Reading for Advent: Genesis 22:15-18; 2 Samuel 7:12-15; and Matthew 1:1
Reflection: A Miracle Son in Impossible Circumstances
It's been said that some parts of the Bible are boring to read but interesting to study, and Matthew starts right off into one of those parts—a genealogy. This is especially boring for us as modern readers, because the old covenant’s Adamic priesthood has come to an end with the arrival of the long-promised seed. There is for us no longer any spiritual value in the careful recording of years and generations, so it is strange and unfamiliar.
Jesus is the last in a long history of promised sons; of miracle sons born in impossible circumstances; of latter sons who replace the first son; and of sons born to faith-filled women of tarnished reputation. Matthew begins his gospel with the hint that all this is coming to an end, that Jesus is the one true son to replace Adam and Israel. The phrase "book of the genealogy" uses the Greek root genesis, leading some commentators to suggest that Matthew is subtly presenting his entire gospel as a new Genesis, a "book of new beginnings." And in this first verse, Matthew reaches back to two key promises that built upon God's earlier promise of the seed in Genesis 3:15.
God had given to Abraham the promise that "your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed" (Gen. 22:17-18). Abraham first thought this would be fulfilled through Ishmael and, later, through Isaac. Abraham was willing to offer his son Isaac as a sacrifice, trusting that God would raise him from the dead, and seeming to understand that the nations would be blessed by the sacrifice of the seed. But Isaac was spared by a substitute, because the true seed, the true substitute, was still to come. By the end of Genesis, God had worked through Joseph to bring a preliminary blessing on all nations, and yet the nations turned away again from God. Jesus is the promised son of Abraham who brought an enduring blessing to the nations.
God made a similar promise to David, that his offspring would "build a house for my name," and that God would "establish the throne of his kingdom forever" (2 Sam. 7:13). Solomon built a physical palace for God, but his kingdom was broken up shortly after his death, and that palace was torn down by Nebuchadnezzar. As Israel waited for this promise, one they sang of for nearly a thousand years in the Psalms, they came to call the Messiah "the son of David" (Matthew 22:42). Jesus is this son of David, the one who built the true house of God – a house made out of people (1 Pet. 2:5-6) – whose throne will truly endure forever.
Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:28-29Scott Moonen
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