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Matthew 1.1 - 2.23 ‘David, David, David’


This sermon was first preached at the 11:00 service on Wednesday 16 October 2002.

Introduction

The title refers to the first two chapters of the book of Matthew, and is concerned with the life of Jesus before John the Baptist declared his message of repentance.

When I speak of the evangelist ‘writing things’ or ‘having things in mind’ when he wrote things, I do not mean that he (or she) wrote it completely on their own, with no external help at all.  I believe that when the evangelists wrote the gospels and their letters and the Old Testament writers wrote their books, they did so in the Holy Spirit and as such God inspired them to write the things they did by ‘making them think of things’.  I do not believe that God literally dictated their writings to them (although in certain places he did.. on Mount Sinai for example).  God inspires people by making them ‘know’ things, or see things they didn’t see before.  This is how I believe divine inspiration and revelation worked then and how it works now.  By his grace God reveals himself to us in many ways, but always with the same aim: to tell us something new about himself.  I pray that in writing this essay I will learn something new about him, and that people reading this might learn something new about him as well. 

The gospels were written with the purpose of telling people who Jesus is.  They are directed at both Christians and non-Christians.  They were written so that people who do not know anything about Jesus might come to know who he is, and they were written so that people who know who Jesus is might learn something new about him.  What is contained within the gospels must be read within this context - at no point do they claim to be historically accurate in the sense that we now understand historical accuracy.  The writers were concerning with telling the truth about Jesus; that he was the Son of God, the Son of Man, that he came to die, be fully resurrected and save us from our sins.

The Two Parallels

If one studies the first two chapters of Matthew, it is clear that the evangelist had two things in mind.  The first was to show that Jesus is the completion of Israel’s history - he is the culmination of all that had gone on before.  Also he wove the entire story of Jesus’ life into the first two chapters, so that there are striking similarities between the birth of Jesus and the rest of his life, especially the Passion.

The First Parallel - Jesus and the History of Israel

For Jews, genealogies were a huge part of their identity.  The definition of being a Jew was based on family, and indeed it still is today.  Unlike in Christianity, you can be a Jew without believing in God, if you are born into a Jewish family.  For a long time outsiders couldn’t become Jews, but the book of Ruth teaches us that if someone wholeheartedly accepts and lives out the Law, they can become one of God’s children.  So it is not unusual that Matthew should start his gospel with the genealogy of Jesus, because he is trying to tell us who Jesus is.  The evangelist establishes that Jesus is the son of Abraham, Isaac  and Jacob (and therefore a Jew), and that he is the son of David.  At the same time he asserts that Jesus has come at precisely the right time, that he is the culmination of God’s plan.  The number three is extremely important to the theology of Matthew, so it is no surprise when he tells us that there are three lots of fourteen generations[1] separating Abraham from Jesus.  At the end of each group of fourteen comes a major event in Israel’s history.  The first is the birth of King David, their greatest king.  The second is the Exile, which resulted in the rebirth of Israel and many religious reforms.  And the third is… the coming of the Messiah, literally the Anointed One.  Thus at the end of each group of fourteen is a major event, and guess what… if you add up the name David in Hebrew (numbers were assigned to letters in Hebrew and Greek), D + V + D = 4 + 6 + 4 = 14.  Matthew is shouting at us “HE IS THE SON OF DAVID!!”  All the Old Testament prophecies concern a Messiah who is the Son of David - see Isaiah 11 especially.

Now he has proven to us that Jesus was human (born of woman - Mary), a Jew, the son of David, the culmination of history and the Messiah, Matthew shows us that he is the son of God as well in the second half of chapter one.  He does this by telling us of the virgin birth of Jesus - that the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary and created in her the son of God.  This fulfils some more of the Old Testament - Isaiah 7.14.[2]

Herod’s story echoes how all the way through Egypt’s history the kings have often been in opposition to the prophets, and tried to kill them or exile them.  This time, although he succeeds in chasing Jesus away for a bit, he can’t keep him away and he returns - the devil cannot keep Jesus away, because Jesus conquered death and now it is only a matter of time before the final destruction of evil. 

The escape to Egypt echoes the Old Testament idea of Egypt as a place of refuge for the persecuted, and demonstrates the obedience of Joseph to the commands of God, and Matthew uses it to show another fulfilment of scripture - Hosea 11.1 this time.  Going into Egypt and coming out of Egypt echoes both the Exodus and the Exile, where the Israelites were sent away by God (albeit for different reasons) to another land, and then brought back later.  It echoes some of the strongest themes of the Old Testament.

The massacre of the Innocents and Jesus’ timely escape are reminiscent of Moses, who led his people out of Egypt into the Promised Land.  Jesus is going to do the same, but this time there will be no need for anyone else ever to do it again.

Amen


[1] Except there aren’t.  There are only 13 in the first one.  Can Matthew not count?  And why is Luke’s genealogy so much longer (77 generations)?  These are questions we cannot answer, beyond saying that the emphasis on the three lots of fourteen shows us that Matthew is trying to tell us something.

[2] Only in the Septuagint Greek translation of the Old Testament (around 200bc) is the word ‘virgin’ used.  In the original Hebrew translation the word used is ‘young girl’.