Day 1: The Birth of Our Lord Jesus Christ

We used to joke in seminary and say that the first chapter of the Gospel according to St. Matthew was one of two New Testament “phone books”; in part, because of the old joke about the man who, having read through a phone book, wrote the following review: “This book has a great cast of characters, but it doesn’t have much of a plot.” The first part of this first book does, indeed, have a great cast of characters; some known, and some unknown. There are some names that would be familiar even to those who seldom or never read the Bible, nor heard it apart from being read in church. There are a great many names that would be familiar only to those who have read the historical books of the Old Testament a number of times; and some names that are virtually unknown, apart from this list (and the parallel list in the Gospel according to St. Luke).

Examples of the most familiar names are: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob; Judah; David and Solomon; Ahaz, Hezekiah, and Manasseh; and Joseph, to whom Mary, our blessed Lady Theotokos, was betrothed. Actually, maybe the troika of Ahaz, Hezekiah and Manasseh are pushing the boundary of “most familiar” names; unless you are paying attention during the readings after the Entrance at Great Vespers! If you have spent any time in the historical books of the Old Testament, you’ll know who they are, as well as Boaz, Obed, Jesse, Rehoboam, and Jehoshaphat; and, if you’re familiar with the book of Isaiah, you’ll recognize Uzziah, for the passage that describes Isaiah’s call to be a prophet of the Lord begins, “In the year that King Uzziah died…” The only other potentially recognizable name is that of Zerubbabel – and that primarily because it’s just fun to say his name: “Ze-RU-bba-bel!”

With the exception of Zerubbabel and Joseph, all of the names listed above come from the first two of the three series that St. Matthew lists, regarding the ancestry of our Lord Jesus Christ – the reason why he has included the genealogy at all. Although I didn’t highlight that here, St. Matthew sets it out in the first verse: “A record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Having traced the line of descent from Abraham to Joseph, St. Matthew adds his summary in verse 17: “Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Christ.” Clearly, St. Matthew wants us to know that our Lord Jesus Christ is, first of all, an heir to the covenant God made with Abraham: “I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you; I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” (Gen. 12:2-3) As well, in Genesis 13 God gives to Abram the land He had promised; and in chapter 15 God foretells the 400 years of slavery in Egypt, and of the Exodus, and that Ishmael, the son Abram fathered on his wife’s maid, Hagar, would not be his heir, but that a son of his with his wife would inherit the promises God had made. Then in chapter 17, God makes yet another covenant with Abram, the covenant of circumcision, in which God gives Abram a new name, Abraham, together with the promise, "I have made you a father of many nations. I will make you very fruitful; I will make nations of you, and kings will come from you. I will establish my covenant as an everlasting covenant between me and you and your descendants after you for the generations to come, to be your God and the God of your descendants after you.” (Gen. 17:5b-7) For his part, Abraham is circumcised, and he takes every male in his household, family and servants alike, and circumcises them, as well. His descendents, if they desire to receive the blessings of the covenant, must be circumcised; and any who refuse to do so are to be expelled from the community, cut off from his people.

By the time of our Lord’s incarnation, the descendents of Abraham, the people of the covenant, were known as the Jews, who would, at one point, say to our Lord, “We have Abraham as our father.” By beginning his genealogy with Abraham, then, St. Matthew is showing how our Lord can legitimately claim to be an heir to the covenants God made with Abraham. Abraham begins the first of the three series of ancestors; the first series, then, will include Isaac and Jacob, and Joseph and his brothers, who come to live in Egypt during the seven years of famine, settling down in the land of Goshen. Then comes the prophesied four hundred years of slavery In Egypt, and the calling of Moses, and the Exodus; followed by Joshua and the entry of the people God brought out of Egypt into the land God had given to Abraham, and the time of the Judges, and the rise of the prophets, and finally, the rejection of God by His people when they demanded to be given a king, as all the nations around them were ruled by a king, and not by prophets and judges. The prophet Samuel anoints Saul to be king; but Saul, like Adam in the garden and Moses in the wilderness, disobeys a command of God, and his throne passes to a shepherd named David. With David, the first series draws to a close.

God also made a covenant with David. The Lord says, “You will shepherd my people, Israel, and you will become their ruler.” (2 Sam. 5:2) At first, David is the king of Judah, while the remaining portion of the land is ruled by the sons of Saul. But after seven and a half years, David becomes king over Israel as well as Judah, and so establishes a unified country and kingdom, over which he will reign for thirty-three years. With this, David moves his capital from Hebron to Jerusalem; and, while living in his palace, he is moved to build a house for the Lord. He buys a property, a threshing-floor; but the Lord appears to him and tells him that David will not build a temple, but his son will do so. Then the Lord, speaking through the prophet Nathan, promises, “…the LORD himself will establish a house for you: When your days are over and you rest with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring to succeed you, who will come from your own body, and I will establish his kingdom. He is the one who will build a house for my Name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever. I will be his father, and he will be my son… Your house and your kingdom will endure forever before me; your throne will be established forever.” (2 Sam. 7:11b-14a; 16) Not all of the descendents of David kept their part of the covenant with God. In the time of David’s grandson, the kingdom, wracked with rebellion, was split once more into two territories, with Israel in the north and Judah in the south. Foreign armies invaded the land repeatedly, with the northern kingdom falling first to the Assyrians, and then the southern kingdom being defeated by the Babylonians, taking the royal house and the other principal leaders away into exile. With this, the second series draws to an end.

The third series is the period of time from the exile until the time of our Lord’s incarnation. With the disappearance of self-rule, the situation changes somewhat. Prophesy becomes more important, as God’s people are reminded time and again of the promises God has made to them through Abraham and David. The people are departing from God’s ways, the Law given by God to Moses, and so they are suffering. Even as judgment is pronounced on them by God through His prophets, they are not left without hope: the theme of the Anointed One of God – “Christ” means, “anointed” – is heard more and more frequently. Then, some four hundred years before the birth of our Lord, the prophets were silent. The people of God, the descendents of Abraham, who were once a mighty nation, were now a province in a series of Empires: the Persians; the Greeks, under Alexander the Great, and then under one of his four generals, between whom his empire was divided; for a brief time, following the Maccabean revolt, self-ruled; and finally becoming part of the Roman Empire. During this time, the Hebrew scriptures were translated into Greek for the benefit of the Jews in the Diaspora, who spoke Greek, rather than Hebrew. The Jews in the Diaspora, who were cut off from worship at the temple in Jerusalem, and surrounded by pagan practices, organized themselves into synagogues; a practice they brought with them and continued when they returned from exile. The synagogue downplayed the rituals of the temple, making them mystical instead of literal: “Let my prayer arise in Thy sight as incense before Thee; and let the lifting up of my hands be an evening sacrifice.” (From the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts) The two forms of worship, one centered in the Temple, the other in the synagogue, produces two groups in Israel: the Sadducees, who controlled the High Priesthood and so were connected with the Temple, and who were also more influenced by the culture; and the Pharisees, who were associated with the synagogues, and whose emphasis was on the Torah (the Law) rather than ritual. A third group, the Essenes, may have been a separate group, or were perhaps a subset of the Pharisees, who believed it was necessary to separate themselves from culture and society in order to live in a manner pleasing to the Lord. With all of these developments, the stage was set for our Lord to come into the world and fulfill the promises made by God.

One more point worthy of mention before we leave behind the prologue to the story St. Matthew wants to tell us. He has shown how our Lord is descended from Abraham, and so is rightly counted as an heir to the promise; and he has also shown how our Lord is a descendent of David, and so is of the royal line – in other words, fit to be King. But there among the forty men named are five women: four listed by name, and one by reference. They are Tamar, the mother of Perez; Rahab, the mother of Boaz; Ruth, the mother of Obed; “Uriah’s wife,” which is to say, Bathsheba, who is the mother of Solomon; and Mary, the wife of Joseph, “…to whom was born Jesus, Who is the Christ.” We know the final name, of course! Some may know Ruth, or Bathsheba; the others require you to be a bit more of a scholar of the Old Testament. Let me tell you about them.

Tamar was Judah’s daughter-in-law. Her husband was the eldest of Judah’s three sons. Because of his wickedness, God put him to death. As was the custom at that time, Judah sent his next son, Onan, to impregnate Tamar, so as to raise up sons to be the heirs of the eldest brother. Onan refused; and, because of the way in which he expressed this refusal, he was also put to death by God. Judah then instructed Tamar to dress as a widow and to live in her father’s house until Judah’s youngest son came of age, to marry her. Time passed, but Judah did not keep his promise. When Tamar learned that Judah was coming to her village, she dressed as a prostitute, covered her face with a veil, and became pregnant by Judah. She then resumed living as a widow in her father’s house. When her pregnancy became apparent, her family was determined to put her to death. Judah ordered that she be burned to death, the punishment for prostitution. When she produced evidence that, in fact, he was the father, Judah spared her, and she gave birth to twins. You can find all this in the 38th chapter of Genesis.

Rahab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho at the time that city stood against the army of Joshua and the people of God. She assisted the spies Joshua had sent into the city, hiding them in her house, and lying to the king of Jericho by misdirecting his search for them. Pleading that her life and the life of her family be spared, she betrayed her city, which Joshua conquered. As God had commanded, every living thing in the city – man, woman, children, and cattle – was put to death; with the exception of Rahab and her family, who were spared, and given a place among the people of God.

Ruth was a woman of Moab, married to a man of the tribe of Benjamin, whose father and mother and brother had gone to Moab when a famine struck their homeland. When all three men, father and two brothers, died, the mother, Naomi, resolved to return to her people. Her daughters-in-law pledged themselves to accompany her. Naomi sought to send them back to the house of their father, and one daughter-in-law did so. But Ruth would not be deterred, saying, “Where you go I will go, and where you stay I will stay. Your people will be my people and your God my God.” (Ruth 1:16b) They returned to Bethlehem at the time of the barley harvest; and so Ruth came to the attention of Boaz, who allowed her to work as a gleaner, and saw that she was protected and given what she needed to eat and drink. He was moved to kindness for her because he was a relative of Naomi’s, and he was grateful for Ruth’s caring for her. Eventually, they married, and had a son, Obed, who was the grandfather of David the King.

“Uriah’s wife,” the mother of Solomon, was seduced by King David, and conceived a child when they committed adultery. David then gave secret orders to the commander of his army to set Uriah in the first rank of a charge into battle, and then to withdraw, so that Uriah would be killed. That child died; but, when confronted by the prophet Nathan, King David confessed his sins of adultery and murder, was forgiven by God through Nathan, and married Bathsheba, who then gave birth to Solomon, David’s heir to the throne.

The significance of all this? Prominent in the family background of our Lord Jesus Christ are two prostitutes, a traitor, a pagan foreigner, a murderer, and two adulterers. Most of us wouldn’t put such people in a family tree or genealogy! This was part of the plan of God: to taken on Himself a human nature that was dead in sin and corrupt, in order to restore it, and make it new.

Now we come to the actual opening of the story: the birth of our Lord Jesus Christ. St. Matthew keeps his focus in these next eight verses primarily on Joseph, for it is through Joseph that our Lord’s place in the community of the people of God would be reckoned. Some say that the genealogy and focus on Joseph indicates that St. Matthew’s Gospel was written to speak primarily to the Jewish communities, and so touched important points of connection to that community and its history. It’s an interesting theory, but ultimately we find that Joseph’s story is very much one of faith and love. He is betrothed, an older man whose wife has died, and his family all but grown, because she is related to him – as we found in the story of Boaz and Ruth. When his wife, with whom he had not consummated the marriage, was found to be pregnant, he did not respond as Judah had done, calling for Tamar to be put to death; he was going to divorce Mary quietly, so that she would be spared. It was then that God revealed what was taking place, and Joseph did as the Lord commanded him, even giving the child the name, “Jesus.” St. Matthew also tells us that what took place fulfilled the prophesy of Isaiah, “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel — which means, ‘God with us.’” (Isa. 7:14; Matt. 1:23) We also get insight into the meaning of our Lord’s name. “Jesus” is the Greek rendering of “Joshua” (Yeshua); which means, “The Lord saves.”

Well, that’s all for chapter one! I had no idea this was going to be this long! I also have no idea what the next chapter may be like: longer, shorter, or about the same? We won’t know until we get there! Oh, and your questions and comments are certainly welcome!

Scripture taken from the HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984 International Bible Society. Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved.