IMAGE: Mary learns of her future child while Joseph messes around in his man cave. Annunciation Triptych (Merode Altarpiece) from the Workshop of Robert Campin (Netherlandish, ca. 1375–1444 Tournai) ca. 1427–32 - Met Cloisters
New York City is a wonderful place to live if you love museums or galleries. If one visits the Met (for those that aren’t in the Art/History world, Met stands for Metropolitan Museum of Art. It’s an industry term that should only be used by those in the field. Shop talk. You’re welcome.)
Much of the Met’s earlier collections are full of religious imagery. Tapestries, paintings, statues and virtually all of them are of Jesus and Mary. Mother and Child. Or as medieval artists knew how to draw them: Man with Long Hair No Beard and Man Shrunk Down to Baby Size.
All of these paintings are beautiful in their own right but as I look at these works I ask myself: where’s Joseph? Huh? He’s been cut out of the family album!
And what’s more than that, where are the men’s rights groups banging the doors down for Joseph? #JusticeForJoseph! He’s the real tragic figure in all this, you know. He has the sad reality of being history’s first deadbeat dad. Or one of the first at least.
Now that I think of it, why shouldn’t he be left out of all these paintings? Let’s go to the tape:
He drags his heavily pregnant wife to Bethlehem (presumably for carpentry convention).
He doesn’t even book a motel in advance for the 2 soon to be 3 of them.
Allows strangers off the street to ogle his birthing wife in exchange for frankincense and myrrh
Proceeds to be absent for most of the rest of the bible.
He disappears! Joseph misses his son’s - sorry, ‘step son’s’ - sermons, baptism, crucifixion, “shit, was that today?” (I can only imagine he said). And more than that I’m pretty sure he cheated on Mary, too. They don’t call him the Virgin Joseph do they?
Yes, Joseph actually had a child from a second marriage. Kevin! Jesus’ half brother, Kevin Christ? Remember him? Just the worst. Have you read the Book of Kevin? It suuuuucks. No wonder it didn’t survive the edit. Thou shalt not get to play with my toys. Thou shalt not have to go on vacation with me and my family to Maine. Thou shalt have to let me win at board games. I think Jehovah’s Witnesses might still read Kevin but that’s about it.
When Joseph and Mary split up they couldn't even give Jesus some good news. There would be no 2 Christmases and 2 birthdays because they’d always been the same day. You think almighty God in His infinite wisdom would have timed that better but no, He had His only son born on Christmas of all days! smh. Think about that this year when you’re opening your presents.
Insightful
Interesting