Thoughts for the Day

Matthew 1: 1 This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

Where should one begin the story of Jesus?  John begins his gospel in the very beginning, at the moment of creation.  Mark and Luke in their very different ways begin their gospels with John the Baptist.  Matthew begins his going back to Abraham, the father of the Jewish nation.  In the main, in this Advent series, I will follow Luke through the first 100 verses of his gospel which culminate in the birth of Jesus.  But, before we get to Luke, I want to spend a few days looking at the opening of Matthew’s gospel.  At first glance this may appear to us a rather dull narrative – a family tree going back 42 generations.  At second glance we may notice this father-to-son family tree reaches Joseph and then side-steps to his wife Mary (not my idea of another generation!), because, as Matthew makes very clear, Jesus is not the son of Joseph.  Then we may see the emphasis on three sets of fourteen generations, and, while wondering what that implies, notice that the lists are incomplete.  What are we to make of it all?

Matthew was writing especially to the Jews of his day.  They could not possibly have missed these inconsistencies, but evidently weren’t bothered by them.  Instead, they saw something deeper in Matthew’s style and symbolism.  Matthew identifies Jesus as a Jew and sets him firmly in the context of the history that this list of 42 people represents.  More than that, he emphasises the three periods of 14 generations: 14 from Abraham to King David, the pinnacle of the kingship, 14 more to the exile, the trough of despair, and now 14 more leading to what?  The Romans had been an occupying force in that region for over 60 years and showed no sign of going away, so it can’t have felt like a step change in the status of the nation.  But Matthew asserts that it is, that this third period has reached its conclusion in the birth of Jesus.  Furthermore, he asserts Jesus to be the Messiah, the anointed one to whom all three periods of this history were pointing. Somehow Jesus will be the climax of all that has gone before.  It is an assertive, arresting and intriguing opening to the narrative … not quite so dull after all!