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I. 6 -- Joseph the Carpenter of Nazareth
Having explained Jesus' origins in the infancy narrative, the
Gospel of Matthew next jumps immediately to Jesus' baptism by John
and the beginning of his ministry as an adult. The reader is told
nothing about his childhood or his life at Nazareth, and consequently
nothing about Joseph, who simply vanishes from the scene never
to be mentioned again, except for one brief reference: "Where did
this man get this wisdom and these mighty works? Is not this the
carpenter's son?" (Mt 13:54-55). The question asked has
a type of parallel in each of the other Gospels (Mk 6:3; Lk 4:22; Jn 6:42),
but none says "carpenter's son." Only Mark 6:3 uses the word "carpenter," but
applied to Jesus, without mention of Joseph. It was the natural
responsibility of a father to teach his trade to the son he was
raising. Besides the title "Son of David," Jesus also receives
from Joseph the title "son of the carpenter," adding a concrete
human dimension that is part of the mystery of the Incarnation.
The son of the carpenter who grew up working at his father's side
would necessarily also be known to the people of his hometown as "the
carpenter."
The actual Greek word used for Joseph's profession occurs nowhere
else in the New Testament apart from these two cases of Matthew
and Mark. The word is broader than simply "carpenter," and may
be applied to a builder or a worker of any hard material such as
stone or metal, thus opening a wide range of possibilities for
the type of work that Joseph did.
The passage containing this reference (Mt 13:53-58)
indirectly may shed some light on Joseph's disappearance from the
scene. It is the only time that this Gospel actually names Jesus
as Joseph's "son," and it is the people of Nazareth, "his own country," who
refer to him in this way. They are the first to take offense at
his teaching, because they are all too aware of his ordinary human
upbringing. This would furnish one explanation for Joseph's absence
in Jesus' ministry, which begins immediately with a voice from
Heaven declaring "This is my beloved Son" (Mt 3:17). It
could only cause confusion in people's minds to have Jesus' human
father present while he was being revealed as the unique Son of
God.
The presence of a human father was necessary for Davidic descent,
for protection, affection, and instruction. The years of Jesus'
life with Joseph and Mary at Nazareth are not recorded in history.
It is reasonable to conclude that, in his human nature, Jesus learned
from his parents, as every child must, and that what he learned
was evidenced in the human manner in which he expressed his teaching
and in the concrete images he used in the parables. Perhaps the
very ordinariness of these years, in which nothing special stands
out to record, is part of the principal information one needs to
know about Jesus' human origins: he became like every other human
being. Once Jesus' identity has been firmly established, one is
prepared to receive the divine Good News he brings. From the absence
of Joseph even when Mary is mentioned in the rest of Gospel, it
may be concluded that he had died by the time of the beginning
of Jesus' public ministry. No further data is available. The carpenter
of Nazareth faithfully and unquestioningly fulfills all that God
asks of him, and then just as quietly disappears.
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