St. Joseph's Yes

Its no secret that I have a devotion to Our Lady, but I'm also quite the fan of St. Joseph and the Holy Family. At Christmas Eve mass something struck me. Mary's yes was important, but so was Joseph's. He almost "quietly divorced" Mary, but God asked him not to. By not doing so, and therefore saying yes, St. Joseph became the earthly father figure for Jesus; His adoptive father.

Have you ever actually paid attention to the reading at Christmas Eve mass? I know it rotates depending on the year for the Gospels, and I know the vigil reading is different from midnight mass and all the others, but this year's struck me. I went to the vigil so I've included this link to a website so you can refresh your memory or maybe read it for the first time :)

So the first line of the Gospel sums it up pretty well, "The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham." The reading goes through all of the different fathers in the lineage from Abraham to Jesus. " all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations." The lineage was continuous, but I want you to look closely to the very end of the lineage...

"Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. " 

Do you know what that means? Maybe not, I never really thought about it. Jesus was in the direct line from Abraham, Jesse, David, and many other great men because Joseph said yes. Isn't that fantastic? I've always known Jesus had important lineage, mainly because I sang songs about it in the children's choir at church and the songs just stuck with me. What I didn't realize was that because Joseph said yes Jesus had that lineage.

If Joseph said no, Jesus would still have Mary's lineage. I don't know very much about her lineage except her parents were pretty awesome. But Joseph didn't quietly divorce his wife who was with child, instead he stayed with her and took on the important task of raising baby Jesus, thus giving Jesus the lineage we sing glorious songs about today. 

Is your mind blown? because I'm pretty sure mine is!