King, Prophet, Priest – Sunday before the Nativity

Brethren, by faith Abraham sojourned in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, living in tents with Isaac and Jacob, heirs with him of the same promise. For he looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, of David and Samuel and the prophets—who through faith conquered kingdoms, enforced justice, received promises, stopped the mouths of lions, quenched raging fire, escaped the edge of the sword, won strength out of weakness, became mighty in war, and put foreign armies to flight. Women received their dead by resurrection. Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and scourging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword; they went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, ill-treated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering over deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect. Hebrews 11:9-10, 32-40 The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asa, and Asa the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amon, and Amon the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Shealtiel, and Shealtiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, Who is called Christ. So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ were fourteen generations. Now the birth of Jesus Christ took place in this way. When His mother Mary had been betrothed to Joseph, before they came together she was found to be with child of the Holy Spirit; and her husband Joseph, being a just man and unwilling to put her to shame, resolved to divorce her quietly. But as he considered this, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, “Joseph, son of David, do not fear to take Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit; she will bear a son, and you shall call His Name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfil what the Lord had spoken by the prophet: “Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and His Name shall be called Emmanuel” (which means, God with us). When Joseph woke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him; he took his wife, but knew her not until she had borne a son; and he called His Name Jesus. Matthew 1:1-25

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.

The Church, in her great love for us, that we may enter more fully into the Great Feast before us, gives us this famous Gospel reading on the Sunday before the Nativity according to the flesh of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. It has become a sign-post for us entering into the feast, but like a sign-post beside a familiar road it can be easy for us to overlook and continue on using auto-pilot. Let us enter, with eyes renewed by the Holy Spirit, into the great mystery set before us.

We hear from King Solomon that “there is nothing new under the sun,”¹ which has been true for most of human history. The book of Genesis records for us our history, that God loves us and creates us in his image and after his likeness² yet we reject our calling by believing we can do it alone. Man believes he can partake of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil³ not as a glorification of God but for his own gain. And this sinful descent from God’s likeness continues, brother kills brother, created beings are worshipped rather than the Creator and man exploits whomever or whatever he can.

Are you, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, part of the sinful descent away from God? Am I? Do we exploit our neighbours, our families, our friends? Do we worship – with our time, our money, our attention – something else before God? Perhaps the chase of money, long life, television, football, shopping or possessions? Were someone to open our hearts would God be found there? “There is nothing new under the sun.”

Yet not all are bound to this descent: some have rejected this, have turned around and lifted their eyes, in the language of the Psalmist, to the mountain, from where help shall come.⁴ They have forsaken family and security to live as sojourners; Abraham was such a man. He placed the love of God above all else and trusted in the Lord’s mercy. And in return he blessed Abraham:

I will make you a great nation; I will bless you and make your name great; and you shall be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you, and curse those who curse you; and in you all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.5

And the great Paul, the Apostle to the Nations, takes up this theme, “Now to Abraham and his Seed,” who is Christ, “were the promises made.”⁶ The promises to Abraham, fulfilled in Christ, are made available to us,

For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.7

So it was necessary for Christ to be descended from Abraham and it is to this reality which the Evangelist Matthew draws us to begin his Gospel account.

Are we, in our days, aware of the promise which we have inherited? Do we learn from the fidelity of the patriarch Abraham and practise it in our lives? Do we read his life? Or the lives of the great cloud of witnesses,⁸ the saints, who have shown faith? Are we faithful heirs according to the promise?

“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” There is now in this moment, against the words of King Solomon, something new under the sun. Until this moment, until the coming of God into this world, man has been able to look up to the mountain for his help but has not been able to climb. Christ has come down that we may journey with him back up to the Father. “And do not consider this genealogy a small thing to hear,” St John Chrysostom tells to us,

For truly it is a marvellous thing that God should descend to be born of a woman, and to have as His ancestors David and Abraham. But why would it not have been enough to name one of them, David alone, or Abraham alone? Because the promise had been made to both of Christ to be born of their seed. To Abraham, “And in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” [Gen. 22:18] To David, “Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy seat.” [Ps. 131:11] He therefore calls Christ the Son of both, to shew that in Him was fulfilled the promise to both. Also because Christ was to have three dignities; King, Prophet, Priest; but Abraham was prophet and priest; priest, as God says to him in Genesis, "Take an heifer;" [Gen. 15:9] Prophet, as the Lord said to Abimelech concerning him, "He is a prophet, and shall pray for thee." [Gen. 20:7] David was king and prophet, but not priest. Thus He is expressly called the son of both, that the threefold dignity of His forefathers might be recognised by hereditary right in Christ.9

The three-fold ministry of Christ – King, Prophet, Priest – is the means by which Christ will ascend and we too, dear brothers and sisters “who have put on Christ,” have this same ministry. We too must take up this calling, we too must make use of the gifts entrusted to us. Christ says, elsewhere in Scripture, “Peace I leave with you, My peace I give to you; not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.”¹⁰ Not as the world gives, not as the world understands: in the same way the three-fold ministry – as King, as Prophet, as Priest – of Christ, our ministry, is not as the world understands. Christ is King, yet his kingship is as servant, Christ is prophet, yet delivers not simply the word of God but is in his person God’s Word, Christ is priest, yet what he offers in sacrifice is himself.

These, my brothers and sisters, are our ministries too. We are “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, His own special people,”¹¹ called to serve, called to bring all to the Word of God, called to sacrifice.

The Evangelist, after his introduction, gives the lineage of Christ in three sections of fourteen,

to indicate that not even when their form of government was changed did they become better, but alike under an aristocracy, and under a king, and under an oligarchy, they were in the same evil ways, and whether popular leaders, or priests, or kings controlled them, it was no advantage to them in the way of virtue.12

And we are brought then to Joseph the father, according to the Law, of Christ who emulated his espoused wife in righteousness before the Lord. He, unlike the shepherds with an angelic host or the wise men with a star, could hear the voice of the angel in a dream rather than an outward manifestation: he could hear God in “the sound of a gentle breeze,”¹³ because he showed mercy above all else.

Are we, my brothers and sisters, merciful? Do we pay attention to the call of the Lord? Can we, like the righteous Joseph, open our hearts to hear the soft, gentle word of God? Are we able to see the power of God not only in great miracles and wonders but in the small and everyday?

St Joseph heard the word of God and acted upon it, “he did as the angel of the Lord had commanded him,” and named the child Jesus: the Lord descended to the cave. He came down that we may ascend with him to the Father. “For He was made man,” says St Athanasius the Great, “that we might be made God; and He manifested Himself by a body that we might receive the idea of the unseen Father; and He endured the insolence of men that we might inherit immortality.”¹⁴ Christ descends to earth that we may be lifted up¹⁵ with him: lifted up to heaven by our ministries – our kingship, our prophethood, our priesthood – which are realised through service, word, sacrifice. Ours is to take up our cross,¹⁶ and offer what we have, our talents, to the Lord: to be co-crucified¹⁷ along with him that we may co-rise with him. We offer to Christ, to the Church, all our talents – our time, our praise, our money, our attention – but primarily and essentially our prayer. We offer what we have, in our meekness, and Christ offers to us immortality!

What a glorious exchange! In the Liturgy on every Sunday and on every feast we can bring our weak selves, come before the Lord and he gives us freely, through his precious Body and Blood, strength and power: that we “may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that [we] may be filled with all the fullness of God.”¹⁸

“Christ is born, glorify Him.” Says St Gregory the Theologian, “Christ from heaven, go out to meet Him.”¹⁹ Go out, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, to meet him. Meet him in the divine services, meet him in the Eucharist: meet him also in our neighbours, our families, in our friends, meet him in the poor, the homeless, the oppressed. Meet him in our ministries of service, of word and of priesthood. Meet him in our offerings, in our prayers and in our praise: may the Lord open our eyes to this great mystery. Let the faith of Abraham, the repentance of David and the righteousness of Joseph be our models and guides that we may meet Christ and ascend to heaven with him.

To whom we give glory and to whom belongs all honour and power,²⁰ with his unoriginate Father and the all-holy, good and life-giving Spirit, Amen.

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¹ Eccles. 1:9.
² Gen. 1:26.
³ Gen. 3:6.
⁴ See Ps. 120 (121).
⁵ Gen. 12:2-3.
⁶ Gal. 3:16.
⁷ Gal. 3:27-29.
⁸ Heb. 12:1.
⁹ St John Chrysostom, in Catena Aurea, I.
¹⁰ John 14:27.
¹¹ 1 Pet. 2:9.
¹² St John Chrysostom, Homilies on Matthew, IV.
¹³ See 3 Kg. 19:12.
¹⁴ St Athanasius, On the Incarnation, LIV 3.
¹⁵ See John 12:32.
¹⁶ See Matt. 16:24, Mark 8:34, Luke 9:23. Luke’s account says “take up [our] cross daily.”
¹⁷ See Gal. 2:20.
¹⁸ Eph. 3:18-19.
¹⁹ St Gregory the Theologian, On the Theophany, Oration XXXVIII.
²⁰ Rev. 4:11.