Joseph

I think that Joseph is someone who is often overlooked when we think about Christmas and that first Christmas but he is very important to the story as well. I can only imagine the feelings that he felt as he took Mary to Bethlehem. As the father and husband of this family he must have felt a deep sense of responsibility to protect them and provide for them. I can only imagine how heavy his heart must of felt as he was turned down time and time again from the inns trying to find a good place for his wife to stay.

Elder Holland explains it so well:

"One impression which has persisted with me is that this is a story of intense poverty. I wonder if Luke did not have some special meaning when he wrote not “there was no room in the inn” but specifically that “there was no room for them in the inn” (Luke 2:7; emphasis added). We cannot be certain, but it is my guess that money could buy influence in those days as well as in our own. I think if Joseph and Mary had been people of importance or wealth, they would have found lodging even at that busy time of year.
I have wondered if the Joseph Smith Translation also was suggesting they did not know any influential people when it says there was no one to give them room in the inns (see JST, Luke 2:7).
I compare those feelings (which I have had with each succeeding child) with what Joseph must have felt as he moved through the streets of a city not his own, with not a friend or kinsman in sight, nor anyone willing to extend a helping hand. In these very last and most painful hours of her “confinement,” Mary had ridden or walked approximately 160 kilometers from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem in Judea. Surely Joseph must have wept at her silent courage. Now, alone and unnoticed, they had to descend from human company to a stable, a grotto full of animals, there to bring forth the Son of God.
I wonder what emotions Joseph might have had as he cleared away the dung and debris. I wonder if he felt the sting of tears as he hurriedly tried to find the cleanest straw and hold the animals back. I wonder if he wondered: “Could there be a more unhealthy, a more disease-ridden, a more despicable circumstance in which a child could be born? Is this a place fit for a king? Should the mother of the Son of God be asked to enter the “valley of the shadow of death” (Ps. 23:4) in such a foul and unfamiliar place as this? Is it wrong to wish her some comfort? Is it right He should be born here?”
But I am certain Joseph did not mutter and Mary did not wail. They knew a great deal and did the best they could.
Perhaps this provides an important distinction we should remember in our own holiday season. Maybe the purchasing and the making and the wrapping and the decorating should be separated, if only slightly, from the more quiet, personal moments when we consider the meaning of the Baby (and his birth) who prompts the giving of such gifts." "Christmas Doesn't Come From A Store" Liahano Dec 1995

This Christmas read Matthew 1:18-25 and Luke 2:1-7 and think about this young man and the role he played at this first Christmas. Find time this Christmas to do secret acts of service both in your family and for others around you. Find to listen to the promptings that come to heart so you may know where you are needed and where you can serve others. Find time to read the story "A Gift From The Heart" By Norman Vincent Peale.

"Joseph

represents the desires of our hearts.

He reminds us of the secret acts of Christmas Kindness

given with sacrafice and love

to the broken, the weary, the lost, or the lonely."

Emily Freeman A Christ Centered Christmas