December 24th

Matthew 1: 18-25
The Daily Office

Today we read the story of Jesus's origin from his foster father's perspective: "Joseph, son of David." For some, this particularity is precisely what scandalizes. Why should God come into the world at this particular time, in this particular place, to this particular people? Why this obscure tribe? What relevance can the "son of David" ever have to the rest of the human race?

The Daily Office Lectionary doesn't assign the genealogy of Jesus that establishes David as his ancestor through Joseph's adoption of him. Granted, it's 17 verses of begats, and So-and-So was the father of Who's that. But notice the two women mentioned. Tamar had to pose as a prostitute to get Judah to do his baby-making duty by her. And Solomon was the second son of David and Bathsheba. The first was the fruit of their adulterous union, which to cover up, David resorted to the murder of her husband.

The history of the people of Israel is the history of humanity: love and betrayal, peace and murder, light and darkness on the border between hope and despair, all mixed together in a shade of gray. And God himself entered into our history. The Roman Catholic bishop, Romano Guardini, put it this way:

"Jesus of Nazareth spared himself nothing. In the long quiet years in Nazareth, he may well have pondered these names. Deeply he must have felt what history is, the greatness of it, the power, confusion, wretchedness, darkness and evil underlying even his own existence and pressing him from all sides to receive it into his heart that he might answer for it at the feet of God."