NOTES for Luk 3:23-4:1
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.