Matt 1:1-2:18 Gen 35:19-20; Jeremiah 31:15-16; Isaiah 7:14; Hosea 11:1; Micah 5:2
This series has mostly concentrated upon Luke’s account of the Nativity, which we have seen is intertwined with the birth of His cousin John the Baptist. Matthew, however, adds details to the story which are very important. Unlike Luke, who leaves Jesus’ genealogy until just before he begins to recount Jesus’ adult ministry, Matthew starts immediately with it (Matt 1:1-17), recalling the many genealogies of the Old Testament. By doing this, he sets the pattern for his entire gospel, in which teachings and stories of Jesus are consistently seen as fulfilling the Scriptures.
Like Luke, from the very beginning he shows the exceptional nature of Jesus the Christ, ending his genealogy by carefully calling Joseph the “husband of Mary, from whom was born the Christ”—so he indicates even in the genealogy that Joseph is the adopting father of Jesus, not his natural one. Moreover, Joseph’s own genealogy, which would have been formally attributed to Jesus (though He was not a natural son), is shaped carefully to show the prominence of David: 14 generations from Abraham to David, 14 generations from David to the exile, 14 generations from the deportation to the birth of the second, true David, “the Christ.” Some scholars think that the number fourteen is significant since in Hebrew numbers, once converted to letters, it spells out “David.” At any rate, Matthew’s point is clear—the hope of the world, promised to Abraham, glimpsed in David, and lost in the exile, has now finally come. (For a more detailed description of the genealogy, and its intriguing emphasis on women, see my book Mediation and the Immediate God).
After we are introduced to the story by the genealogy, the evangelist’s account unfolds in four sections. First we have the visitation of Joseph by the angel in a dream (1:18-25), then the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem while the wise men travel to Herod and then to Jesus (2:1-12), next the flight to Egypt (2:13-15), and finally the martyrdom of the innocents (2:16-18). Each of these sections is adorned (or rather, verified) with a prophecy from the Old Testament—from Isaiah, Micah, Hosea, and Jeremiah.
While Luke’s gospel concentrates on Gabriel’s message to the Theotokos, Matthew shows us Joseph’s side of the story—his righteousness, his concern over his betrothed’s pregnancy, and the divine comfort he receives about the situation. As the story is told, we again hear about the importance of David, recalling God’s promises to that king. The angel, whom Joseph hears speaking in a dream, says: “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” Whereas the solemn words of Zachariah, the Theotokos, and Symeon in Luke’s gospel speak of the liberating power of this child, Matthew’s angel underscores Israel (God’s people) and their sin. This announcement is followed by words from Isaiah 7:14:
Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall call his name Immanuel (which means, God with us).
Though Matthew clearly has Jewish readers in his mind, he does not adopt the common Jewish wording of the prophecy, which speaks generally of a “young woman,” Rather, the evangelist quotes the Greek Old Testament, which clearly uses the word parthenos (“virgin”) in order to establish this marvelous birth. Then name is added upon name, as the “Jesus” who will forgive sins is now identified as “Immanuel,” whom Matthew translates for the reader who does not know Hebrew as “God with Us.” His gospel, then, is for Jewish people, as we have heard in the name Jesus, but for Gentiles as well who do not even know Hebrew. God is with the whole human race in this Child. Joseph, and through him, we readers, know something about the Child that others in the story do not yet know.
And for today’s reader there is one more thing to say. Frequently we hear critics of the ancient Church use Matthew’s phrase in order to “disprove” the Church’s teaching on Mary’s ever-virginity: “Joseph took his wife, but knew her not until she had given birth to a son.” To them, it implies that AFTER she gave birth, he must have “taken” her properly as a wife, in the way common to husbands. However, the grammar does not say that. Matthew’s purpose is to make sure that we understand that the baby conceived is NOT the child of Joseph—there were no intimacies between the couple right up to the point of (“until”) His birth, so we can be sure of that. Whether or not that lack of intimacy persisted beyond the birth is not important to Matthew at this point. Indeed, there are other examples in the Scripture where the Greek word for “until” “(prin) is used to say that something happens or does not happen right up to a certain point. But afterwards, sometimes that same state of affairs continues in these examples. For example, in 2 Samuel 6:23, we hear that Michal remained childless “until” her death, but it is evident that she did not have children after she died. Matthew is ensuring that we understand Jesus’ miraculous conception, nothing more or less. But Joseph is well aware, through his dream and the angel’s words, of the momentous nature of this event. It is psychologically sound that he would never take liberties with the one who had become the mother of God through synergy with the Holy Spirit. We must go to long-standing tradition to hear the ever-virginity of the Theotokos expounded.
Next in Matthew’s gospel, the magi come to King Herod, seeking to find the child whose sign is a star, so that they can bow down before him. The word used to bow down means literally “to come forward to kiss,” or to “prostrate” oneself, and has various uses in ancient Greek. It can mean simply to “pay homage to” but it can also mean “to worship.” It is too bad that we do not have a modern English word that can be this supple: perhaps we can imagine the magi intending to “pay homage” by their use of the word, falling down in the extravagant ancient manner before a monarch; but we, the readers, know even more than these men who this Child really is, and that He is worthy of all worship! That is their intent, but they need to get to him in Bethlehem first, and so they inquire of the local political ruler, Herod, who in turn asks about this emerging new king from his scribes and theologians. To him they quote Micah 5:2, about the significance of Bethlehem:
And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah,
for from you shall come a ruler
who will shepherd my people Israel.
With this ancient prophecy, the evangelist points out a major theme in our gospel—that what appears to be humble, and least of all, can be the greatest—a ruler who will be the good shepherd. Again, Micah’s words are specifically for Israel, and should serve as a warning to Herod, who is instead incensed, and plans to kill this usurping child. Instead, the magi complete their mission, led by the star, honor the Messiah, and are alerted by God in their dreams not to return to Herod and his murderous designs.
Matthew’s story is full of dreams, wonders, and angels. This continues as the holy family flees to Egypt, warned to evade Herod by the word of God, so that they leave the Holy Land for some time. The escape is a serious matter, for it takes place at night, and they do not return until the angel of the LORD reappears to tell them that the coast is clear. Their sojourn in Egypt recapitulated the descent of Jacob’s family to that land, from which they are ultimately called when Moses meets God at the burning bush. Matthew reminds us of this national trek from Gentile territory to what would become the Holy Land by quoting the prophet Hosea, 11:1, “This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.” Unsympathetic contemporary scholars have sometimes accused the evangelist of proof-texting, that is, artificially creating a prophecy about Jesus from Hosea’s recollection of the Hebrews in Egypt. They fail to see that the whole of Jesus’ life is a redoing of the corporate life of Israel. Jesus is the true Adam and the true Israel, who does not fail in the garden, who is called out of Egypt, who passes through the water (his baptism like the Red Sea), who remains in the desert for 40 days (echoing 40 nights), and so on. So then, Matthew is not picking and choosing among random texts in order to give evidence for his gospel, but rather he frames his story with quotations that show us how Jesus is again treading the steps of God’s own people, in order to be a light to the whole world.
Finally, there is the dreadful conclusion to Matthew’s infancy account:
Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
“A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation–
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more.”
This passage casts a shadow on the hopeful events that we have been reading, reminding us that there are dark forces at work in our world, and were even at the time of Jesus forces determined to stop God’s rescue of humanity, from its very beginning. Rachel, the wife of Jacob, was buried near Ramah (Gen 35:19-20) while giving birth to Benjamin, and so the place is a sign of mourning in itself—no doubt the young mother mourned to think that she would never raise her son. But the prophet Jeremiah 31:15 used the sorrowful image of Ramah to describe the deportation of Jacob’s ancestors to exile, and thought of Rachel weeping for the loss of these many descendants. The plight of God’s people—still captive under a Gentile nation—is recalled, then, by Matthew, who sees the puppet-king Herod inflicting unspeakable horrors on the youngest of the Jewish people. They are collateral damage in his search to murder the Messiah, but they also recall the murder of the babies in Egypt, when Moses was rescued. Jesus’ time, too, has not yet come, but those who know His story will flash forward and think: if the powers-that-be will do this to try to stop God, then it is no wonder that Jesus’ greatest sacrifice is seen in the crucifixion. And, after all, this is not the end of the story. Jeremiah continues his story of Rachel’s lamentation by having God respond in verse 16 this way:
Thus says the LORD:
“Keep your voice from weeping,
and your eyes from tears,
for there is a reward for your work,
declares the LORD,
and they shall come back from the land of the enemy.”
“There is hope for your future,”
declares the LORD,
“and your children shall come back to their own country.”
And so it happens. The Theotokos and Joseph bring Jesus back to their own country, though they go to the north rather than returning to Bethlehem. So it is that the voice of Jesus is first heard in Galilee rather than in Judah, and His message is given to the whole of the Jewish people, not just those gathered around the Temple. “There is a hope for their future,” as the LORD declared, as well as for the future of the entire world.
Of the four gospels we have, Matthew is the one who buttresses every event, every teaching, every scene, with explicit quotations from the Old Testament. In so doing, he teaches us that we need the lamp of the Old Testament to properly understand the New, just as the new covenant is necessary to interpret what happened in the old. This entire library from God, from Genesis to Revelation, hangs together, focusing our eyes on the God-Man, whose nativity is so poignantly told by Luke, and so powerfully expressed by Matthew. These things happened, he reminds us, “that the Scripture might be fulfilled.”
This concludes our mini-series on the Nativity stories in Luke and Matthew. In two weeks’ time, Great Lent will be upon us, and I will offer three blogs on the prophet Isaiah, using especially the readings that are prescribed for us during the weekdays of this special season of preparation.
Edith M. Humphrey 