The march of the unqualified – Saturday, 3rd Week in Advent –  Matthew 1:1-17

We enter now the last lap of the Advent season and the spotlight shifts from the Parousia to the birth of Jesus. For the next nine days we will hear parts of the infancy narrative from the Gospels of Matthew and Luke; the only two Gospel that record the narrative surrounding the birth of Jesus Christ.

Today’s readings look unsparingly at Jesus’ ancestry; it’s called the genealogy. Matthew, writing in a Jewish environment, begins his Gospel of Jesus by tracing the ancestry of Jesus back to the patriarchs. What Matthew is trying to do is to place Jesus’ birth within the context of Jewish history from the time of Abraham up to the birth of Jesus. Genealogies in Scripture  always point in some way to the Lord, and the Lord’s choice. Look at this list as a star cast and credits of those involved in this great production. Yet there are surprises in this list of Jesus’ ancestors.

This genealogy spans the whole history of salvation, from Abraham through David, in six groups of 7 names or three groups of fourteen name ( multiples of seven), 7 being the perfect number for Hebrews. The first fourteen names mentioned are those of the patriarchs, people such as Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The second fourteen are Israel’s kings, especially Kings David and Solomon. The last fourteen are unknowns from Israel’s past who played a vital role in the coming of the Messiah.

This gospel weaves a thread of the long history that eventually brings us to Jesus. Yet when you look closely  at this list, especially of David’s descendants, all but three were total disappointments, many of them worshiping false gods. The three that were considered adequate were Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah and Josiah