Friday of the Second
Week of Christmas
(I John 5:5-13; Luke 3:23-38)
Today’s gospel presents the Lucan version of Jesus’ genealogy. We should not be too surprised to hear that
it differs in many respects from the more familiar version in St. Matthew. For one thing, it starts with Jesus and goes
backwards all the way to Adam. Matthew’s
genealogy works the other way around beginning with Abraham and proceeding down
to Jesus. As expected then, Luke’s version is longer. It names seventy-six generations where
Matthew’s has only forty-two.
A striking difference between the genealogies comes in
the listing between David and Joseph. Matthew
follows the line of kings where Luke uses a more obscure route to Joseph. Some theologians have postulated that Luke actually
records the genealogy through Mary with Heli being the father-in-law of Joseph. However, this harmonizing theory presumes
that the genealogies are to be understood as having historical accuracy.
As in the case of the infancy narratives, we should pay
more attention to the similarities than to the differences. They both claim that Jesus is a Jew, a descendant
of Abraham. They both indicate that he
was of Davidic lineage with a claim on Jewish royalty. And they both show that he was the adopted,
not the physical, son of Joseph. We believe
in Jesus because of the apostles’ testimony that his death and resurrection
unleashed a bounty of graces. Nothing of
his origins or his life conflicts with this assertion. Indeed, all we know
about him falls quite in line to what the apostles testified.
