Pascha is more and more lost to us but at least some of the joy of Christmas remains. Perhaps in the end this feast will lead us back to faith in all its richness. We will be rescued by Christmas. As icons are so deeply silent, we are free to wonder about Joseph's morose condition. One explanation is that he cannot quite believe what he has experienced.
Divine activity intrudes into our lives in such a mundane, physical way.
A woman gives birth to a child as women have been doing since Eve. Joseph has witnessed that birth and there is nothing different about it, unless it be that it occurred in abject circumstances, in a cave in which animals are kept in cold weather. Joseph has had his dreams, he has heard angelic voices, he has been reassured in a variety of ways that the child born of Mary is none other than the Awaited One, the Anointed, God's Son. But still belief comes hard. Mary has completed this stage of her struggle, but Joseph still grapples with his.