Father Christopher Zugger

On the Sunday before Christmas, the Byzantine Rite presents the genealogy of Jesus according to Saint Matthew. This is given in the Roman Rite on December 17. The genealogy places Jesus in time, as a descendant of Abraham and King David, through his legal father Saint Joseph, and of course as a Man through his mother Mary. But Matthew puts four women into the listing of names, the only time it happens in the whole Bible. And these four are very unusual ancestors! Tamar: a Gentile widow who disguised herself as a prostitute and seduced her father-in-law. Rahab: a Canaanite prostitute of Jericho, who hid the spies of Joshua and so saved her family. Ruth: A woman from Moab— the nation condemned as having been born of incest, and so the worst foreigner of all. Bathsheba: the Jewish wife of King David’s loyal officer Uriah; Solomon was born out of the adultery she and David committed. Not exactly who you would want to emphasize in your family tree! For that matter, David of course we just saw was an adulterer; Abraham lied about his wife Sarah; and Isaac and Jacob aren’t great saints either. No family is made of perfect people, even the legal ancestors of our savior Himself!

Matthew’s gospel readers could take comfort that Jesus does not hide His human relatives, or create a legend so that they all look terrific. These four unusual pregnancies from those four women all are used by God to bring about our salvation, and to show that EVERYONE has a place in God’s plan, no matter what their ethnic or racial origin, no matter their gender, their social status, their wealth or poverty. Compared to the scandal of those four pregnancies, the virginal conception of Jesus in Mary’s womb through the power of the Holy Spirit looks positively normal!

God’s grace conquers all difficulties. God’s mercy fixes all problems. God’s love provides a way for everyone to find their way home. In these last days of preparation for Christmas, let’s focus on what truly is important: where I and Jesus are going together! It is so easy to think that everything should be perfect, flawless, special. But God chose to come into the world through a family line that was messy, even shameful. The centuries of longing for the Messiah are fulfilled in Joseph’s family tree in ways that were unusual in the eyes of “holy people” === but as Jesus repeated over and over, He did not come for the self-righteous, but for us. The ordinary, sinful, broken folks who lose their way, but who bravely pick themselves up and get back onto the right road again. May we open up our hearts to the love, mercy, and grace of the Holy Child, and may we really and truly understand this year that God hungers for each of us, and hungers for those we bring to Him. Nobody is perfect except God Himself. No family feast is going to be “just right.” No celebration is flawless. God is perfect, flawless, and always right. I never will be 100% right, or perfect, or flawless. But in His eyes, I am what He wants: a sinful servant who wants to be saved. May the Holy Child bring us many blessings, may He bring us healing, may He bring us awareness of how loved we are, may He fill us with divine peace and give us rest in His own unique Heart. Merry Christmas.