Tuesday of
Late Advent (of the 3rd Week in Advent)
December 17, 2013 6:30am
Tuesday of Late Advent (of the 3rd Week in Advent)
December 17, 2013 6:30am
Each of the four evangelists or
gospel writers makes sure that their readers believe that Jesus is both truly
God and truly human.
Today Matthew does this right at
the beginning of his gospel.
He begins, “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son
of Abraham.”
By his genealogy Matthew situates
Jesus in the history of human families.
And yet, he too reminds us of
Jesus’ divinity.
When he comes to Joseph, he does
not speak of him, as he speaks of all the other men in the genealogy, as the “father” of Jesus.
Instead, he speaks of Joseph as “the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus…”
In this subtle but clear way,
Matthew highlights the uniqueness, the divinity of Jesus.
But still, Matthew carefully
notes Jesus’ connection with humanity.
There are both admirable and not
so admirable people in this genealogy.
So Matthew wants to deliver the
message that Jesus is connected fully with our humanity, with human nature as
it is.
It is our imperfect, vulnerable, sometimes
sinful nature that Jesus identifies with and comes to heal by being born of it
and sharing in it.
So, the genealogy of Jesus
assures us that when our nature flees God, Jesus takes hold of us.
When we forget God, Jesus relentlessly
reminds us from within that we do not and cannot live alone, just for
ourselves, but that God is always and irrevocably with us.
When we get caught in harmful
habits, Jesus points us to another and a better way.
In all these ways we are blocked
from the downward spiral that can happen in human life – blocked by and because
of Jesus.
It is this great truth – God who
has entered fully into our humanity – this is what we prepare to celebrate at
Christmas.
