Word to the Wise
Sunday, December 18, 2016 - 4th Sunday of Advent - A
[Isa 7:10-14; Rom 1:1-7; Matt 1:18-24]"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." [Matthew]
The story of Jesus' human origins reveals not just a problem for Joseph at the time, but a problem for the earliest preachers. The passage from St. Paul's Letter to the Romans in the second scripture today mentions only that Jesus was "descended from David according to the flesh." The gospels of Matthew and Luke emphasize that as well. However, the rest of the "infancy narratives" definitely came about to meet a need in the preaching. There appears to have been an undercurrent of gossip about Jesus possibly being illegitimate. There was also the natural curiosity of a people who identified themselves according to their ancestors. Both Matthew and Luke provide genealogies (different ones). In short, we have the wonderful traditions that these two evangelists gathered and included in their "preaching," to meet the pastoral challenges to the story of Jesus.
None of this takes anything away from the power of that story, even if Matthew and Luke tell it differently. That should not surprise us. Anytime families get together at reunions and start telling stories, there will be differences of opinion about how and when and where and who. The Gospel of Mark makes a bare reference to Jesus as the son of a carpenter. The Gospel of John has its majestic "prologue" in which the words, "And the Word was made flesh and dwelled among us." Those do not tell us much about Jesus' origins. The power of the story of a young Jewish woman, unexpectedly pregnant, and her fiance' wondering how THAT could have happened captures our attention. God's plan, foretold in prophetic utterance and implemented by the power of the Holy Spirit and facilitated by angels, must be preached. We have Matthew and Luke to thank for their powerful preaching. By putting up that manger scene, we preach their stories as well and know that God has been, is and will always be in our midst. AMEN
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