In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ is in our midst! (He is and ever shall be.)
Good morning. Today we hear this ever-memorable genealogy of Christ presented to us by Matthew in his Gospel. Of course, we know when we hear this Gospel that it is the Sunday before the Nativity. We also know when we hear this Gospel that if we had a junior deacon, he’d be reading it!
This is the one that every deacon in his first year studies ahead of time many, many times. He reads it—maybe I should have done that with my new retainer and practiced reading all of those this morning!
The Mystery of the Genealogy
Today, the Church in her wisdom gives us this Gospel as we approach Nativity. We hear this genealogy of Christ as recorded by Matthew, and at first glance, this long list of names could really just appear to us as a record of an historical event. Think about it: this is just a list of names. What are we to get from this?
In truth, this is a profound proclamation of the mystery of our salvation. We hear this morning, in this list of names, an affirmation that Christ is a real human being—that Christ has a human family tree. This was especially important in the early days of the Church. If you think about the coming of the Messiah, and where the people were coming from as they heard of Him, there was all of this confusion on whether Christ was actually human, or whether Christ, as the Word of God, actually took on human flesh.
Of course, some of the earliest heresies refuted the humanity of Christ. They debated over whether or not He actually had humanity that was the Word incarnate in the flesh. This passage presented to us in the Gospel of Matthew affirms that. It is an affirmation of the greatest proclamation of our salvation because, without the Word of God made flesh, we are not united as human back to God. —
Scriptural Affirmations
As the Gospel proclaims, Christ has come in the flesh. He has a family tree. This is also affirmed as we hear throughout the Scriptures—one in particular from the first two chapters of the Epistle to the Hebrews. Hebrews 2:9 says:
“But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels… that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone.”
“A little lower than the angels”—that is humanity. Christ took on humanity in the Incarnation to set in motion His conquering death by death; to set in motion His bursting the bonds of Hades wide open.
It is also an affirmation that the Lord is the fulfillment of all of the promises from the beginning. He is not an isolated historical gift. God was preparing His creation for the Incarnation from Adam to Abraham, and from Abraham to David. Through all of the prophets, God was preparing His creation.
As we hear in St. Luke’s Gospel, in the song of the Theotokos that we sing at Orthros: “As He spoke to our forefathers, to Abraham and his seed forever.” Not his “seeds,” plural, but his seed. That is Christ, the seed of Abraham. As St. Paul says in Galatians:
“Now to Abraham and his seed were the promises made. He does not say ‘and to seeds,’ as to many, but as one, ‘and to your seed,’ who is Christ.”
Every generation points to the One who would redeem all to communion with God. From the fourteen, and the fourteen, and the fourteen generations that we hear about this morning, every generation points to the One who would renew us.
God’s Faithfulness to Sinners
Finally, we hear in this lineage the promise that God is faithful to us. God is faithful to the promises He has given us, even though His chosen people are not always faithful.
If we were to dig in and look at each one of those names and look at their lives, there are righteous people in that lineage, but there are also great sinners. There are sinners who came to incredible repentance—sinners and Gentiles in the lineage of Christ. 2 Timothy says:
“If we have died with Him, we shall also reign with Him… He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.”
This is a hymn at this time of year. If we had celebrated Vespers last night, we would have sung that. If we are faithless, He remains faithful because He cannot deny Himself. So, through this lineage, we see the righteous and the sinners, the faithful and the faithless, and those who come to repentance.
The Urgency of Preparation
Now, as we hear this, it sparks in us perhaps a sense of urgency—because Christmas is Thursday. In the world and all the hustle and bustle of everything that happens for us to get ready, perhaps we have to go out and buy some last-minute gifts. Perhaps we haven’t bought any gifts yet and we have a lot of shopping to do. As we hear this genealogy, oftentimes it triggers in us an “Uh-oh, I have not prepared. I have not taken advantage of the Nativity Fast that the Church gives us to help me prepare.”
This is our time. If we have failed to do so up until this point, this is our time to prepare for the coming Jesus, who is the Christ.
“Behold, the time of our salvation is at hand!” As another hymn says: “Prepare yourself, O cavern, for the Virgin approaches to give birth to her Son. Be glad and rejoice, O Bethlehem, land of Judah, for from you our Lord shines forth as the dawn. Give ear, you mountains and hills and all the lands surrounding Judea, for Christ is coming to save the people He has created and whom He loves.”
We are the cavern. We are the ones who Christ comes into in the Eucharist. We are the ones who share the light of Christ with everybody. Prepare yourself as we welcome the Incarnation at the Nativity.
Conclusion
Jesus, who is called the Christ, is the fulfillment of every promise and the answer to every longing. The world and all its pleasures and material will pass away. As the Psalmist David says, it will all grow withered and dry.
In a few days, we will celebrate the birth of Christ—not as a distant historical event, but as a living reality. He lives within us. For Jesus, who is called the Christ, is the salvation of the world. He is the seed of Abraham. He is the promise. He is the fulfillment of all generations. He is the Word made flesh.
So, may we—like the righteous of old, like those we hear about this morning in the lineage of Christ—live in expectation and great joy, so that when the angels proclaim “Glory to God in the highest,” we may join their hymn with pure hearts.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Christ is in our midst! Please rise.