The willingness to work with God will unleash Joseph’s full potential. His inherent aptitude for organization and for building is well suited to the rearing of God’s Son. First and foremost, it situates Jesus in the same condition as the vast majority of people. He isn’t raised with wealth, prestige, or influence but in ordinary obscurity. Many in Nazareth who hear him announce the kingdom of God will be astonished. “What is the wisdom given to him? …Is not this the carpenter?” (Mark 6:2, 3). In his manual labor Jesus becomes part of the process by which the earth is subdued. The real experience of forming and shaping concrete objects prefigures Jesus’s work of redemption: “Behold, I make all things new” (Revelation 21:5).
—from the book Jospeh, the Man Who Raised Jesus by Fr. Gary Caster
