You are to Name Him Jesus,
because He will Save His People from their Sins"

Today's Mass Readings

We may wonder why today’s gospel reading had to be the lengthy and boring genealogy of Jesus. For that matter, why does Matthew begin his gospel with the genealogy of Jesus? Matthew’s immediate reason was perhaps that there were many doubts surrounding the legitimacy of Jesus. Since he was born of the Holy Spirit people who opposed to Jesus questioned his divine claims. Matthew intended to clear Jesus’ name. The theological meaning of the genealogy, however, shows us how the prophecy of Isaiah regarding “Emmanuel” would be fulfilled. The angel Gabriel too, in his announcement of the conception of Jesus to Mary called him “Emmanuel”, God with us! Jesus’ human family tree has all kinds of people in it. There are holy ones like Abraham, Ruth (Book of Ruth) and David and there are great sinners like David, Tamar (Gen 38:1-30) and Bathsheba (2 Sam 11:1-7). The genealogy is meant to impress upon us that Jesus embraced all of humanity so that all of humanity, the good and the bad, may have access to all of God’s divinity.

having been embraced by God, we become part of God’s own life and activity. If today God is ‘Emmanuel’, ‘God with us’, it is in and through us. The story that we heard at the beginning tells us that God works so much and so powerfully through ordinary human beings. Not recognizing God’s activity in our ordinary human life and activity is totally missing the point of Christmas. In our embracing and in our being embraced God’s incarnation takes place again. Specially, when our embrace breaks social, economic, racial and religious barriers, when our embrace mends relationships, when our embrace brings love and compassion to someone in need, there is Christ born in a new way.

May our embrace with God lead us to share the fullness of God's life and the life of those who we are called to love.

I wish all of you a blessed and peace-filled Christmas.

- Fr. Satish Joseph