Isaiah 7.10-16; Psalm 80.1-8,18-20; Romans 1.1-7; Matthew 1.18-end

COMMENTATORS note that John marks his Gospel as a new Genesis, by his echo of Genesis 1.1: “In the beginning”. But Matthew does something similar, and does it twice: “The book of genesis of Jesus Christ” (1.1); “Now the genesis of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way” (1.18). So, a case can be made that, like John, Matthew thinks of his Gospel as a new Genesis. One commentator goes so far as to state that “By choosing a biblical name for his book, Matthew makes an implicit claim to biblical authority.”

That Greek word “genesis” has a rich complexity. Well before it became a book title, it embraced ideas of beginning and becoming, from the microcosm of human birth to the macrocosm that is creation. A form of it even underlies the word of the angel that “The child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit.”

Every child born into the world is a new beginning — always for the child’s mother; almost always for the father; and, God willing, usually for a community of family and friends as well. One of the most instinctive reasons for the appeal of Christmas is that sense of new beginnings and fresh starts. We wake up on Christmas morning, and everything seems possible. Or, at least, it seems like it ought to be possible. Whatever the realities of Christmas, the ideal is there before us — to long for in our hearts, to strive for in our lives.

Matthew’s Gospel holds a unique place in the Christmas cycle. The three Gospel passages set by the Church’s lectionary for Christmas Day come from Luke and John only. Matthew is like a pair of bookends encompassing the nativity: at one end, this Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent; at the other, what has come to be known as the next phase of the cycle, Epiphany.

One purpose of Matthew 2 (the Epiphany Gospel) is to explain why Jesus was born in Bethlehem, given that he lived in Nazareth and died in Jerusalem. This Gospel for the Fourth Sunday of Advent answers a different question: not “Where?” but “Who?” Right before the nativity itself, the Gospel gives an account of who Jesus was: his ancient ancestry described; his miraculous parentage predicted.

I have only once heard Matthew’s genealogy read aloud during a service, and it struck me then in the way that it was perhaps intended to by the Evangelist: dignified but opaque, cataloguing mysterious history and the distant past. Its wealth of detail and the confidence of the construction of that genealogy have the desired effect: authentication. It is easy to miss the fact that the person they authenticate is Joseph, who was Jesus’s adoptive-/foster-father.

Like Luke, Matthew does not attempt to explain how this miraculous conception takes place. He simply states it, and attributes it to the action of the Holy Spirit. In the context of such a miraculous miracle, to cavil at Joseph’s genealogy as an authentication of Jesus’s identity seems too much like “straining at gnats” (Matthew 23.24).

The angel addresses Joseph as “son of David”, reminding us of the generations in the genealogy, and preparing us for confirmation of that Davidic ancestry in the nativity at Bethlehem which will follow in the Epiphany Gospel (Matthew 2.1-12). It is hard for us — familiar as we are with the identity of Jesus as Messiah and Son of David — to appreciate how striking the angel’s words to Joseph must have been. On the one hand, kingly ancestry; on the other, sexual wrongdoing.

There is a moment of crisis when Mary is found to be pregnant. Matthew does not tell us who found out, or how they told Joseph, or why. But disputed paternity means disputed posterity. Paternity and posterity really matter to people in the Old Testament/Hebrew Bible. The genealogy is itself a proof of that.

In Matthew 1.21, the angel tells Joseph, “You are to name him Jesus.” Thus, another link with the book of Genesis is revealed; for, when God formed living creatures “and brought them to the man to see what he would call them . . . whatever the man called every living creature, that was its name” (2.19). By giving him the position and honour of naming, God confirms that Joseph can be a true father to Jesus. Making that parenthood the best it can be is — as for every other parent — up to him.

Buried Treasure: The collected Church Times Sunday readings by Cally Hammond is available now (Canterbury Press, £24.99 (£19.99); 978-1-78622-567-2).