Gn 49:2, 8-10 / Mt 1:1-17
Today’s Gospel does seem to be a rather strange package to be dropped on us just a few days before Christmas — all those strange names, most of which we don’t even recognize. But the Church has a purpose in asking us to listen once every year to the genealogy of Jesus according to the flesh. And that purpose comes clear when we examine the list more closely. There are kings there, the wise King Solomon and the hero King David, his father. There’s Abraham, the ultimate man of faith and father of the Jewish people. There are people like the holy woman Ruth. But there are also rascals aplenty and “horse thieves” as well, none worse than the adulterer and murderer King David.
What does all it mean? It means that God can bring good out of the worst of circumstances and the most rotten of human prospects. God can bring life out of what appears to be dead. That’s what the Lord wants us to hear and take to heart as we listen to this long, boring genealogy: Whether we are facing some incomprehensible evil or suffering, or are confronting our own intractable sins, we need to know and to be absolutely certain that God can turn evil into good, if we trust Him and cooperate with Him.
Don’t let your impatience or the shallowness of your trust get in the way. Let God be God for you, and make yourself available for the great and good work that He wants to work through you.
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