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In his gospel Matthew wanted
us to encounter the real Jesus, son of David, son of Abraham, Son of
God. Matthew began his account with a lengthy genealogy that placed
Jesus in a direct line from Abraham through David to Joseph the husband
of Mary and mother of Jesus. An angelic visitor explained to Joseph that
the child has been conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is
Emmanuel, God with us!
In Matthew’s story of the magi, Eastern astrologers possessed so great a
wisdom that through the confluence of heavenly signs they recognized the
supernatural event of Christ’s birth. They inquired of Herod as to the
whereabouts of the newborn king of the Jews, and thereby were the first
to recognize the destiny of the child. They presented him with gifts of
gold, frankincense, and myrrh, symbolizing kingship, divinity, and
mortality.
The stories of the flight into Egypt, the slaughter of the innocents,
and the return from Egypt to Nazareth, omitted in our Sunday Lectionary,
further detail the divine intervention that surrounded the child and his
family.
John the Baptist was the bridge between the Old and New Testaments. He
was “the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Prepare the way of the
Lord...’” Jesus did not present himself for baptism because he was a
sinner, but in order to establish a solidarity with those he came to
save. “He who knew no sin became sin.”
At the time of his baptism Jesus experienced a manifestation of his
Father’s will. It came in the heavenly voice which said, “This is my
beloved Son with whom I am well pleased.” The first part of the
statement proclaimed Jesus as God’s Son, the Messiah. The second part of
the message referred to Isaiah’s suffering servant, described in today’s
first reading.
Part of becoming an adult is understanding who we are in relationship to
our family, our friends, ourselves, and God, not necessarily in that
order. Some adopted children spend years searching for their birth
mothers, just to get a sense of who they really are. Teenagers depend on
their peer group for important feedback about themselves. As we get
older it becomes our task to integrate our different selves into one
person. No wonder adolescence is such a difficult time.
We discover who we are by the way we interact with others. This is true
of our relationship with God as well. We have been told that through
Baptism we have become sons and daughters of God.
Has that truth sunk into your heart? Are you as sure of your divine
adoption as you are of your human heritage? Does it show in your daily
life? Is your heavenly Father as much a part of your life as your
earthly father? Do you recognize your brothers and sisters in Christ,
regardless of their race, education, social status? If we truly are
brothers and sisters of Jesus, sons and daughters of the Most High, then
here comes everybody... our brothers and sisters in the Lord.
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