The Deep Sleep of Adam & Joseph

This post was written with my good friend Susan Skinner

I was recently reading a general audience given by St John Paul II on November 7, 1979 entitled The Original Unity of Man and Woman. This general audience in particular is really incredible to read in its entirety, especially considering our culture today and the extreme confusion of ideology that continues to be on the rise. The Church in her Wisdom has already spoken the Truth of our identity and she has preached it for over 2000 years. Yet we must look to Sacred Scripture in order to discover who we are and why we are here. The story of creation is didactic, so we know it is the Truth and Wisdom of God and answers the questions of who we are and why we were created.

In looking back at what Saint John Paul the Great was teaching over 40 years ago in this general audience, I want to highlight this concept that God looked at Man and realized it was not good for him to be alone. This prompted God to put Adam into a deep sleep. The Saint has some really cool things to say about this:

Man is “male and female” right from the beginning… the meaning of “original solitude,” which can be referred simply to “man,” is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity. The latter is based on masculinity and femininity, as if on two different “incarnations,” that is, on two ways of “being a body” of the same human being created “in the image of God” (Gn 1:27).

The Original Unity of Man and Woman – General Audience of Pope John Paul II – November 7, 1979

What he is saying here is that male and female were one in the first “man” created. This is why when created in the image and likeness of God, the male and female when “the two become one flesh”, in that union, humanity reflects the image and likeness of God. When God said it was not good for “man” to be alone, he was referring to the fact that “man” who was created “male and female” was in solitude with himself. 

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and while he slept took one of his ribs and closed up its place with flesh. The rib which the Lord God had taken from the man he made into a woman.

Gn 2:21-22

There is something to be said about union, relationship, the “one flesh” that male and female come together to form. Therefore this union is holy, it has been sanctified by God himself, who took it upon himself to separate male and female within creation in order to make it “very good”. It was made this way, holy, before the fall of man. It is only after the fall we see it defiled.  

So the means by which this happens is by God causing a “deep sleep” to fall upon the “man”, who remember is at the time “male and female”. Saint John Paul the Great contends that this sleep is not like what we think of when we think of sleeping, which is man going from a state of consciousness to a state of subconsciousness. 

He says that this term here for “deep sleep” instead of meaning actual sleep, “indicates a return to the moment preceding the creation, that through God’s creative initiative, solitary “man” may emerge from it again in his double unity as male and female.” He even goes so far as to say, “the circle of the solitude of the man-person is broken, because the first “man” awakens from his sleep as “male and female.” Basically, God takes “man” back into the moment preceding the creation and he separates out male and female into two separate persons. Then God explains that male and female are a perfect union of original “man” who was created in God’s own image and likeness. 

As I read these words, I immediately thought of the sleeping St. Joseph. I have often considered the fact that St Joseph was at some point saved from Original Sin. I have also considered that he is in heaven body and soul with Mary and Jesus which is a topic for another article, as this one will deal with Joseph’s original sin. But it seems to me that if St. Joseph was the earthly father of Jesus Christ, who was fully God and fully man and God found it necessary for Jesus’ mother to be perfect and holy, would he not also find it necessary for Jesus’ earthly father to be perfect? Would not God Himself be raised in a family of perfection?  While Mary was immaculately conceived and saved from Original Sin at her conception, I wonder if God used this “sleep” of Joseph to do what he did to “man” at the beginning of creation.

If God does miraculous things while Adam is sleeping, and gives him bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh as other, so that Adam may know how to love in union, so too could God do something miraculous for Saint Joseph in his sleep?  Except in this instance, rather than bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh, Joseph’s sleep begets from God, Spirit of His Spirit, which brings Joseph into intimate union with Mary through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. With Joseph’s sleeping yes from the angel’s visit, he is made immaculate, which is to say, in fullness with the Spirit. Through his yes to taking Mary and the Christ Child into his home, he is recreated. For God would want nothing less for the Father of His own household.  

An angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,

Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins. 

Matthew 1:20-21

If Joseph is instructed to take Mary as his wife and the child conceived by the Holy Spirit as his own, could not this sleep then have been a return to the beginning?  

Man is “male and female” right from the beginning… the meaning of “original solitude,” which can be referred simply to “man,” is substantially prior to the meaning of original unity. The latter is based on masculinity and femininity, as if on two different “incarnations,” that is, on two ways of “being a body” of the same human being created “in the image of God” (Gn 1:27).

The Original Unity of Man and Woman – General Audience of Pope John Paul II – November 7, 1979

Could not God have, through the Immaculate Conception of Mary, the Incarnation, and the prevenient Crucifixion, made Joseph perfected? And rather than his being in solitude with himself in body, he was in union with the Blessed Virgin and the Christ Child, in the Holy Spirit. And so, though he “knew her not” in the bodily sense of the word, he too was made immaculate, through her intercession and the deep sleep of God?  

It is a question we must ask, because we next see the angel give Joseph the right to name the Christ child.

She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet: “Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel.

Matthew 1:21-23

It is Joseph who is given the right to name God.  It is Joseph who is given domain over the Kingdom of God, which is held inside the incarnation of the Christ Child.  This is reminiscent of Adam who was given the right to the naming of all in God’s Kingdom which came before God put Adam in a deep sleep. So we can see with Joseph what God is reversing, but it is done through his unity with the Spirit (which in turn means union with heaven).  He is returning Joseph to dominion, something only given to the spotless Adam before the fall that was later stolen by Satan through sin.  

With Joseph’s “yes” from his sleep, we see him “awake” in a new way, one where he no longer wants to dismiss Mary quietly. We perhaps see complete purification of Joseph, head of the Holy Family. It then is revealed to us that through the Holy Family, we get a glimpse of the glory and completeness of God. The sleep of Saint Joseph is powerful because we can see that it is God who restores the family and what we have broken. We see that Mary is the Mother of the Church and Joseph is the protector of the Church. Praise be to God.