Fourth Sunday of Advent Yr A 2025

Title

By the Holy Spirit from David’s Line

Outline

Matthew get’s Jewish culture right

While the gospel is not signed and while we do not know if we are reading Matthew’s diction or that of a scribe, it is clear that our author knows Judaism well. That is why he could say with an honest face with Paul that “the gospel [is] about [God’s] Son, descended from David according to the flesh, but established as Son of God in power according to the spirit of holiness through resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord.” Church history is littered with sects that got one side but denied the other, partly because they did not understand either God or Judaism.

We read about “according to the flesh”

In the first part of Matthew ch 1 we get a genealogy of the official Davidic line in three parts: Abraham to David (14 generations), David to the exile [14 generations], and the exile to Joseph [14 generations], because David’s name, dwd, is the number 14. Now this is not Joseph’s literal genealogy, which we find in Luke, but his official genealogy.

Now we note 5 female irregularities in the geneaology: two Canaanite and one Moabite women, one woman who was a Hittite by marriage. And then Mary, whose close relative was a Levite, an Aaronite. That sets up the tension.

The tension is righteousness versus irregularity

Mary is married to Joseph, so a contract has been signed but Joseph has not come up with the moher, his payment for his bride. Legally they are married, but if he is allowed to visit her it is under supervision.

But Mary is pregnant. We know it is the Holy Spirit, but who would have believed that story then? Joseph does not believe that story, if he knew it, so he knows that to be righteous he must as a minimum divorce her quietly. He could have shamed her, but he has apparently picked up God’s love as well as his justice.

The solution takes a revelation

Joseph and Mary do not talk, but Joseph gets one 3 or 4 recorded dreams of his. It recognizes who he is: “Joseph, son of David.” It recognizes who Mary is: “Mary your wife.” The angel, that is God, instructs him in the proper action: “take your wife into your home.” And then he gets a brief explanation about why this is righteous: “it is through the Holy Spirit that this child has been conceived in her.” This is God’s action not porneia.

Furthermore, Joseph is to be the child’s father: “she [your wife] will bear a son and you are to name him Jesus.” A reason is given, but the key act is his naming Jesus thereby recognizing him as his son.

Matthew goes on to explain how this fills fuller the prophet’s word in the Hebrew Scriptures, but the action point is what Joseph unhesitatingly does: “he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took his wife into his home.” We are never told what Mary’s folk thought about this.

What is fascinating is how God has worked it all out

He took a woman whose genealogy we do not know and a man who was probably only vaguely aware of his genealogy, but they had one qualification: they were righteous, if in different ways.

He acts through the Holy Spirit to incarnate the Son in Mary so we get Trinitarian love incarnated, but only the barest outlines are given to the actors, for how could they understand?

The critical thing is that Mary has conceived (Luke tells us she did say, Yes) and Joseph has received [Mary] and both have responded to an angel with simple obedience, even at the cost of their reputations.

And that is how we are to live and act is we are to be children of the Child, that is, children of Christmas.