Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent

In the Gospel of St. John, Pilate, in the midst of fear continues his interrogation of Jesus, and asks, “Where are you from?” (John 19:9). Pilate wanted to know which kingdom He had come from; whose King was He? In this moment, the Divinity of Christ shines forth. On the other hand, Advent reminds us again and again that our Lord is both fully human and fully divine. The Gospel reading today gives us the genealogy of Christ where Jesus is from, in a sense. And this particular Gospel can be overlooked. It feels repetitious, even boring. Yet, there are some gems in here that are worth pondering. These little insights can help us understand the plan of God, and the full humanity of Jesus.

In the course of the genealogy five women are named: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah, and the Virgin Mary. The first four women were all embroiled in some kind of scandal. For example, Tamar was Perez’s mother and sister-in-law. (Check out that story in Genesis 38.) This shows us that Jesus can and will take on the sins of the world. More importantly though, none of these four women were Jewish. This gives us a clue that the mission of Jesus is universal in scope, He came for both gentiles and Jews. Our last clue is found in the Virgin Mary. While we have been following this genealogy through the patriarchal line, it switches with Mary. “Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary. Of her was born Jesus who is called the Messiah.”

It is clear that Jesus belongs by law to the house of David, but he comes from elsewhere, from God Himself. In Mary, something new is taking place, human existence starts afresh and is pointed towards freedom, towards salvation.