So just in case you weren’t aware, last month I released my first ever Christmas EP. “Call Him Jesus” is now available to listen to on all streaming platforms so do go and check it out. If you’ll stick around for a few moments though, I wanted to share with you a little about the title track “Call Him Jesus” and how it came to be.

About a year ago I first decided to try my hand at writing a Christmas song. Sure, I’d written my own stuff before, but Christmas songs are different. They are around for such a short time, and there is already such a large catalogue out there, so I knew I needed something unique. What was I to write about?

Finding my theme.

A few years back I’d heard a Christian comic joking about the fact that, in the play of the bible, Joseph has no lines. There is not a word recorded from his mouth. This got me thinking. Sure, the comic was technically correct, but no Joseph wasn’t a mute, and neither was his part in the Christmas story a minor one.

For a good while I read over and over, all that the bible says about Joseph and the things he did. I kept going back to the short account in Matthew chapter 1 and I couldn’t help but place myself in his shoes and ask myself how I’d have felt.

How would I react if my fiancé suddenly announced she was pregnant, and I knew the baby wasn’t mine? Even if an angel did appear to me and tell me the baby was from God, would I be strong enough to stick around and face potential public humiliation? In all honesty, I’m not sure I know the answer to either question. All I can say is, praise God Joseph was strong enough to stick around.

Why was Joseph strong enough? It’s a perfectly reasonable question and after thinking about it for a long while I think the answer is simple. Joseph got it. He understood what it was all about, and he got onboard with the plan. It was about something so much bigger than him and Mary, and he realised it.

We live in a culture where many men would happily walk out on their families for a lot less, if I can say it like that, than the child not being theirs. Hundreds of thousands of children grow up with no father figure. Doesn’t this just amplify how heroic Joseph’s actions were? Joseph stuck around to raise a boy who wasn’t his. He brought him up and gave him a trade. How many children today would benefit from having a Joseph raise them?

You might be sitting there saying, “well if an angel came to any one of us and explained it like in Joseph’s case, then wouldn’t we all just get it?” Personally, I’m not convinced, and I think we do Joseph a disservice with that entire argument.

In any case, I’d found my theme: Joseph.

Telling the story of scripture.

Story telling within my songs is something I love. Sure, it’s not always appropriate, but where possible I like to get some biblical narrative in there. Maybe that’s me being influenced by country music, a genre I love, where story telling is extremely common. I don’t know. Either way I wanted to tell Joseph’s story with this song.

Going over Matthew 1 again and again, I released the pivotal moment was the angel’s appearance to Joseph in verse 21, where they declare God’s salvation plan. “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins”. Pretty much straight away I knew this would be my chorus. I mean after all it was the truth which convinced Joseph to stay. It had to be central to the song, right?

With the chorus sorted, I worked backwards to write the first verse. Put simply, it’s me telling the story of Mary and Joseph. Not yet married, Mary announces her pregnancy. Joseph thinks through his options which leads to the angel’s appearance and ultimately the chorus of the song.

Thinking outside the box.

With the first verse using up pretty much all of what’s written of Joseph pre the birth of Jesus, I needed to come up with a second. Something which isn’t recorded in the bible, is how Joseph coped with raising Jesus.

Let me make myself clear. I absolutely do not mean that Jesus was hard work as a child. In fact, quite the opposite. It’s likely that Joseph in his sinful state, had bad days. Maybe there were days when he found it hard raising a child that wasn’t his own, even if that child was perfect in every way.

If there were days where Joseph found it tough, then I wonder how he coped. How did he make it through? I reckon it’s 99.9% likely that on those down days, he’d simply remind himself of the night the angel visited him and let him in on the big plan.

What a reminder that would be! “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins”. This whole idea of Joseph having off days and reminding himself of the angel’s words, quickly became my second verse.

This Christmas, there will no doubt be moments where each of our minds wander and we lose sight of what Christmas is really about. There will be moments where we make Christmas about the tree or the turkey. Maybe even snowy winter walks in the park with the odd snowball fight. Perhaps your distraction will be the family and the grandkids with all their presents.

In those moments, remind yourself of that truth the angel spoke to Joseph, to stay focused on the main thing: “You shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins”.