Joseph, Husband of the Virgin Mary and Guardian of Jesus: An Anglican Perspective

Feast Day: March 19

The Anglican calendar is ordered by a hierarchy of holy days, each carrying a different weight of observance. At the top sit the seven Principal Feasts — the highest days of the liturgical year. Below them are the Red-Letter Holy Days, appointed in the BCP 2019 with their own collects, propers, and lectionary readings, listed on page 688. They are called Red-Letter Days because, in the tradition of printing church calendars, these days appear in red ink, distinguished from the Optional Commemorations which appear in ordinary type. The feast of Joseph, Husband of the Virgin Mary and Guardian of Jesus, observed on March 19, is one of these Red-Letter Holy Days.

The BCP 2019 names this feast with care: Joseph, Husband of the Virgin Mary and Guardian of Jesus. Both titles matter. The first honors the covenant relationship through which Jesus received his legal Davidic lineage. The second names the vocation for which the feast exists: Joseph is the one whom God raised up to guard the child through whom the world’s salvation would come. As husband and as guardian, Joseph stands at the center of the Incarnation’s earthly household. That faithful, obedient, largely silent guardianship is the theological heart of the feast.

Joseph never speaks in any of the four Gospels. There is no word of Joseph’s recorded anywhere in Scripture. Everything we know about him is action: he took Mary as his wife when he could have dismissed her quietly. He named the child Jesus, as the angel commanded. He fled to Egypt in the night with his family. He returned when it was safe. He brought the boy to Jerusalem for the Passover. He searched for three days when the twelve-year-old Jesus was missing. His entire biblical portrait is a series of obedient responses to circumstances he did not choose and could not have anticipated. The collect names this with precision: uprightness of life and obedience to your commands.

The Biblical Portrait

Matthew’s account introduces Joseph in the genealogy that opens the Gospel. He is the son of Jacob, of the line of David, of the seed of Abraham — and he is described simply as “Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.” (Matthew 1:16, ESV) The careful grammar is deliberate: Jesus was born of Mary, not of Joseph. Joseph is her husband, not the biological father. But Matthew’s genealogy runs through Joseph for a reason: it is through Joseph’s legal fatherhood that Jesus inherits the royal Davidic lineage the Messiah must possess. By naming the child and receiving him into his household, Joseph makes Jesus legally his son and thereby a son of David through the royal Solomonic line. Many scholars also read Luke’s genealogy in chapter 3 as tracing Mary’s own descent from David through Nathan, a different son of David — which would mean Jesus carried Davidic blood biologically through his mother as well. Whether or not that reading is correct, it is Joseph’s legal act that secures the royal messianic lineage.

When the angel appears to Joseph in a dream in Matthew 1:20–21, the message addresses him directly as son of David: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:20–21, ESV) The naming of the child by Joseph is a legal act. In the ancient world, a father’s formal naming of a child was the act that established paternity in law. By obeying the angel and naming the child Jesus, Joseph simultaneously acknowledges that the child is not his biological son and claims him as his legal son. It is a remarkable act of faith and legal generosity — Joseph giving his name, his lineage, and his protection to a child who is not his, at the command of God.

The flight to Egypt and the return to Nazareth are told in Matthew 2. In both cases, the angel speaks to Joseph in a dream and Joseph responds immediately: “And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt.” (Matthew 2:14, ESV) And after Herod’s death: “And he rose and took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.” (Matthew 2:21, ESV) The same pattern repeats: divine instruction, immediate response, no recorded objection or question. Joseph does not negotiate with the angel. He does not ask for time to consider. He rises and goes. This is the shape of his obedience throughout: prompt, complete, and uncomplaining.

The propers for this feast are found on page 730 of the BCP 2019. The appointed Gospel reading is Luke 2:41–52, the finding of Jesus in the temple — the only story from Jesus’ childhood in any of the Gospels. Joseph and Mary have traveled to Jerusalem for the Passover, as they did every year. On the return journey they discover that the twelve-year-old Jesus is not in the traveling party. After three days of searching, they find him in the temple, sitting among the teachers. Mary’s words speak for both parents: “Son, why have you treated us so? Behold, your father and I have been searching for you in great distress.” (Luke 2:48, ESV) Jesus’ answer gently but unmistakably draws the line that defines Joseph’s whole vocation: “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49, ESV) Joseph is the earthly father of the one whose true Father is God. He holds that tension for the whole of his recorded life — and Luke tells us he holds it without complaint: “And he went down with them and came to Nazareth and was submissive to them.” (Luke 2:51, ESV) The child was submissive to his parents. Joseph had been submissive to God. The household of Nazareth was ordered by obedience at every level.

The Theological Significance

The feast of Joseph sits at the intersection of two great theological themes: the Davidic covenant and the nature of faith. Both are present in the appointed readings, and both illuminate the figure of Joseph in ways that a surface reading of the Gospel stories might miss.

The appointed Old Testament reading is 2 Samuel 7:4, 8–16, the oracle of Nathan in which God promises David an eternal throne and an eternal dynasty: “When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever.” (2 Samuel 7:12–13, ESV) Joseph stands in this covenant. He is a son of David, as the angel’s address makes explicit. By receiving Jesus into his family and giving him the Davidic lineage, Joseph becomes the instrument through whom the covenant of 2 Samuel 7 reaches its fulfillment. The eternal throne of David is established not through a biological heir but through a man who trusted God’s word and obeyed.

Psalm 89:1–4, 19–29, the appointed psalm, is the great meditation on the Davidic covenant: “I have made a covenant with my chosen one; I have sworn to David my servant: ‘I will establish your offspring forever, and build your throne for all generations.’” (Psalm 89:3–4, ESV) Read on the feast of Joseph, this psalm is a declaration that the promise God made to David has reached its fulfillment in the household at Nazareth, where a carpenter’s son is being raised who is also the Son of God. Joseph is the last link in the chain of the Davidic covenant — the one in whom the genealogy of Matthew 1 arrives, and through whom it passes to the one who will sit on David’s throne forever.

Romans 4:13–18 brings the theology of faith to bear on Joseph’s story. Paul is writing about Abraham, but the passage speaks directly to what Joseph did. Abraham was promised an heir when the promise was humanly impossible — “in hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations.” (Romans 4:18, ESV) Joseph was asked to receive as his own son a child he knew was not his biological offspring, on the basis of a dream and an angel’s word. He believed against the evidence of his own senses and the judgment of his community. His faith was Abrahamic in its structure: trusting God’s promise against every natural expectation, receiving what God gave rather than what human calculation would have predicted.

The BCP 2019 Collect and Preface

The BCP 2019 appoints the following collect for the feast on page 627: “O God, who from the family of your servant David raised up Joseph to be the guardian of your incarnate Son and the husband of his virgin mother: Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” The collect identifies Joseph by two relationships — guardian of the incarnate Son, husband of the virgin mother — and asks for two graces: uprightness of life and obedience to God’s commands. Both are exactly what Joseph’s biblical portrait shows. He was upright enough that Matthew describes him as a just man who did not wish to expose Mary to public shame; he was obedient enough that he rose and acted every time the angel spoke. The feast invites the Church to imitate both — the integrity that governs private conduct and the obedience that responds to divine direction without delay.

The Preface of the Presentation, found on page 153 of the BCP 2019, is appointed for this feast: “Because in the mystery of the Word made flesh, you have caused a new light to shine in our hearts, to give the knowledge of your glory in the face of your Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” (BCP 2019, p. 153) The use of the Preface of the Presentation links this feast to the Presentation of Christ in the Temple (February 2), where Joseph was also present. Both feasts concern the same mystery: the Word made flesh, carried and guarded by human hands. The preface names the light that shone in the mystery of the Incarnation — the light that Joseph guarded in the night flight to Egypt, in the quiet years at Nazareth, and in the three days of searching in Jerusalem.

Joseph in Anglican Worship

The feast of Joseph has been observed in the Western Church since the fifteenth century and was included in the calendar of the Church of England after the Reformation. The BCP 2019 restores it as a Red-Letter Holy Day with full propers, continuing the full breadth of the Anglican liturgical tradition.

March 19 falls within Lent in most years. When it does, the feast may be observed on that day — since the rubric on page 689 of the BCP 2019 specifies that Red-Letter Holy Days that fall during Lent may not be observed on a Sunday but may be observed on weekdays. The feast does not displace Lenten discipline; it enriches it. The themes of Joseph’s feast — obedience, uprightness, quiet faithfulness in the face of mystery — are thoroughly Lenten virtues.

Anglicanism honors Joseph not as a figure of veneration whose intercession is sought, but as a model whose example is imitated. The collect asks not for Joseph’s prayers but for grace to follow his pattern. This is consistent with the Anglican understanding of saints throughout the calendar: they are witnesses and examples, not mediators. Joseph’s particular witness is the witness of the faithful person who does what God asks without being given full explanation, who guards what God entrusts without fully comprehending it, and who steps aside when the child he has raised declares that he must be about his Father’s business.

Observing This Feast

March 19 often falls within Lent. Red-Letter Holy Days may be observed on Lenten weekdays; they may not be observed on Lenten Sundays, but may be transferred to the nearest weekday outside of Lent if they fall on a Sunday. Consult page 689 of the BCP 2019 for the full rubrics.

To observe the feast: pray the collect from BCP 2019, p. 627. Read Matthew 1:18–25, the account of Joseph’s decision to take Mary as his wife and his naming of the child — the two legal acts through which he secured the Davidic lineage for Jesus. Read Luke 2:41–52, the finding in the temple, and sit with Joseph’s silence in the face of Jesus’ answer. Read 2 Samuel 7:4, 8–16 as the covenant that Joseph’s obedience fulfilled. Pray Romans 4:13–18 as a meditation on faith that believes against hope. And let the collect’s petition close the day: give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands.

Conclusion

Joseph never speaks in any Gospel. He asks no questions, registers no complaints, expresses no doubts in any text that has survived. He simply obeys — promptly, completely, and apparently without reservation. He names the child he did not father. He flees in the night to protect the child who is not his. He searches for three days for the boy who turns out to have been about his Father’s business all along. And then he disappears from the Gospel narrative, his guardianship complete.

The feast of March 19 honors this silent faithfulness with a Red-Letter Day. The Church does not produce many such figures, and it needs them desperately — people who will do what God asks without being given all the reasons, who will guard what God entrusts without needing recognition, who will step aside gracefully when the one they have served no longer needs their protection. The collect asks that the Church would be full of such people. It is among the most quietly urgent prayers in the BCP. “Give us grace to imitate his uprightness of life and his obedience to your commands.”