(Listen to this homily here).
That was quite a long list of names we heard in the
Gospel! I’ll give someone ten
bucks if you can give me three of those names now. [2nd grade student immediately raises her hand
and says] Jesse, Abraham and Isaac.
Wow. Great job! [Yes, I did square up with this student
at the end of Mass! I also made a
mental note to remember how smart kids are.]
This
list, full of long names—many of whom we don’t recognize—gives the family tree
of Jesus. It would be like saying
“John was the father of Richard, Richard was the father of John who was the
father of Ben (me!)”. I have a
cool poster in my office that gives Jesus’ entire family tree. Would anyone want to memorize this?!
Such
lists are called genealogies.
While they may seem uninteresting to us, they were very important to the
people of the Old Testament. They
showed where they were from and how God worked throughout their
generations.
So why is the list of Jesus’
ancestors given in the Gospel of Matthew?
The Old Testament prophets and authors frequently said that the Messiah
would come from Judah and in the line of king David. Matthew, in the first verses of his account, shows that
Jesus is a descendant of David and the tribe of Judah! Jesus was the fulfillment of these
ancient prophecies!
We gather this morning as we
prepare for Christmas. Many many
many people waited for Jesus to come and he finally did. Every year at Christmas we celebrate
his birthday. Have a blessed rest
of Advent and a very merry Christmas!
No comments:
Post a Comment