Patron Saint of The Lads

I don't know where you stand on this whole nativity lark but I reckon Joseph is The Man by any definition. Not only did he get Mary pregnant but he got away with it, how? He blamed God. Unbelievable! This man has more front than Blackpool, Brighton and Weston-Super-Mare put together.

For the rest of the story he plays the humble carpenter, helping Mary to find some digs and so on. Are we supposed to believe he just did this out of the goodness of his heart? No guilt trip going on there then, he's just a jolly decent chap helping out the luckless Mary Mother of God. I can see how he could trick an innocent young girl; sex education wasn't widespread in those days, nor was any other sort of education. "I just have to put this in here to help the swelling. I learned it from a travelling faith healer, Chinese I think, they're very clever the Chinese". A month later the swelling finally subsided when Mary honked all over the duvet.

It's the next bit that doesn't fit, how do you get from morning sickness to virgin birth? Again, convincing the gormless Mary Mother of God is the easy bit, "errrmm... the er like holy ghost was here, and errr.. you were asleep, I tried to stop him, really, but he's like really scary and stuff. Errr...huhu, you'd better wash those sheets", "No way Joseph, they're your sheets, your mom should wash 'em", "It's your barf buttmunch, I'm gonna kick your ass", "I'm gonna kick your ass". Yes it should read like a script from Beavis and Butthead. I can see those two idiots going along with it but how did he convince the neighbours let alone anyone else? What Holy Ghost? It didn't exist until then, he just made it up to blame someone else for the Mary's condition.

That's the true miracle of Christmas, Joseph scored, blamed God and got away with it. Well good luck to him. Here we are, two thousand years later, sitting around the kitchen table drinking egg-nog because Joseph couldn't face up to his responsibility and he didn't have the balls to do a runner.

Jesus was far more likely to be Joseph's son that God's, as you can read later in The Book. Fair enough him telling the prostitute Mary Magdalene to go reform herself, but then why does she keep popping up later in the story? Is it really necessary to have a hooker* hanging around The Saviour and twelve other men who left their wives to go on a road trip? Unless it was a rugby tour*, I'd say no, the boy was clearly influenced by his old fella*.

Why isn't Joseph's story told? I can think of a few fellas who could have used his ideas. Anyway, go Joseph! Patron Saint of The Lads!

JJ

*Hooker is one of the playing positions in Rugby. Not withstanding that both types of hookers are usually required on a rubgy tour
*Old fella refers to Joseph at the same as being a metaphor for the One Eyed Trouser Snake. Well, how do you refer to the Son of God's appendage? It's not something to be taken lightly, Mary can vouch for that, I meant Magdalene not the other one**.

**It was Oedipus doing the horizontal dance with mother (now that was one fucked up individual)