Carpenter

Joseph should have been king. If things had been different a dozen generations before him, he would have been king. If the people around him wouldn't have gone so far astray, if his great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfathers could have stayed on the narrow path, he would have been king. 

But he wasn't king. 

He was a carpenter. 

By the time we get to Joseph, the air of entitlement is completely gone. Generations of not being king have sunk in, and even though the people of God have for the most part come back to their land, the social structure they once clung do is long gone. 

Maybe that first son after the exile still held onto the hope that he would be king again, when they all went home to Jerusalem. Maybe the son after him still had some hope, too. But by the time we get to Joseph, it's clear - this line of kings has died out, though they still live as regular men. There is probably not a single bone in Joseph's body that believes there will ever truly be a king in Judah again...because it's supposed to be him, and it seems impossible that it ever would be. 

He's a carpenter.

He has embraced the new life he's been given. He has taken to heart God's words spoken all the way back at the exile - work for the peace and prosperity of Babylon, for when they have peace and prosperity, you will, too. 

He has found himself a trade, a way to contribute to society, a way to make peace around him and to prosper, and he's all in. He's so much all in on it that he's known throughout the region as the carpenter. Remember when the people were scoffing at Jesus? They looked down their noses and said, Isn't this the carpenter's son? 

Indeed, it is. 

Imagine if it wasn't. 

Imagine if Joseph came from a whole line of men who just couldn't let go, who couldn't move on, who couldn't let themselves become anything else. Imagine if there were a whole line of ancestors sitting around, proclaiming they were supposed to be king. Moping. Blaming everyone around them for being so sinful that they couldn't be king any more because these dirty rats didn't deserve a king any more. Sitting on their hands and doing nothing because they had in their minds one thing and missed everything else. 

Imagine if Jesus had been born into bitterness over what had been lost. 

But He wasn't. 

He was born into the life of a carpenter, a man who had learned to make something out of nothing. A man who got down to doing the work, even if it wasn't what he should have been born for. A man who accepted that there was a good place for him, even if it wasn't the places his ancestors would have carved out. 

He carved it out and became it anyway. 

He was a carpenter. He was the carpenter. 

That's a good life.