On this Sunday before the feast of the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Church through the reading of the Gospel reminds us of the lineage of the Savior. In listing the generations of those from whom the Lord is descended according to the flesh, the Scriptures have several purposes.
The first of them is to prove that Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, who was betrothed to the righteous Joseph, is the true Messiah, that is, Christ the Anointed One of God. That He is indeed the One of whom the ancient prophecies were proclaimed. After all, it was announced many centuries before the birth of Christ and confirmed more than once that the Savior of the world will come from the family of the forefather Abraham, as well as from the royal family from the prophet and King David.
Let’s remember, dear brothers and sisters, what inscription regarding the guilt of Jesus did the ruler Pilate put on the cross. “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.” The Savior was accused, condemned, and executed for being a true king, although His Kingdom is not of this world, as He Himself testified when responding to Pilate.
Who Christ is, He Himself, as well as the Heavenly Father, knows. Therefore, not God, but people are assigned the proof that the God-child born in Bethlehem of Mary the Virgin is the true heir of the royal family. That He is the sprout from the family of David, about whom there was a prophecy, as the Savior of the people of Israel and the King of the whole world.
When Jesus became known among the people because of His teaching and miracles, we see that they often refer to Him as the “son of David”, although Joseph was considered His father. We also see that His opponents falsely accused the Savior of many things, but did not reproach Him that He did not come from the family of David and therefore could not be the promised Messiah on this basis.
So the evidence of the genealogy was precisely for the people, and as we can see, the people accepted it and even the opponents could not deny this truth.
However, dear brothers and sisters, the genealogy of the Savior, apart from this direct purpose of proving the right of Jesus to the royal throne according to the prophecies, also has another purpose – to prove that Christ is a true Man.
Perhaps for some it may sound strange because in our time, much more efforts have to be made in order to prove the divinity of Christ. But it was not like that in ancient times, when people, especially from the former pagans, believed more in the spiritual origin of the Savior than in the fact that He is with us – of a single human nature.
Hearing and knowing about the miracles and signs that Jesus created, hearing further the sermon about His resurrection from the dead, His contemporary generations, as well as the following ones, succumbed to the temptation to believe that He was some special messenger of God, an angel or a spirit, but not a man. On this occasion, many heresies arose that distorted the Gospel, rejecting the truth of human nature in Christ and the identity of His nature with ours.
But this identity is the cornerstone of salvation. Because for the sake of healing and restoration of human nature, the liberation of all mankind from the slavery of sin and death, Christ truly became incarnate and became a true man. Just as the first-created Adam was the progenitor of all people, so Christ becomes the new Adam, the progenitor of restored humanity, cleansed of sin. He accomplishes this renewal in His own human nature, and through Himself He accomplishes it for all men, for everyone who believes in Christ and unites with Him to be able to have eternal life through Him and in Him.
So another task of the genealogy of Jesus we heard is to prove that He is the true Son of Man, Who did not live along with men in a ghostly or imaginary way, but was truly born as a man, assumed human nature, and therefore had his genealogy. Because there is no person without ancestors, without generations of those from whom he comes. Therefore, Christ, as a man, has earthly ancestors, which are listed in the Scriptures.
Another task of the given genealogy is to confirm the historicity and reality of the life of Christ. Because not only the humanity of the ancient world, but also the present one, lived and continues to live with numerous myths, that is, imaginary stories invented for various purposes. But Christ is not a mythical person, not a figment of imagination or fantasy. He really lived in a specific historical time. He was born in the Judean land, in the city of Bethlehem, during the reign of the Roman state of Caesar Augustus. And in the reign of the next Caesar, Tiberius, he was crucified on the cross by order of the Roman commander Pilate.
So the Savior’s genealogy emphasizes His connection with human history. He Himself, like the generation of His ancestors, lived in a specific time, in flesh belonging to the Jewish people, being a legitimate descendant of the royal throne of David. Therefore, it is about Him, about Jesus, born of the Virgin Mary, that the Old Testament announcements and promises of God testify. It is to Him that the prophets – from the most ancient up to the prophet and forerunner of Christ, John – point to as the true Messiah. On the Savior, anointed by the Holy Spirit, on the One who is the true King of the world, the true Prophet of divine revelation and the true and eternal Priest, Who offered God a ransom sacrifice for the sins of all mankind.
And the Church, on the eve of Christmas, reminds us of all these truths through the Gospel reading. So that we celebrate the event of the birth of the Son of God not only as a tribute to tradition or custom, but deeply aware of the significance of an exceptional historical event of the past, which also affects the present and each of us. Because it is precisely for our sake and for the sake of our salvation that the Son of God also becomes the Son of Man and is born in Bethlehem of Judea. Amen.
