The Book of the Genealogy of Jesus Christ

St. Bernard Prep, Wednesday Homily - Nativity of the Virgin Mary

Romans 8:28-30; Psalm 13:6ab, 6c; Matthew 1:1-16, 18-23

Nativity of BVM

Whew! That is a lot of names. And if you were in my scripture class I’m guessing that you could tell us quite a bit about many of those people in the list. And it is quite a list. You have Patriarchs, and prophets, prostitutes and kings, you have heroes and villains, you have saints and sinners. It’s quite a collection.

But isn’t this just a bit scandalous? Shouldn’t we be a little bit ashamed to talk about Jesus being descended from some of these people? And heck wouldn’t it be much better to just remove the “PEOPLE” all together … Jesus is the Son of God and let’s just leave it at that?

Sure it might be easier. It might make us a little more comfortable. It might make us look a little better. But we would loose something. Something really important. Something that this feast of the birth of Mary brings to the forefront … front and center.

In the beginning humanity, man and woman, together. They messed up. They didn’t just mess things up this was an EPIC FAIL if there ever was one. They broke their good relationship with God, by disobedience, lying, blaming, stealing, covering up, and in so many other ways. They lowered themselves. They sinned.

But God wasn’t about to leave them there. On the ground. Covered in leaves and dirt and all alone. In fact as many of you already know … that’s the whole point of the Bible. The Bible is the story of God’s love for us … for all of us. It is the story of all of the things that God did to bring us back to where we were meant to be from the beginning.

And in a single list of names … we have just covered the span of centuries. In Luke’s Gospel we begin with Adam and Eve in the Garden. But here in Matthew, it’s enough to start with Abraham and the creation of a covenant, a promise, between God and us. The promise – YOU ARE MINE, all mine and I’m never going to let anyone take you away from me! And David the king …this is how it’s going to happen. I will raise up one like you, like all of you, a human being from lowest to the greatest. One like you who has had a good history and a bad history. One just like you in every way except one. Except one. This one will be God and human, He will be sinless. This one will be perfect and have the power to do what you could not do on your own. This one can fix it all. But he will be like you – so that where you and your first parents messed up … He will fix it. He will not mess up.

And Mary … I will make her special too. She will be born, and set apart. She will have the freedom to choose. To choose to be part of this great plan to save us all. She will be the mother and she will be like the Church … She will provide for the Christ, Jesus, and he will set us free.

So these names are really really important. They are our names. Our history. Our people. And they remind us of the good times and the bad times. And they lead us to Christ. They show us that no matter how bad it can get … we can CHOOSE to return to Christ. To seek forgiveness for our sins. To become a person that other people want to be around and for all the right reasons.