NOTES for Luk 3:23-38

Why is the Savior's genealogy so important to us? He was born of the Holy Spirit, but nevertheless the evangelist places it in his text, though he could have chosen not to. Moreover, he begins with the words: "He was, as was supposed (!), the son of Joseph." If this is simply a misconception that existed among the people, why write about it? But we know that there is not a single accidental letter in the Word of God. This means that we must understand what exactly the Lord is telling us through it. Perhaps He needs to show that in coming into the world He came to humanity not as the higher to the lower, but as one of our own, our kin, in order to erase the last boundary that hinders the love of human beings for God and of God for human beings. For who was Joseph? One of the line traced back to Adam. Yet he is entrusted with care for God. In the image of Joseph pressing the infant Jesus to his breast, all people, through the genealogy, receive the fullness of communion with God.

But this line is not traced simply back to Adam: "...Seth, Adam, God," writes the evangelist. God is at the beginning and God is at the end. He is the alpha and omega of this genealogy. And this genealogy becomes a prototype of the genealogy of all humanity. The final point of this genealogy becomes the summit of humanity's genealogy, which has not yet reached its own end. "Christ is the head of the Church", the Apostle tells us. The head, the summit... this is something deeply connected with everything else; it is its completion, its fulfillment, not something separate, given from outside. This is exactly what the Savior's genealogy is meant to remind us of.

Today's reading brings us back once again to the figure of John the Baptist. Here again we encounter the different visions of the evangelists Matthew and Luke, this time regarding John's ministry. Unlike Matthew, Luke, in addition to the general content of the prophet's preaching (vv. 3-9), also mentions the advice John gave to people of different professions and social groups (vv. 10-14). This advice differed in different cases, but it also had something in common: all of it, in one way or another, was connected with the question of keeping the commandments given by God. Clearly, when John recalls Isaiah's words about the need to "prepare the way of the Lord" (v. 4), he has in mind first of all the importance of following the Torah. It would seem that there was nothing fundamentally new in such an appeal: all the Old Testament prophets spoke about this. Yet there was also something unusual in John's activity.

It is no accident that the evangelist's account mentions tax collectors ("publicans") and soldiers (vv. 12, 14). Both groups were outcasts in Jewish society in Gospel times. Publicans were seen as collaborators, working with the occupiers and robbing their own people. As for the soldiers, the reference here is probably to Roman soldiers who were either pagans, which is improbable, or proselytes, former pagans who had converted to Judaism. The social position of such proselytes was rather ambiguous: they were not considered full members of the Jewish community, only their children became such, while to their fellow tribesmen they were outsiders, and often traitors.

John, however, evidently accepts everyone regardless of social or religious status. He obviously did not think that the coming messianic Kingdom would be given only to orthodox Jews. The way was open even to those whom the people of God considered lost, and lost forever: the publicans. For they had committed their sin consciously and freely, and from the consequences of such a sin, it was believed, one could not be cleansed, even if later the sinner sincerely repented of what he had done. God could accept his repentance, but the defilement left by the sin would rest forever on him and on his descendants.

Meanwhile John did not push away even the publicans, requiring only that after the cleansing washing ("baptism") they should no longer violate the norms of the Torah (v. 13). For him, evidently, cooperation with the Roman authorities was not as terrible a sin as it was for most of his contemporaries. But of course that was not the only point. For John, as no one else, understood that the Messiah whom he awaited and whose coming he testified to would bring into the world the Kingdom where everyone would be given the chance to begin life with a clean slate. And his own task was to prepare the people of God for this new life. A life in which, after repenting, even the most terrible sinner can share, if only he is able to accept the chief gift of the Kingdom: the gift of God's love.

As he moves into the main part of his Gospel, Luke weaves into a single narrative the continuation of John the Baptist's story, the beginning of Jesus Christ's ministry, and His two genealogies. Two indeed! In this paradox the joyful Good News is revealed: Jesus is called the Son of God twice—within human history, that is, in the genealogy proper that ascends from Joseph to God, and in divine revelation, when the Father's voice sounded from heaven during His baptism. This means that history and revelation merge into a single whole in the life of one Man, and now God's word will sound from human lips. It also means that the words and deeds of Jesus of Nazareth, which the reader will encounter in the following chapters, truly reveal God: He is found in the very midst of earthly events, on the streets and plains of Palestine and—in the reader's heart.

The word “repentance” has become familiar to us. We repent simply because we are supposed to. We repent of many sins, but does our life change as a result? If we bear no fruits of repentance, we may safely apply to ourselves the Baptist’s words about a “brood of vipers” and the “axe laid to the root of the trees.” It is clear what fruits tax collectors and soldiers should bear. But what if we belong to neither group? What are we to do?

To understand this, we need to work seriously on ourselves, pay attention to our lives, and resolve to live differently. Then the possibility opens before us of being baptized with the Spirit and fire and of following the beloved Son, and we may hope to hear the cherished words: “In you I am well pleased!”