Advent Weekday – December 17
Genesis 49:2, 8-10 /Psalm 72:1-2, 3-4ab, 7-8, 17 / Matthew 1:1-17
Family Trees & Cosmic Weddings
My brother keeps a family tree. He has traced the family back both on his wife’s side and on our side. For many people tracing their lines of descent is a hobby, a pastime. For the Israelites and the early Jewish Christians it was much more than a pastime, much more than pedigree. It was a matter of salvation. The Israelites were the chosen people, the people God had selected in order to let his light shine through them so all the world would be drawn to him.
Jesus is more than an heir of all Israel’s hopes; he is more than its long-awaited messiah. Jesus is the very embodiment of what faithful Israel was called to be: the people in whom God’s glory was shown to the world.
Jesus is more than the promised child for the people of the Promised Land. He is the Word-made-flesh we hear about in John’s Gospel; he is the very embodiment of what all Israel, and indeed all humanity, has always really longed for: the wedding of corruptible human flesh and incorruptible divine love.
· Look back on your lineage. Who in your family nurtured the faith you have today? What would you tell this person about their hope and about yours?
· Can you see yourself as an heir of the people mentioned in today’s gospel? If you were to be swept up into another dimension and meet one or two of them, what would you tell them about their hope and about yours?
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