Pledged

I'm still thinking about that trek Joseph took with Mary, from Nazareth to Bethlehem. Yesterday, I wondered at how difficult it must have been. Today I'm again impressed that Joseph did it at all. Because I'm thinking about the word "pledged."

Luke 2:5 "He went there to register with Mary, who was pledged to be married to him and was expecting a child."

Does that mean they weren't yet married? I suppose a wedding vow is also a pledge, but our understanding of the term would be more like engaged. I don't know which is more accurate, and I'm told that Jewish weddings of the time were a lot more drawn out, with nuanced stages, so that we don't really have the right words for all of it. But in this passage, it makes me think maybe Joseph had an option: if he wasn't married yet, couldn't Mary be enrolled back at home? 

Those are idle wonderings until I get to the other thought that this word prompts: Joseph made a promise, and he carried it out. No matter the pregnancy that he had no part of, no matter the difficulty of dragging an incapacitated woman halfway across the country. Joseph promised Mary he'd be her husband, and circumstances won't change that. Maybe he needed a little help from the angel to see his course, but once he saw it, he didn't waver.

As I wait for Jesus, I'm struck by all the commitments I've made - to wife, to church, to God - that I have yet to carry out. There are a lot of reasons, some good and some bad, but the fact remains that there are some things I still need to follow through on. 

Wo knew that part of Advent would be to reflect and re-commit to things I said more than three decades ago at my profession of faith? Yet somehow, as I consider Joseph's active faithfulness to his pledge, I'm drawn to think of my pledge to the baby Joseph so carefully nurtured.