The Genealogy of Jesus Christ
Sunday Before Christmas
Hebrews 11:9-10;17-23;32-40; Matthew 1:1-25
Today, we have read from The Gospel a rather long list of the earthly ancestors of Jesus Christ, starting with Abraham. Obviously, we do not need to memorize all those names -- for us Christians, it is enough to know that Jesus Christ was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the flesh and that what was conceived in her was "of the Holy Spirit," as The Gospel testifies. (Matthew 1:20)
The evangelist Matthew wrote The Gospel mainly as a testimony among the Jews who knew the Holy Scriptures of The Old Testament and were looking for confirmation that Jesus Christ, the Messiah, was really born of the lineage predicted by the prophets.
The evangelist Matthew used this long list to prove to the learned Jews that Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary and raised under the care of Joseph the Betrothed, was the Messiah-Christ, about whom the ancient prophets had prophesied for many centuries before. Therefore, on this basis, He must be accepted as the Saviour, a messenger from God, and recognized as God who took on a human body.
Some Jews did accept Jesus and believed in Him. It is a fact that the first Christian communities of believers in Jerusalem, in Palestine, were predominantly Jews, just as the first disciples of Christ, the apostles, were also Jews.
We wonder now: Where is the Jewish Christian Church?
- The Jews who accepted Jesus of Nazareth as the Christ, the Messiah, the Saviour, were excluded from the Jewish people by Jewish rulers, leaders of public life, and spiritual leaders. They were not allowed to be called Jews or Israelis; they were spiritually and morally terrorized, ostracized, called Gentiles and then Greeks, or other peoples among whom those Christian Jews lived. As a result of this consistent policy of Jewish leaders for many centuries, we rarely see Jewish Christians, and there is no Jewish Church of Christ at all, although the Jerusalem Church of Christ and the Jerusalem Patriarchate have always existed.
But for us, the names listed in the bodily genealogy of Joseph and the Blessed Virgin Mary have an interesting secondary meaning: among those listed names, as we know from the narrative in the books of The Old Testament, there were not only righteous people but also obvious sinners.
Although the Most Pure Virgin Mary was born of the righteous Joachim and Anne, her lineage comes from the king-prophet David, yet David himself and some other intermediate ancestors lived sinful lives. There is great meaning in this – God, Christ, does not disdain or look down upon sinful people. This shows that God, through the birth of Jesus Christ, united with the sinful human race and sanctified it.
Because of the birth of Jesus Christ from the Virgin Mary and His conception by the Holy Spirit, we, humans, have received sanctification from God. It is important to remember that this is mentioned many times in The Gospels and the Acts of the Holy Apostles; Jesus Christ Himself affirms many times that He is the “Son of Man”, but nowhere, not even once, does He call Himself the Son of Israel.
He does not deny that He was born and raised among the Israelite, Jewish people, and even mentions that He was first "sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel" (Matthew 15:24), but His mission of salvation was universal, for all humanity. The God-Man Jesus Christ appeared for the salvation of all people, as the righteous Simeon well expressed when he took the Child Jesus in his arms:
"For my eyes have seen Your salvation, Which You have prepared before the face of all peoples".
(Luke 2:30-31)
Jesus did not come to earth to fulfil the role of liberator of the Jews from Roman rule, as the Messiah was imagined by many Jews. He did not come to restore the political and state creation, the state of Israel, as many nationalist Jews dreamed, but to teach the people of that nation, and then the people of all other nations, how to free themselves from the domination of their sins. Even before His birth, there was a message from heaven:
"For He will save His people from their sins." (Mat. 1:21)
Thus, the expectation that Jesus Christ would fulfil a political role, a mission, an earthly kingship, had no basis. People imagined what they wanted, what they wanted for purely earthly needs, and attributed it to the Messiah-Christ, and when He did not turn out to be what they wanted, they showed Him the greatest hatred and sought to have Him crucified by their own captors, the Romans.
It should be noted here that some of our patriots would like Christ to fulfil the role of our national Messiah, to liberate Ukraine from the domination of foreigners, forgetting that Christ is the Son of God and the Son of Man, and thus His spiritual mission, the mission of salvation, embraces all nations, including those who may be our political oppressors.
Christ belongs to all of humanity, and his mission and love are inclusive. His divine teaching of salvation in God, The Gospel, is for all ages, for all people who believe in Him as Saviour. That is why the Gospels are the most widely read book among different nations, more than any other book. And all this is done without the coercion of any earthly rulers.
No man, no matter how great, is able to embrace the whole world with the spirit, to dominate the souls of people of different nations, in different countries; only Christ, who was sent to earth from God the Father, so that He, being in a human body, could show the will and love of God to people.
That is why the entire human race, people of different nations, having recognized Jesus Christ as the Son of God and Man, and having accepted Him as their Saviour, celebrate the day of His birth in the flesh, as well as the day of His appearance among men, as the “beloved Son” of the Heavenly Father (Mark 1:11).
We accept Jesus Christ as the Lord and King of our souls, believing and confessing that "of His kingdom there will be no end." (Luk. 1:33)
Amen.
Very Rev. Fr. Taras Slavchenko
Taras Slavchenko was born on March 8, 1918 in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region in Ukraine. After graduating from school and the Pedagogical College, he entered the language and literature faculty of the Scientific Pedagogical Institute. Having successfully completed it in 1938, he served as a teacher in a secondary school.
