NOTES for Mat 1:1-17

As a rule, the Church celebrates not a person's birthday, but the day of his or her ascent to God. There are only three exceptions to this rule. First of all, there is the Nativity of Christ, and this is understandable because the Incarnation of God is an altogether unique moment in the relationship between God and humanity. Second, there is the Nativity of John the Baptist—the only human birth celebrated in the New Testament, and one connected, as we should note, with the Nativity of Christ. The third feast is today's, and the passages we read also connect it with Christ's Nativity. In this way the Church bears witness that the birth of the Most Holy Mother of God is sanctified by God's grace and that, in some mysterious manner beyond our understanding, this sanctification proceeds from the later overshadowing by the Holy Spirit and the indwelling of the Son of God in the womb of the Virgin Mary. On this day we glorify God and thank Him for Her Whom He chose as His Mother and ours.

Today at the liturgy we read the whole first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, which includes Christ's genealogy and the account of His Nativity in Bethlehem. The whole structure of this chapter is determined by a distinctive movement of the plot from Abraham, the forefather of the people of God, to the moment when Joseph gives the newborn Child His name: Jesus. On the feast day itself we will once again read the account of the Nativity from this chapter, and then the account of the adoration of the Magi. But today it is important for us to see this whole human history contained in the long list of names from Abraham to Jesus.

The evangelist Matthew, with his characteristic desire to systematize the information he presents, offers us a fairly conventional scheme of the movement of history, dividing it into three periods of fourteen generations each. It is clear that the numbers he gives are symbolic in character. In its details Matthew's genealogy differs from Luke's genealogy; this is connected with the features of the Jewish system of kinship and fatherhood. But these details are not what matters to the evangelist. Strictly speaking, he gives the genealogy of Joseph, the husband of Mary, who receives the Child born of her as his own and, to the end of his life, protects Him and serves Him. To a certain degree, this is the calling of each of us.

In speaking of the Nativity, the evangelist Matthew leaves the Annunciation outside the scope of his story and directs our attention first of all to Joseph's faith. Having believed the Angel, he rises above human weakness and limitation and becomes a participant in God's saving action. And in the person of Joseph, as later in the person of Christ's disciples, all humanity receives the Child Christ. For the Nativity is the finale of the whole history of falling away from God and seeking paths of return, the history of resisting God and the history of salvation. All human loneliness, helplessness, and mortality come to an end for us in the cave of Bethlehem, where the One is born who will remain with us always, to the end of the age.

Compared with Mark's Gospel, which we have already read, this Gospel brings completely new information: Jesus did not come from heaven already grown and immediately begin preaching; He was born into this world just as every human being is born. The Son of God truly became human, taking human flesh upon Himself in exactly the same way we receive it. That is precisely why everything He will later do will concern all of us, because everything will be done in human nature. And His name, Jesus, means God's salvation for all humanity. To illustrate and explain this absolute humanity of Christ, the apostle Matthew gives His genealogy, built from several sevens, the number of fullness, and placing Him in the context of all sacred history, the whole chain of Covenants between God and humanity. And the quotation from Isaiah completes it, and with it, all the Old Testament prophecies.

Does origin matter for spiritual life or not? At first glance, the answer is obvious: of course not. Indeed, when we are talking about a person's relationship with God or with a neighbor, how important is it who his parents are and what nationality he is? Everything here is determined only by these relationships themselves. And the Kingdom is open to everyone who is ready to receive it, regardless of race, nationality, or religion.

And yet the evangelist gives a detailed genealogy of Jesus, beginning with Abraham. Of course, what matters here first of all is precisely that it begins with Abraham: the history of the people of God begins with Abraham. But on the other hand, through Abraham, according to the word of God, "all the clans living on the earth will be blessed." The Messiah was born a Jew, becoming the One through whom the promise God gave to Abraham was fulfilled.

And here the question of origin becomes precisely a spiritual question, not because God has favorites, but because someone must take responsibility for being God's helper in carrying out His purposes, and someone had to be born as the Messiah so that the Kingdom of God would become a reality. One people, one Messiah - for the salvation of all and of each person. And here origin turns out to matter: it obligates. It obligates one to take part in carrying out God's purpose. And to stay on the path that leads to the Kingdom.