Today at the liturgy we read the whole first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, which includes Christ's genealogy and the account of His Nativity in Bethlehem. The whole structure of this chapter is determined by a distinctive movement of the plot from Adam, the first of Christ's ancestors according to the flesh, to the moment when...
Today at the liturgy we read the whole first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, which includes Christ's genealogy and the account of His Nativity in Bethlehem. The whole structure of this chapter is determined by a distinctive movement of the plot from Abraham, the forefather of the people of God, to the moment when Joseph gives the newborn Child His name: Jesus. On the feast day itself we will once again read the account of the Nativity from this chapter, and then the account of the adoration of the Magi. But today it is important for us to see this whole human history contained in the long list of names from Abraham to Jesus.
The evangelist Matthew, with his characteristic desire to systematize the information he presents, offers us a fairly conventional scheme of the movement of history, dividing it into three periods of fourteen generations each. It is clear that the numbers he gives are symbolic in character. In its details Matthew's genealogy differs from Luke's genealogy; this is connected with the features of the Jewish system of kinship and fatherhood. But these details are not what matters to the evangelist. Strictly speaking, he gives the genealogy of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who receives the Child born of her as his own and, to the end of his life, protects Him and serves Him. To a certain degree, this is the calling of each of us.
In speaking of the Nativity, the evangelist Matthew leaves the Annunciation outside the scope of his story and directs our attention first of all to Joseph's faith. Having believed the Angel, he rises above human weakness and limitation and becomes a participant in God's saving action. And in the person of Joseph, as later in the person of Christ's disciples, all humanity receives the Child Christ. For the Nativity is the finale of the whole history of falling away from God and seeking paths of return, the history of resisting God and the history of salvation. All human loneliness, helplessness, and mortality come to an end for us in the cave of Bethlehem, where the One is born who will remain with us always, to the end of the age.
