Matthew 1:18 - 25
This is how the birth of Jesus the Messiah came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.
But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”
All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”).
When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.
The Natural is one of my top 5 movies. Robert Redford . . . baseball themes . . . heroic, underdog finish . . . out-of-sight musical score. The movie wins at several levels for me.
The movie -- and the novel from which it is taken -- are riffs on an old Arthurian theme which delineates then blurs the lines between light and darkness, good and evil. The Redford character, Roy Hobbs, had positive influences in his past, but also took several missteps into adulthood. His missteps sidetracked him for a long time. In fact, Roy's relationship to his own past becomes a major theme in the movie.
When people ask him, "Where are you from?" he typically answers, "No where in particular."
When the darker forces threaten to expose his checkered history to the public, Roy brushes it off. Outwardly anyway, he's not all that concerned with his past.
By the end of the movie, Roy moves forward only when he acknowledges his past and reclaims the part of his history that can root him for the unknown future.
We all have a history. "Where are you from?" is not merely a question about geography. It asks about the people, places and events that shape our growing and becoming.
So Matthew began his Gospel with a listing of those persons who formed the pattern for Jesus' living. Adulterous kings and scandalous women were among those listed, as well as common and unknown persons who nonetheless reside in the bloodline of Jesus the Messiah. This was where Jesus came from. Matthew wanted us to know Jesus' human origins. These persons in his history tell us something about who he will be and how he will go about living into his life-purpose.
But Matthew also was concerned that we know that Jesus was not merely of human origins. To know his human history is to know something about Jesus, but it is not to know everything, or even to know the most important things.
So after this incredible genealogical beginning, Matthew offered an even more incredible account of Jesus' beginnings. Yes, he had human origins, but to really know Jesus you have to know his divine origins. While he had human mothers and fathers in his line, he had a spiritual lineage that cannot be traced by naming his human ancestors.
I chuckle a bit when I read Matthew 1:18: "This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. . . ." If Matthew followed his pattern from 1:1 - 17, you would flinch and brace yourself for a lesson in human reproduction. If Jesus was only the son of Mary and Joseph, then a lesson in the birds and the bees might have come next.
Matthew, though, wanted us to know that this was not merely a story of biology or genealogy. The birth of Jesus is an intensely spiritual story, and we cannot plumb its depths unless we join it as a spiritual story.
Mary was expecting a child "through the Holy Spirit" (1:18).
Dreams became visions with spiritual power to shape behavior and future events.
Angels showed up with messages. The angel told Joseph that the child conceived in Mary was "from the Holy Spirit" (1:20).
Matthew wanted us to know without a doubt that you cannot get Jesus merely by getting his human family and bloodline. If Jesus isn't approached, known and responded to in the spiritual dimension, the knowing and responding is incomplete.
It is Matthew's way of reminding us that all of life is more than flesh and blood. Life is more than what you can see, more than what you can record in a family tree. If you only live in the dimension of the seen and the obvious, you will miss a large part of life. In fact, you may miss what is most crucial in life.
Yes, there are physical dimensions to life, and biological dimensions, and relational/social dimensions, and mental dimensions, and emotional dimensions . . . but to miss the spiritual dimension of life is to miss what holds up and gives meaning to all the rest. Every other dimension is hollow if there is no spiritual frame. No other dimension, in the end, can bear the weight of life.
Many will miss Advent and Christmas this year. They will have decorated trees in the living room . . . they will exchange gifts on Christmas morning . . . they will be with family or friends at various times over the next week. But if the birth of Jesus is merely of human origins, a commemoration of his birth that indulges us in the social or relational or emotional niceties of life, we have missed the primary essence of the Advent/Christmas season.
The birth of Christ invites us to enter into it with spiritual eyes, with the eyes of our hearts wide open, looking beneath packages and altruism for what lies in the heart. This is an event instigated and inhabited by the very Spirit of God . . . an event you and I are invited to enter.
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