From the Sunday Note, with additional thoughts–
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ,
the son of David, the son of Abraham. …
…Thus the total number of generations
from Abraham to David
is fourteen generations;
from David to the Babylonian exile,
fourteen generations;
from the Babylonian exile to the Christ,
fourteen generations.
This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.
When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,
but before they lived together,
she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.
Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,
yet unwilling to expose her to shame,
decided to divorce her quietly.
Such was his intention when, behold,
the angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said,
“Joseph, son of David,
do not be afraid to take Mary your wife into your home.
For it is through the Holy Spirit
that this child has been conceived in her.
She will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus,
because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,
which means “God is with us.”
When Joseph awoke,
he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him
and took his wife into his home.
Matthew 1:1, and 17-24 from this Sunday’s Gospel, omitting dozens of “begats” (= “was the father of”)
To come as man, as a human being, and to fulfill the prophecies concerning the Savior, God needed the cooperation of two human beings. If he was to come to us as an actual man, he had to have a mother. If he was to be the predicted Savior, he had to have inheritance rights in the line of David, Israel’s greatest king.
Luke’s Gospel gives us the story of how Mary agreed to become the human mother of our Savior. This portion of Sunday’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel handles the Davidic inheritance rights.
The old saying that “the translator is a traitor” is true. It is impossible to duplicate the exact meaning of a word coming from one culture with all its overtones and associations, into a different language with perfect exactness. For instance, the word translated “genealogy” in Matthew’s first line above, in Matthew’s Greek, is the same word we translate as “Genesis” in the first line of the Bible –the Book of the Beginning of Creation. “God is creating something new here with the birth of Jesus”—is one of those overtones Matthew intends to have his readers hear in a time when Greek was the language of the Roman Empire.
This “new thing” God was doing had to include an heir of David, who could surpass even what David had done for the Israelites. So, Matthew gives us Jesus’ family line from its “genesis” in Abraham, up through King David, and on to current times in Joseph. Genealogies were of vital importance in those days, when written records were scarce outside of royal palaces. People memorized their bloodlines with utmost care, because if X was your father, this entitled you to live here, in this certain place, and/or to graze your cattle and sheep in these pastures at this time of year, and to use the water from these (but not those) wells, etc., etc.
When he writes this down in his Gospel, Matthew bores us moderns with 40-some “begats” and those tough-to-pronounce names. And he troubles us moderns even more by skipping a name or three altogether in his recounting. We expect him to work like a modern bureaucratic record keeper. Instead, he works like an artist, using a pattern to underline the deep truth he wants us to grasp: the connection between God’s saving plan in David and the person of Joseph. With a little artistic license, he compacts all of Israelite history into three groups of 14 generations apiece.
As we read above in the Gospel, Matthew underlines his point by repeating the phrase “14 generations” three times in a row. Like the Romans and many ancient peoples before Arabic numerals were developed, Jews used consonants to stand for numbers. For Jews of that day, the number “14” could be written as three letters: D (4) + V (6) + D (4). A name such as “David” thus had a special numerical equivalent, “fourteen,” and Jews recalled their greatest king when they heard that number. It is as if Matthew said in our reading, “Well, triple that! And don’t overlook the ‘genesis/new creation’ connection, either! God is doing something new, something that involves the throne of David in our time.”
Mary can conceive, carry, and give birth to the baby. Therefore, God can walk the earth as a man. Joseph’s part is to name the baby. If he does this, he thereby adopts the child as if it were his own natural son and heir. This son is recognized, then, by Jewish law, as one of the line of David, and, therefore eligible to become the legitimate king of Israel. He might prove to be the Messiah, the Savior of his people.
God needed both Mary and Joseph: Mary to bring God-as-man into earthly life, Joseph to make him a descendant of David. Just think about that: “God needed …”.
For further reflection:
When we say “God needed” we are speaking metaphorically. The Creator understands what he created, including us. But those whom he created are only capable of partially understanding the Creator. The Creator has arranged things so that we can understand enough, but not everything. Keeping that in mind, the Creator is constantly asking us to cooperate with him. This involves trusting us with important tasks that are part of his overall plan to save us and others. Mary and Joseph are key examples of this. In both cases God asked them to do something that appeared quite out of the ordinary, and, after reflection, both cooperated. To the benefit of all the rest of us!
In our time, God asks each of us to “step out in faith” in different ways so his good will may be done here and now on the earth. What does God need from me, today? How will I choose to respond to the invitation his Holy Spirit is prompting in me?