Joseph and the shepherds


Midnight in Bethlehem, Zero AD.
One or two people in difficulty.
Out on the street with a donkey and wife
Joseph had reached a bad point in his life
with the kind of a problem that won't go away:
a woman in labour, and nowhere to stay
Now the root of it all, when you boiled the thing down,
was too many people in too small a town. 
When they dreamed up the plan of administration 
for a poll tax on all of the Jewish nation 
only a bureaucrat somewhere like Rome 
would send everyone back to their ancestors' home, 
for little old Bethlehem wasn't designed 
to cater for David's prolific line.
Still the problem was there and he couldn't disown it:
they'd left it too late, and Joseph had blown it.
If they'd finished the packing the evening before, 
and not gone back to check that they'd locked the front door -
if they'd not missed the turning at that roundabout -
if they'd filled up the donkey before they set out 
if they hadn't agreed to call in and see 
all of Mary's relations at Bethany 
or if only he'd booked by Israeli Express 
that would have done nicely. But this was a mess. 
No room at the inn. No room anywhere. 
They gave him the only place they could spare 
and the promised Messiah was born that night 
on the floor of a stable without any light 
where they cut the cord and cleaned up the mess
and wrapped him in somebody's workaday dress
and while Mary slept there, exhausted and cold, 
Joseph sat by feeling helpless and old. 
This wasn't the way he had thought it would be
when the angel had told him that destiny 
chose them to look after the Holy One. 
No, this was a farce. What God had done 
was to trust the care of the Saviour instead 
to a man who could not even find him a bed. 
If only he'd planned it more carefully then. 
If he only could go back and do it again. 
He turned round in his mind the way he had blundered -
then he looked at the infant and suddenly wondered 
if it all was a lie, if he was a fool 
and the object of everyone's ridicule, 
if the dreams of the angels were tricks and not 
what they promised to be, and his anger grew hot 
when the shepherds burst in all breathless and Wild 
and stopped in their tracks when they saw The child.
They shifted their gaze from the baby's bed 
and their eyes met his, and he nodded his head,
standing awkwardly, not knowing quite what to do
now they all knew for certain the story was true. 
They stayed there for minutes. It might have been years.
Not one of them spoke. Their hopes and their fears
were gathered around this helpless God
as their minds tried to grasp what it meant. Where he stood
Joseph was silent as finally 
he saw this was how it was planned to be, 
that the smell and the dark and the dirt and the pain 
were not Joseph's mistake but God's choice. As the rain
ran down on Bethlehem Joseph knew
that men would be saved despite all tjhey might do.
He could not control it. He did not understand.
He felt like a baby himself in God’s hand.
He thought of his anger and flushed now with shame
He remembered the angel had said that his name
would be Jesus, God saves.
He glanced up and saw
that the shepherds had gone. Day had dawned. From the floor
Mary gazed at him, quizzical, on her straw bed.
The tiny God-child cried out to be fed.
Joseph moved to the business of the new day,
gave the child to its mother, the donkey some hay. 

© Godfrey Rust

From the collection Welcome to the Real World
May be freely reproduced for non-commercial purposes.
godfrey@wordsout.co.uk