Dec 17: Jesus: The New Moses and the New David for All

Harmoniae Evangelicae Libri Quator: Genealogy

Friday of the Third Week in Advent
Gospel: Mt 1:1-17

So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations (NRSV, Mt 1:17).

Lord God, your evangelist, the author of Matthew, opens his gospel by tracing Jesus’ origins, through Joseph, back to David and Abraham. For Matthew, Jesus is the fulfillment of the Hebrew people, the new Moses and the new David. But if Jesus’ ancestry is secure in its Hebrew roots, his mission is universal. At his birth, according to Matthew, there is no mention of a welcome from his own, only Herod’s effort to put him to death by the slaughter of all the male infants of Bethlehem. It is rather the wise men from afar, the others, who come to adore the newborn messiah king. If Jesus, from the opening of Matthew, is king in the line of David, but king open to the others, the gospel ends with Jesus, the new Moses, speaking from the holy mountain, commissioning his eleven disciples to go out and preach the gospel to the ends of the earth, baptizing in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Father, the fullness of your revelation, spoken to every one of us but often difficult for us to grasp, is incarnate in the person of your only begotten Son, Jesus the Christ. It is Jesus who finally makes sense for us of what had gone before. But just as Jesus sheds light on everything leading up to him, we can come to a better understanding, Lord, of who Jesus is by steeping ourselves in the account of the events that are fulfilled in him. Jesus clarifies the history that preceded him but that same history in turn illumines the reality of Jesus.

Father, if we are to be faithful to you and come to a greater understanding of the revelation given to each of us, help us to be true to our spiritual roots, nurturing ourselves in the history of the Hebrew people. May we be especially attentive to the great prophets who challenged your people then and still challenge us today. May we learn from those who interpreted your law and from the writers of the psalms. Strengthened by this understanding, may we live out our faith in you, Father, and in our Lord Jesus Christ, in such a way as to mediate your saving life and love to all peoples.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.