey grazes on sparse desert grass. At the left, the Virgin Mary and infant Christ sleep crowned with a halo of light. They lie in the arms of a sphinx, its eyes turned to the heavens. A successful academic artist, Luc-Olivier Merson never traveled to North Africa, but his use of archeological detail creates the illusion of an eyewitness account, breathing new life into a time-honored sacred subject.
About the Artist:
Luc-Olivier Merson (1846–1920) was a French academic painter and illustrator known for his postage stamp and currency designs. He studied at the École de Dessin and then at the École des Beaux-Arts. During his five years spent working in Italy, he concentrated on religious and historical subjects in his art. Merson did major decorative commissions for such institutions as the Palais de Justice and the Louis Pasteur Museum, and was responsible for the mosaic in the chancel vault in the Basilica of the Sacré Cœur. He also did artwork for stained-glass windows, an example of which can be found in the Church of the Holy Trinity Rittenhouse Square in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. By 1900, Merson was designing postage stamps for the French post and the Monaco post. In 1908, he was contracted by the Bank of France to create a number of designs for some of the country's banknotes. Between 1906 and 1911, he taught at the École des Beaux-Arts, with students such as Clément Serveau, who would also eventually design stamps and banknotes himself. In recognition of his contribution to French culture, he was awarded the Legion of Honor. Merson’s work has been largely forgotten as a result of the overwhelming popularity of the impressionists and other artistic movements.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc-Olivier_Merson
About the Music: “Joseph’s Carol” from the album The Nativity
Lyrics:
O child that lies soft-
sleeping in my arms,
I shall keep you safe
from all that harms.
I know that your life
did not spring from mine;
And yet I know that
all I am is thine.
My craft is hewing,
joining, making good;
and now my end is
shaped and made by God.
A simple carpenter
my chosen trade;
and now my life is fixed
by powers that all things made.
Your being fulfills
a promise borne of dreams;
both innocence and fear
shall make my destiny.
By starlit night
your midwife I have been.
Your blood on my hands
the offering seals.
O child that lies soft-
sleeping in my arms,
I shall keep you safe
from all that harms.
I know that your life
did not spring from mine;
and I know that
all I am is thine.
About the Composer:
In recent years, Patrick Hawes (b. 1958) has emerged as one of England’s most popular and inspirational composers. Born in Lincolnshire, he read music as an organ scholar at Durham University, and soon went on to make an impact in the world of choral music with his cantata The Wedding at Cana. It was with the release of his debut album, Blue in Blue, that Patrick first gained widespread public recognition. The standout track “Quanta Qualia” became a hit with audiences across the world. In 2009, the release of Patrick’s album Song of Songs, which consists of six choral pieces for strings and voices along with other works for choir and organ, was well received.
https://www.patrickhawes.com/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Hawes
https://www.patrickhawes.com/2016/11/24/josephs-carol/
About the Performers: Voce Chamber Singers
In 1989, Carol Hunter founded the Voce Chamber Singers to share the transformative power of choral music with audiences throughout our region. Voce has been recognized by the Arts Council of Fairfax County and nominated twice for Governor's Awards for the Arts in the Commonwealth of Virginia, and praised for its innovation and musical excellence by NBC4, The Washington Post, WETA-TV's Around Town program, and Voice of America's Kaleidoscope radio. Recently, Voce was a finalist for the 2023 American Prize in Choral Performance - Community Division and nominated for the 2023 Greater Washington Area Choral Excellence Awards for “Best DEI Programming.”
https://voce.org/
About the Poetry & Poet:
W. H. Auden (1907–1973) was an English poet, playwright, critic, and librettist who exerted a major influence on the poetry of the twentieth century. Well-known for his extraordinary intellect and wit, his first book, Poems, was published in 1930 with the help of writer T. S. Eliot. Just before WWII, Auden emigrated to the United States. Auden won the Pulitzer Prize in 1948 for The Age of Anxiety. Much of his poetry is concerned with moral issues and evidences a strong political, social, and psychological context. Auden published about four hundred poems, including seven long poems (two of them book-length). His poetry was encyclopedic in scope and method, ranging in style from obscure twentieth-century modernism to lucid traditional forms such as ballads and limericks. Today, he is considered one of the most skilled and creative mid-twentieth-century poets who regularly wrote in traditional rhyme and meter.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/w-h-auden
About the Devotion Author:
Sian Draycott
Instructor
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
Sian Draycott grew up in Wales and graduated from Oxford University with an M.A. in theology and from the Open University (UK) with an M.A. in classical studies. She is a Ph.D. student at Talbot School of Theology. Sian loves to discuss Great Books with students as an Instructor in the Torrey Honors College.