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Both Saint Matthew and Saint Luke include genealogies of Jesus in their gospels, and these accounts differ from one another.
Saint Matthew's genealogy emphasizes that Jesus is the Son of David. He begins with David and moves toward Abraham, which provided a strong connection for Jewish identification (a "double whammy"), though chronologically backward since Abraham preceded David. His predominantly Jewish audience would have been looking for that specific connection. His primary aim was to convince the Jews that Jesus was the Messiah, and establishing Davidic sonship was essential to this purpose.
Saint Luke, in contrast, emphasizes the Lord's human nature. He begins his genealogy with Adam to present a more universal message for his predominantly Greek audience, which would have been a significant point for them. Luke also points to the Lord's divine origin; he ends the genealogy with "Jesus, the son of Adam, the son of God."
Both genealogies are essential for our understanding of the Incarnation. They complement each other, demonstrating that Jesus is both the Son of God and the Son of David, fully human and divine. As a human being, He was specifically Jewish; as God, He was perfect God.
When analyzing the genealogies of Jesus, several important factors become apparent, primarily highlighting the boundless extent of God's love. These lineages illustrate that Jesus's love was sufficient for Him to be the Messiah for all people, not exclusively for the Jewish nation.
This is evidenced in the Gospel accounts:
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Matthew's record includes non-Jewish individuals in Jesus's family tree, such as Ruth, a Moabite, and Rahab, who sheltered the spies in Jericho.
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Luke's genealogy traces Jesus's ancestry back beyond Abraham, the progenitor of the Jewish people, all the way to Adam, underscoring that Jesus is the promised Savior for the entire human race.
Thus, these extensive lists of names demonstrate that God's love transcends the boundaries of the Jewish race and that Jesus is the universal Savior - "the light to the Gentiles" - fulfilling God's promise to Abraham in Genesis 18:18: " Through you shall all the nations of the world be blessed."
This message echoes the words of Saint Paul in Ephesians 2:11-13: "Therefore remember that formerly you who are Gentiles by birth were separated from Christ, excluded from citizenship in Israel and foreigners to the covenants of the promise, without hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who were once far away have been brought near."
Furthermore, unlike typical Jewish genealogies of the era, Jesus's ancestry notably includes women. This inclusion further shows that God's love extends to all races and to both men and women, reinforcing the declaration in Galatians 3:28: "There is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
But that is not at all what these lists show us. When it comes to the extent of God's love in Jesus' family tree, we find several tarnished malefactors. Abraham lied more than once for his own safety. His grandson Jacob said and did many depraved dealings in his life. Jacob's son Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah, two boys who were the consequence of an unhealthy relationship between him and his daughter-in-law, Tamar. Judah also conspired with his brothers to sell Joseph into slavery.
David and Bathsheba, parents of King Solomon, involved in infidelity and David conspired for a murder. Rahab was a prostitute. Manasseh makes the list even though this wicked king sacrificed his own son in the fire to Baal and consulted mediums and spirit-invokers. His son Amon is also on the list, even though he rejected God. And so reads the list of Jesus' not-so-great grandparents.
The amazing truth is that Jesus's lineage is not a list of perfect people; rather, it is a family tree filled with sinners and broken lives, which tells us that even before he was born, Jesus had a special kinship with sinners. This proves that Jesus, as he repeatedly said, came not just for good or just people, but for sinful people. Therefore, these genealogies are texts we should not skip over, because if we did, we would miss a powerful verification of St. John, For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish, but have eternal life. (John 3:16).
This list of names, consisting of all races, men and women, saints and sinners shows us that conviction of St. John that "God so loved the world" is true. God really did love the whole world, so he sent his Son. This means that Jesus is ready to be our Savior, if we will let him. We know that Jesus's origin is not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but from God the Most High.
Through baptism, the source of our physical lineage is no longer rooted in our flawed human past. Instead,
we can establish a connection to a new, pure, and divine source of inherited life through faith in Christ.
Our human ancestry, which may be marked by shortcomings, is transcended through repentance and God's forgiveness, allowing us to enter a new spiritual genealogy with a new ancestor, Jesus Christ. Jesus instructed us to "drink of it all of you, for this is my blood" (referencing Matthew 26:27-28), and through the Holy Eucharist, His blood, symbolically flowing in our being, grants us this new ancestry, heritage, and sense of belonging.
This faith in Christ bestows upon us a new divine lineage, enabling us to become godly individuals, filled with the Holy Spirit, and incorporated into God's family as His adopted sons and daughters, and as brothers and sisters in Christ. As Jesus Himself said, "whoever does the will of God is my brother and my sister and my mother" (referencing Mark 3:35), signifying that the spiritual family of Jesus expands through those who follow God's will. May God bless us all.
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