Hebrews 11:9-10, 32-40; Matthew
1:1-25
Now that the
great feast of Christmas is almost here, the Church directs our attention to
the family tree of Jesus Christ. Today’s gospel reading from St. Matthew is our
Lord’s genealogy, which traces the Savior’s human ancestry back through many
generations to Abraham. It shows that He
has the correct heritage to be the Messiah, the Anointed One in Whom the
ancient promises are fulfilled. The great saints of the Old Testament looked
forward to the completion of their hope for the fullness of the blessing, which
we have now received in Christ. As our epistle
passage from Hebrews states of them, “And all these, though well attested by
their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen
something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect.”
As we
prepare to celebrate our Lord’s Nativity, we do well to consider our
relationship to the many generations through whom God prepared for His Son to
become the God-Man born in Bethlehem. If
we know the stories of the people of the Old Testament, we should know that we
have a lot in common with them. The
Bible makes clear that they suffered from the same forms of pain and brokenness
that people do today in their families, in social strife and war, and as exiles
and refugees. They often fell short of
what God required of them and committed idolatry by worshiping false gods,
including their own desires for power and pleasure. Like King David, many
sinned greatly and repented greatly. Even
the most righteous of them, however, did not experience the fulfillment of the
human person in God’s likeness, for it is only through the God-Man that we are
able to become “partakers of the divine nature” by grace. He alone has healed every dimension of our
humanity by becoming one of us.
The Old
Testament presents our Lord’s ancestors as unlikely people to prepare the way
for the coming of Christ. For example, not long after God said that He would
bless him as the father of a multitude, Abraham gave his wife Sarah away to
Pharaoh, encouraging her to say that she was his sister (Gen. 12). Later, when they were impatient about their
inability to conceive, Abraham fathered a child by Sarah’s servant Hagar (Gen.
16). These were not the actions of people with perfect faith. When God called Moses to lead the Hebrews out
of Egypt in the Exodus, he made excuse after excuse to try to get out of it (Ex. 4). Even after their liberation, the
Israelites worshipped a golden calf (Ex. 32) and wanted to go back to Egypt as
they complained about the hardships of wandering in the desert (Exod. 16). That God remained faithful to His promises to
the descendants of Abraham was a sign of His mercy, not that the people had
earned or deserved any particular blessing.
The family
tree of Jesus Christ in today’s gospel reading certainly does not shy away from
the scandalous truths about the people of the Old Testament. The first of the women mentioned in the genealogy
is Tamar, who became pregnant by her father-in-law Judah. A widow, she disguised herself as a prostitute
when he would not give her his youngest son in fulfillment of the requirements
of levirate marriage (Gen. 38). Judah,
Tamar, and the twins they conceived are listed in the genealogy. The family
tree includes Rahab, a Gentile prostitute who protected two Hebrew spies before
the conquest of Jericho (Josh. 2). She
is listed as the mother of Boaz, a Jewish man who married Ruth, a Moabite
woman, even though the Old Testament clearly prohibited such marriages (Ruth 4).
Nonetheless, Boaz and Ruth are listed as David’s great-grandparents. Then we read that “David was the father of
Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” David had
committed adultery with Bathsheeba, who became pregnant, and then had Uriah
killed in battle in order to hide what he had done (2 Sam. 11). David composed
Psalm 50 (51) as he repented of his great sin.
Matthew’s
account of the family tree prepares us for the kind of Savior we encounter in
Jesus Christ. Even as His ancestors
sinned, He came to show mercy upon those who had fallen short of fulfilling God’s
purposes for them. Even as His family
line included Gentiles, He makes all with faith in Him the heirs of the promise
to Abraham. Even as He is a descendant
of many whose lives were scandalous, He brought salvation to the world in a
fashion that was shocking and offensive to the religious leaders of His
day.
The
circumstances of His conception were outrageous, as His teenage virgin mother
became pregnant by a miracle of the Holy Spirit. Joseph, the older man to whom she was
betrothed as her guardian, was horrified to find her pregnant. Knowing that he was not the father, he
planned to divorce her quietly, but did not after an angel told him in a dream
of the virginal conception of the Savior.
We may have heard this story so many times that we are no longer shocked
by it. It is important to remember,
however, that Christ was born in circumstances that were quite scandalous, for
the idea of a virginal conception and birth was just as shocking in the first
century as it is in ours.
Think for a
moment about how our Lord’s ministry was received. He was charged with being a servant of the
devil, a blasphemer, and one who disobeyed God’s commandments. He showed mercy to Gentiles, tax collectors, prostitutes,
and other public sinners and lowly people whom the religious establishment had
rejected. The Pharisees and Sadducees were
scandalized by what He taught and did. For
a Messiah to die on a cross was considered an act of complete failure which no
one expected. When the tomb was empty
three days later, a different kind of scandal occurred when the Crucified One rose
in glory. In a totally expected and
unconventional way, He did what not even the most righteous people of the Old
Testament could ever have accomplished, for He overcame death, the wages of
sin.
Is it
surprising, then, that Church reminds us today both of the great faith of those
who looked forward to the coming of the Messiah and of how they often fell short
of what God required of them? No, that
is precisely what we should expect, for those great saints were human beings
like us, living in a world of corruption as they bore the weight of their own
sins and were weakened by the failings
of others. They did not earn the promise
made to Abraham by good behavior, and we have certainly done nothing to merit the
merciful love of God that led to the incarnation of the Savior. Though they did not yet have the fullness of
the promise, they suffered greatly in order to be faithful to God and repented
greatly when they disobeyed Him. All the
more, then, should we who have received the fullness of the promise unite
ourselves to Christ in humble faith, regardless of how profoundly we sin or
have sinned at any point in our lives.
Had we
needed simply a code of conduct or a great teacher or example for the healing
of our souls, the Son of God would never have been born to restore and fulfill
us in His image and likeness. The Savior, born in so shocking a fashion at
Bethlehem, alone is able to overcome the ultimate scandal of the grave itself,
as well as all the ways in which we have diminished ourselves as His living
icons. In the short time remaining
before the feast of Christmas, let us all embrace the outrageous blessing that
is ours in the Messiah. He came to save the
scandalous sinners of past, present, and future generations, including you and
me. Now is the time to complete our
preparation to receive Christ at His birth, for He came to fulfill His gracious
purposes for all who bear His image and likeness. Not to be ready for Him would
be the greatest scandal of all.
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