GOSPEL REFLECTION, WEDNESDAY, 3RD WEEK OF ADVENT, 17 DECEMBER 2025

Matthew 1:1-17.  In traditional Benedictine monasteries before Vatican II, some time before the beginning of the Mass of Midnight at Christmas, the abbot would appear at the front of the high altar in procession.  He was arrayed in full abbot’s vestments with his crozier in  hand, mitre on his head, and buskins on his feet to make a most solemn proclamation.  This was the genealogy of Jessus Christ which we have before us in today’s gospel reading.  It proclaimed exactly who Jesus was, descending from Abraham our Father in Faith with whom God made a solemn covenant, through King David, to Jesus, son of Joseph (his legal though not physical father). 

Why such solemnity?  Matthew’s genealogy establishes exactly who Jesus was by tracing his human lineage for forty-two generations.  If we examine that lineage, we note that in it were several scoundrels, wicked and disreputable, and calamitous human events.  Jesus was very deeply rooted, in Jewish history – in human history.  He appears as Incarnate Son and Messiah, the fulfilment of all Israel’s hopes despite a deeply troubled and very human past.  Genealogies were so important to the people of Israel that hey were kept by the Sanhedrin, the highest court of justice and the Supreme Council.  They were supreme matters of social and religious order.  Jesus’ genealogy shows us that whatever Israel’s history had been, God was eternally and faithfully present throughout.  Through sin, devastation, and the Exile in Babylon, God  brought good from evil, ultimately nothing less than the Saviour of the World and our King in the Kingdom of God.