Our Faithful Ancestors in Christ

Christ is born!

On the Sunday before Christmas,  we encounter in the Scripture readings of the Orthodox Church a cast of literally hundreds of women and men who were faithful to God’s promises as recorded in the history of the Old Testament.

We read the genealogy of Christ in Matthew’s Gospel (Matthew 1:1-25) about some of those people of the Old Testament who were part of God’s preparation for the incarnation. Entire generations of people preparing the way for the Lord. led by a few very faithful men and women.  In the Epistle from Hebrews (Hebrews 11:9-10, 17-23, 32-40) we hear a few more details from the lives of some of those same people who were faithful to God no matter that they suffered for the faithfulness and no matter that they didn’t receive the fulfillment of what God promised.   They remained faithful to God’s promise and trusted that God would fulfill what had been prophesied or promised.

All these women and men heard about the promise of the coming of the Messiah but none of them lived to see it, yet they remained faithful to God.  St. Gregory Palamas describes them as refining humanity, slowly moving us from the original rebellion of Eve and Adam to the time of Blessed Virgin in whom God would become incarnate.   Besides all these examples of people who followed God in faith, if we studied the lives of all these people we would find examples of both people who remembered God in times of trouble, and those who forgot God even in good times.

Really for us to prepare for Christmas we should  be reading the scriptures year round to know what God promised, what people suffered for these promises and as a result of them.  We would learn about our spiritual ancestors in the faith who struggled for several thousand years before the coming of Jesus and since the time of his death.  We would learn how hard a struggle it was for the people to be faithful, and how long the sojourn.

Matthew’s genealogy and the Epistle from Hebrews include people who are farmers and shepherds, business people and slaves, carpenters and soldiers, generals and kings, wise and foolish, musicians and poets, rich and poor, apostles and apostates, faithful and faithless, adulterers and prostitutes, sinners and saints, murderers and law abiding citizens.

And when we study God’s promises and what God did through the centuries we understand the faithfulness of our God and God’s patience in working with us His creatures for countless cnturies.  For our history is not one of continual improvement in morals and faith, but rather a jagged history of ups and downs and falling away and turning back and repenting.

And then the surprise of Christmas.

God became like us in the incarnation – God became one of us, taking on human form.  At Christmas we remember God becoming one of us, becoming human.  God became human to lift us up out of our own sinfulness and to transfigure and transform our humanity to become like God, to become God’s children.  God became human so that we humans could again become like God.  God wants nothing to separate us from Him.

If we remember all these people and their successes and failures we can learn from them about how we are to behave.  We can learn both from their examples of faithfulness and the examples of faithlessness.

We might remember the old saying:  Forget your mistakes, remember their lessons.

Faith, is not “blind” but rather is conviction based on revelation, promise of God and past experience.  Faith is based on a knowledge of God fulfilling His promises in Scripture, and looking to the future where more of God’s promises will be fulfilled.  The lives of the saints, or our spiritual ancestors helps us to understand God and our role in our salvation.

God does not ask us to leap off tall buildings nor to turn bread into stones.   God asks us to know Him through the study of His scriptures and through the lives of the saints and people of God.  God wants us to know Him in and through our daily lives – in prayer, the sacraments, through charitable giving, through fasting, forgiveness and repentance.   None of what God asks from us is impossible for us or beyond our reach.

God does not call us to do absurd things (just to make a funny video or to make a name for ourselves), or to go against sound judgment, though God may expect us to do very difficult things.   Mostly, God calls us to open our hearts to know Him, to test and see if what God said is true in the lives of the saints and in the scriptures.  God asks only that we continue to trust in Him and to trust the witness of our spiritual ancestors, the women and men and children who are saints in the faith.  Christmas indeed is a family affair, but the family turns out to include all those who have ever believed God and who prepared the way for us to believe as well.  And we call to mind that family at Christmas.

As the Epistle concluded about these saints, our faithful ancestors:

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

All of those believing saints have been waiting through the centuries for us to believe as well, and to follow Christ.  They await Christ being born in our hearts, our lives and our homes so that they can join us in the Kingdom of Heaven.

Glorify Him!

The Ancestors of Christ (2014)

“… have you not read what was said to you by God, ‘I am the God of Abraham…? He is God not of the dead, but of the living.”  (Matthew 22:31-32)

Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”   (John 8:53)

Patriarch Abraham

On the Sunday before Christmas we read the Gospel lesson of the birth of Jesus Christ according to St. Matthew.  That same Gospel lesson has St. Matthew’s recorded ancestry of Christ, tracing the Messiah’s ancestral roots back to the Patriarch Abraham and his wife Sarah.   It is with Abraham that God makes a covenant and a promise, giving both Abraham and Sarah new names reflecting their new relationship with God.

“Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be Abram, but your name shall be Abraham; for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations. I will make you exceedingly fruitful; and I will make nations of you, and kings shall come forth from you. And I will establish my covenant between me and you and your descendants after you throughout their generations for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your descendants after you.”   (Genesis 17:4-7)

Abraham and Sarah

And God said to Abraham, “As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. I will bless her, and moreover I will give you a son by her; I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall come from her.”  (Genesis 17:15-16)

The Holy Apostle Paul connects God’s promise to Abraham to Jesus Christ, who fulfills the promise.

Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, “And to offsprings,” referring to many; but, referring to one, “And to your offspring,” which is Christ.  (Galatians 3:16)

Abraham, Sarah, Moses and St. Paul

While Jesus Christ fulfills God’s promise to Abraham, St. Paul also points out that it is not to Abraham alone that God reckoned righteousness through faith, but to all of us who believe.  Thus from Abraham to the Church today there is a continuous and organic faith shared by all.

“… the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants—not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham, for he is the father of us all, as it is written, “I have made you the father of many nations” —in the presence of the God in whom he believed, who gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. In hope he believed against hope, that he should become the father of many nations; as he had been told, “So shall your descendants be.” He did not weaken in faith when he considered his own body, which was as good as dead because he was about a hundred years old, or when he considered the barrenness of Sarah’s womb. No distrust made him waver concerning the promise of God, but he grew strong in his faith as he gave glory to God, fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised. That is why his faith was “reckoned to him as righteousness.”  But the words, “it was reckoned to him,” were written not for his sake alone, but for ours also. It will be reckoned to us who believe in him that raised from the dead Jesus our Lord, who was put to death for our trespasses and raised for our justification.”  (Romans 4:16-25)

From the time of the Patriarch Abraham (about 2000BC) until now, 2000 years after the time of Christ, there have been a succession of men and women who shared Abraham’s faith in God.   On the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ, in the Orthodox Church we honor all of those faithful men and women who are in the ancestry of Christ.  They believed before the Messiah, remaining faithful to the prophecies and promises of God.  So we read in Hebrews 11:9-40:

By faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise as in a foreign country, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, the heirs with him of the same promise; for he waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises offered up his only begotten son, of whom it was said, “In Isaac your seed shall be called,” accounting that God was able to raise him up, even from the dead, from which he also received him in a figurative sense.

By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob, when he was dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshiped, leaning on the top of his staff. By faith Joseph, when he was dying, made mention of the departure of the children of Israel, and gave instructions concerning his bones. By faith Moses, when he was born, was hidden three months by his parents, because they saw he was a beautiful child; and they were not afraid of the king’s command. And what more shall I say? For the time would fail me to tell of Gideon and Barak and Samson and Jephthah, also of David and Samuel and the prophets: who through faith subdued kingdoms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weakness were made strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight the armies of the aliens. Women received their dead raised to life again. And others were tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of mocking and scourging, yes, and of chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword. They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented; of whom the world was not worthy. They wandered in deserts and mountains, in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith, did not receive the promise, God having provided something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.

The Hospitality of Abraham and Sarah

Abraham, the man whose faith is reckoned as righteousness, is thus connected to Jesus who brings righteousness to all the faithful.  The Nativity of Christ is the celebration of the fulfillment of the faith and righteousness of Father Abraham.  We proclaim in the Gospel of St. MATTHEW 1:1-25:

 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa, and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor,  and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud,  and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

At Christmas we celebrate the faith of Abraham, the birth of the Messiah, and life in the Kingdom which is to come.

The Goal of History is the Birth of the Christ

Orthodox liturgical practice has undergone significant development over its 2000 year history.   There were times in Orthodox history in which differing practices could be found occurring simultaneously in various parts of the Byzantine Empire.  Over time some of these practices disappeared, some were changed, and some came to predominate over other variations.   Christmas is one season that has undergone change through the centuries.  The Nativity Fast itself underwent change and development.  As noted in a previous blog at one time monasteries kept Christmas Eve as a feast day not a strict fast day.   By the time of St. Gregory of Palamas (14th Century), in the Orthodox liturgical practice,

“… the entire month of December had taken on the character of a forefeast for Christmas. In this context, the theme of the original preparatory Sunday, the ‘Sunday of the Holy Fathers’ […], commemorating the ancestors of Christ ‘according to the flesh’ […], especially the patriarch Abraham, to whom the promise was first given (Gen. 12:3, 22:18), is fundamental to the whole period. Later, however, two additional preparatory Sundays were established, which broadened the original theme to include all the righteous of the Old Dispensation – all those who were well-pleasing to God from Adam to Joseph the Betrothed, including those men and women who had prophesied of the coming of Christ, especially the prophet Daniel and the Three Holy Children (whose feastday falls on 17 December). Hence, the first Sunday before Christmas (between 18 to 24 December) became known as the ‘Sunday before the Nativity of Christ’ […], while the second Sunday (between 11 to 17 December) took on the name, ‘Sunday of the Holy Forefathers of Christ’ […] – to distinguish them from the Fathers of the ecumenical councils, while the third Sunday before Christmas (between 1 to 10 December) is simply an extension of the second, continuing the remembrance of all those who lived before and under the law, and is marked by the readings of Luke 13:10-17, which speaks of the Crippled Woman who was Healed by Christ on the Sabbath as a ‘daughter of Abraham’. ” (endnotes,  St. Gregory Palamas Homilies, p 632)

Abraham and Sarah

So St. Matthew begins his Gospel and genealogy with the Patriarch Abraham.

MATTHEW 1:1-25

 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa, and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor,  and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud,  and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.

The Holy Family

Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.”  All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

St. Maximus the Confessor (7th Century) writes:

“Therefore the mystery of the Incarnation of the Word contains in itself the whole meaning of the riddles and symbols of Scripture, the whole significance of visible and invisible creatures. Whoever knows the mystery of the cross and the tomb knows the meanings of things. Whoever is initiated into the hidden meaning of the resurrection knows the purpose for which God created everything in the beginning.

Forefathers of Christ

 The Incarnation was therefore the product of a long history, a fleshly fruit that had long been ripening on the earth. This was the point of view of Irenaeus of Lyons who in the second century worked out a real theology of history expressed as a grand succession of covenants (with Adam, Noah, Abraham, Moses, and so on). Whilst humanity thus tested its freedom, an ever-diminishing ‘remnant’ meditated on and refined its expectations until a woman, Mary, by giving her indispensable assent, as last made possible the perfect union of the divine and the human. The history continues today; Life continues to be offered, not imposed. Today also, amidst the titanic undertakings of the modern age, people have desired ‘to see even before becoming adult the disappearance of every difference between God and humanity’. The movement from the God-man to God-humanity is now possible only because of the patience of the saints, who have slowly established their communion.” (Olivier Clément, The Roots of Christian Mysticism, p 40)

The Genealogy and the Jubilee

On the Sunday before Christmas in the Orthodox Church Liturgy we proclaim the genealogy of Christ from Matthew 1.***   Biblical scholar N.T. Wright comments: 

“The jubilee was, as it were, the once-in-a-lifetime ‘exodus’ that everyone could experience. We don’t know whether or to what extent the jubilee as set forth in Leviticus 25 was actually practiced in Jesus’s day. But it remained in the scriptures as a reminder that God’s time was being marked out week by week, seven years by seven years, half century by half century. Matthew hints at all this in his own way, right at the start of his gospel, by arranging Jesus’s genealogy in three groups of fourteen generations (that is, six sevens), so that Jesus appears at the start of the sabbath-of-sabbaths moment. And, as we have seen, people in Jesus’s day were pondering, calculating, and longing for the greatest superjubilee of them all, the ‘seventy weeks’ (that is, seventy times seven years) of Daniel 9:24. The great Sabbath was coming! Soon they would be free!

           the time is fulfilled. That was part of his announcement right at the start of his public career (Mark 1:15). Only this, I believe, will enable us to understand his extraordinary behavior immediately afterwards. He seems to have gone out of his way to flout the normal sabbath regulations. Most people in the modern church have imagined that this was because the Sabbath had become ‘legalistic’, a kind of observance designed to boost one’s sense of moral achievement, and that Jesus had come to sweep all that away in a burst of libertarian, antilegalistic enthusiasm.  That, though commonplace, is a trivial misunderstanding. It is too ‘modern’ by half. Rather, the sabbath was the regular signpost pointing forward to God’s promised future, and Jesus was announcing that the future to which the signpost had been pointing had now arrived in the present. In his own career. He was doing the ‘God’s-in-charge’ things. He was explaining what he was doing by talking about what God was doing. The time was fulfilled, and God’s kingdom was arriving.

            Notice how this theme then ties in with others we have already observed. If the sabbath now has a purpose, it won’t be for rest from the work of creation, but rather for celebrating God’s victory over the satan: ‘And isn’t it right,’ asks Jesus, ‘that this daughter of Abraham, tied up by the satan for these eighteen years, should be untied from her chains on the sabbath day?’ (Luke 13:16). Victory in the real battle is closely connected with the healings that reveal that God is in charge. ‘My father is going on working,’ declares Jesus, ‘and so am I’ (John 5:17). And these things happen, of course, in the moment when the time is fulfilled. If Jesus is a walking, living, breathing Temple, he is also the walking, celebrating, victorious sabbath.” (Simply Jesus, pp. 137-137)

The Gospel reading for the Sunday of the Ancestors of Christ:

***MATTHEW 1:1-25

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa, and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When his mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called his name Jesus.

The Birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way

Matthew 1:18

“Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way”:

God Questions His Creation: Genesis 11:10-32 (d)

See: God Questions His Creation:  Genesis 11:10-32 (c)

Genesis 11:10 These are the descendants of Shem. When Shem was a hundred years old, he became the father of Arpach’shad two years after the flood; 11 and Shem lived after the birth of Arpach’shad five hundred years, and had other sons and daughters.  …  26 When Terah had lived seventy years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. 27 Now these are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot. 28 Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chalde’ans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sar’ai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sar’ai was barren; she had no child. 31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sar’ai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chalde’ans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there.

With the birth of Abram the Bible begins its clear focus on one particular people on earth.  That the Bible was moving in this direction becomes all the more obvious in the chapters that follow in Genesis.  Just as a Christocentric reading of the Old Testament reveals how the entirety of the Scriptures was moving toward Christ and in Christ finds its full meaning, so too with Abram the direction of the early chapters of Genesis becomes clear and pointed.  God’s plan for the salvation of His fallen creation is being put into motion and revealed.  This becomes clear in the genealogy Matthew placed at the very beginning of his Gospel (Matthew 1:1-25).   Matthew does not trace Christ back to Adam, the first human, but rather he traces back the genealogy to Abraham, God’s chosen servant, who is the father of Israel, the man with whom God makes an eternal covenant that is to be traced through his descendents, or more properly through a particular descendent: “Now the promises were made to Abraham and to his offspring. It does not say, ‘And to offsprings,’ referring to many; but, referring to one, ‘And to your offspring,’ which is Christ” (Galatians 3:16).  In Orthodoxy we read Matthew’s genealogy on the Sunday before Christmas because we do believe that Jesus Christ is the eternal fulfillment of the promise to Abraham.   Immediately after Abraham had shown himself willing to sacrifice his son, the God-promised heir for whom Abraham had so hoped, the Lord said, “By myself I have sworn, says the LORD, because you have done this, and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will indeed bless you, and I will multiply your descendants as the stars of heaven and as the sand which is on the seashore. And your descendants shall possess the gate of their enemies, and by your descendants shall all the nations of the earth bless themselves, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:16-18).  Jesus is believed by Christians to be the fulfillment of God’s promises and prophecy.  All the nations of the world are blessed through Jesus Christ, not just the nation of Israel.  

God’s universal hope for all of humanity which is established with the creation of the first man Adam (the prototype of all humans) and whose fulfillment is promised through Abraham’s descendent is accomplished in Jesus Christ (the new universal man, the prototype of the resurrected human).  The genealogy of Matthew’s Gospel offers the world the sense of the continuity in God’s plan – the promise and the fulfillment are traceable through one Holy Tradition which is laid out in the Bible.   In the Gospel according to Luke the genealogy (Luke 3:23-38) is traced in the reverse order of Matthew.  St. Luke begins with Jesus, the divine God-man who also is the new universal man and the new Adam, and traces His ancestry through David to Abraham, Shem, Noah, Seth and back to the first Adam who was the first universal man and the son of God.  Thus Christ fulfils what God intended His humans to be from the beginning. The birth of Jesus is not merely the birth of a good or holy man.  The birth of Jesus is the beginning of the universal salvation of all humans, the reunion of God and humanity, and the restoration of humanity to their original and God-given role to be mediator between God and all the rest of creation, and the fulfillment of God’s promises to His chosen people.   The Nativity of Christ is the restoration of humanity to humanity’s God-intended role in the universe.  Finally a human exists who has Godly dominion over the rest of creation.

“For it was not to angels that God subjected the world to come, of which we are speaking. It has been testified somewhere, ‘What is man that you are mindful of him, or the son of man, that you care for him? You made him for a little while lower than the angels, you crowned him with glory and honor, putting everything in subjection under his feet.’  Now in putting everything in subjection to him, he left nothing outside his control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him. But we see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for every one”  (Hebrews 2:5-9).

“Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power. For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.  The last enemy to be destroyed is death. ‘For God has put all things in subjection under his feet.’ But when it says, ‘All things are put in subjection under him,’ it is plain that he is excepted who put all things under him. When all things are subjected to him, then the Son himself will also be subjected to him who put all things under him, that God may be everything to every one”  (1 Corinthians 15:24-28).

Next:  God Questions His Creation: An After Word

God Questions His Creation: Genesis 11:10-32 (a)

See: God Questions His Creation:  Genesis 11:5-9 (d)  

 

A 560 year old Tree

Genesis 11:10   These are the descendants of Shem. When Shem was a hundred years old, he became the father of Arpach’shad two years after the flood; 11 and Shem lived after the birth of Arpach’shad five hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 12 When Arpach’shad had lived thirty-five years, he became the father of Shelah; 13 and Arpach’shad lived after the birth of Shelah four hundred and three years, and had other sons and daughters. 14 When Shelah had lived thirty years, he became the father of Eber; 15 and Shelah lived after the birth of Eber four hundred and three years, and had other sons and daughters. 16 When Eber had lived thirty-four years, he became the father of Peleg; 17 and Eber lived after the birth of Peleg four hundred and thirty years, and had other sons and daughters. 18 When Peleg had lived thirty years, he became the father of Re’u; 19 and Peleg lived after the birth of Re’u two hundred and nine years, and had other sons and daughters. 20 When Re’u had lived thirty-two years, he became the father of Serug; 21 and Re’u lived after the birth of Serug two hundred and seven years, and had other sons and daughters. 22 When Serug had lived thirty years, he became the father of Nahor; 23 and Serug lived after the birth of Nahor two hundred years, and had other sons and daughters. 24 When Nahor had lived twenty-nine years, he became the father of Terah; 25 and Nahor lived after the birth of Terah a hundred and nineteen years, and had other sons and daughters. 26 When Terah had lived seventy years, he became the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran. 27 Now these are the descendants of Terah. Terah was the father of Abram, Nahor, and Haran; and Haran was the father of Lot. 28 Haran died before his father Terah in the land of his birth, in Ur of the Chalde’ans. 29 And Abram and Nahor took wives; the name of Abram’s wife was Sar’ai, and the name of Nahor’s wife, Milcah, the daughter of Haran the father of Milcah and Iscah. 30 Now Sar’ai was barren; she had no child. 31 Terah took Abram his son and Lot the son of Haran, his grandson, and Sar’ai his daughter-in-law, his son Abram’s wife, and they went forth together from Ur of the Chalde’ans to go into the land of Canaan; but when they came to Haran, they settled there. 32 The days of Terah were two hundred and five years; and Terah died in Haran.

 “…became the father… two years after the flood…”   The timing of the birth suggests no children were conceived or born during the year in which the flood gripped the earth.  Is it possible that the sons of Noah and their wives remained chaste during the duration of the flood?   Most of the Patristic writers who also happened to embrace monasticism believed Noah and his children all practiced abstinence from sex while in the ark during the nearly year long time of the flood. 

 Eber lives to be about half as old as Adam was when he died.   Serug lives to be about one quarter as old as Adam was when he died. The longevity of the humans is in a pattern of decline.  In verse :28 Haran dies before his father dies, one of the great traumas for any parent.  It introduces into the story of the fallen world a new sorrow that mortality causes – the natural (non-violent) death of beloved children.  Genesis 25:8 tells us that Abraham led a long and full life and dies at the ripe old age of 175.  By the standards of his ancestors his life would have been measured as short, but by his generation that indeed was a considerable age to have reached.   When Abraham was born there were 11 generations in his family tree alive – everyone from Noah to himself.    When Abraham dies there are 7 generations alive including Abraham’s children and grandchildren.  Shem, Noah’s son according to the genealogy outlived Abraham by 30 years, though after fathering Arpachshad two years after the flood, Shem plays no further role in the biblical history.

A genealogy is just a list of names.  That would probably be a common summation of what many modern readers get out of the various family trees listed in Genesis.  But in the ancient world, a name is not just a word.  The name of any being reveals the very nature of the being.  Every name is thus a revelation; every name is a thing, not merely pointing out the object to which it refers. The name reveals the meaning; it is the meaning itself, not just that which gets us to the meaning.   Each name thus reveals and represents its reality.  This is why the naming of the animals in Genesis 2 was such a significant story.  It is why the genealogies are so important thousands of years after they were originally remembered; it also explains why the naming of the children in Genesis is of such importance.  We, who are shaped by the mass industry of interchangeable parts, read the list of names and think anyone of those people could have been replaced by someone else.  In the Scriptures however each name is a reality which had to have been present for the coming of the Messiah. This also explains why the Name of Jesus is so significant to the authors of the New Testament.   “Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9-11).  In the Gospel, it is not merely His being the Messiah, which makes Him so important, but it is also his very Name which makes Jesus essential to us, to our relationship with God, and thus to our salvation.  As Matthew reports the Gospel, the angel reveals of Mary that “…she will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21).

 Next:  God Questions His Creation:  Genesis 11:10-32 (b)

The Ancestors of Christ: Pointing the Way to Christ

 The Sunday of THE ANCESTORS OF CHRIST        Gospel:   Matthew 1:1-25

For Orthodox, then, the Old Testament doesn’t function as a history book or as a science text. We believe it is a book that exists to point to Christ, to give understanding about who Christ was and what he achieved through his life-giving death. The New Testament, for its part, wasn’t written as a cold recitation of uninterpreted events. Merely recording the “historic fact,” to the extent that it’s possible, wouldn’t have been enough to convey the gospel for all to see. The Apostles saw everything Jesus did and still didn’t understand and internalize the meaning of it all until after he was crucified, when their minds were opened to who he is and how the Scriptures spoke of him. They then recounted the events in the Gospels in such a way that reveals Jesus’ fulfillment of Old Testament Scripture, his significance for us and for our salvation. The Gospels simultaneously recount and interpret the events of Jesus Christ’s life.                 (Peter Bouteneff, Sweeter than Honey)

Christ Fulfills the Promise to Abraham

On the Sunday before Christmas, the Gospel reading in the Orthodox Church is Matthew 1:1-25, the genealogy of Christ.  James Aageson in  his book WRITTEN ALSO FOR OUR SAKE: PAUL AND THE ART OF BIBLICAL INTERPRETATION offers some thoughts on the importance of Christ’s ancestry for St. Paul.   

  “In Galatians 3:16, Paul identifies Christ as the offspring of Abraham. The apostle makes a direct link between the promise given to the patriarch and the fulfillment of that promise in the birth of Jesus Christ. Virtually any Jew in the first century would have known that Isaac was the fulfillment of the promise made to Abraham and would have been perplexed, probably offended, by the suggestion that Christ somehow epitomized the completion of God’s word to the patriarch. Although Paul does not explicitly use the language of promise and fulfillment in the development of his Christology, it is clearly implied in the identification of Christ with the seed of Abraham. According to Paul, that which has been promised to Abraham has now been brought to fulfillment in Jesus Christ. … Paul is asserting that Christ is the son of Abraham in a unique sense. He is not the offspring of Abraham simply by virtue of his Jewishness but because he is the Christ. … Furthermore, this connection allows the apostle to identify those who are ‘in Christ’ (and therefore descendants of Abraham) with the people of God (Gal. 3:26-29). … Paul is convinced that Christ is the fulfillment of God’s intention for the salvation of humankind. With that Christological presupposition in mind, he can assert that God’s word to Abraham is in effect the promise to which Christ is the fulfillment. … At the heart of Paul’s reflection on the Abrahamic material is a concern for the inclusion of Gentiles into the community of Christ. This is what drives Paul’s understanding of Abraham. His primary concern is not personal salvation or a private relationship with God. Paul’s interest is corporate. It has to do with the community of Christ and the way a person becomes part of that community. It is by faith and not works that Gentiles enter into the fellowship of Christ and become part of his body. This is Paul’s gospel of inclusion. Those on the outside, the Gentiles, through faith are made members of the body of Christ.” 

Aageson’s comments on how St. Paul ‘reinterprets’ the Old Testament – seeing Jesus not Isaac as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham – is significant in St. Matthew’s genealogy as well.  For unlike St. Luke whose genealogy traces Christ’s ancestry to Adam, St. Matthew traces the genealogy of Jesus only to Abraham, and probably for the same reason that Aageson finds in St. Paul.  The promise that all the nations of the world would be blessed trough his descendants was given to Abraham not to Adam.  All humans might trace their ancestry to Adam, but the promised blessing to all peoples comes through Abraham’s descendants.  St. Matthew in his Nativity Narrative makes the connection to the blessing promised to all nations through the Persian Magi who come to worship the Christ child.  St. Luke on the other hand has “the great joy which will come to all the people” announced by the angelic heralds to the shepherds.    In both Nativity Narratives, Jesus is seen as the fulfillment of the promise to Abraham – but a fulfillment not only for the Jews but for all peoples.  St. Paul, the apostle to the Gentiles, to the nations of the world, understood that Christ indeed is the very blessing that God promised to Abraham.  The blessing which the people of God hoped for and looked for and which came into the world in the fullness of time, when the Virgin Mary was ready to receive the Word of God and to allow Him to bear fruit for the salvation of the world.