Jesus had a family tree. Do you know yours?
A reflection for the Tuesday of the Third Week of Advent.
“Zadok became the father of Achim,
Achim the father of Eliud,
Eliud the father of Eleazar.
Eleazar became the father of Matthan,
Matthan the father of Jacob,
Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary.
Of her was born Jesus who is called the Christ” (Mt 1:14-17).
Find today’s readings here.
One Lent, in an overzealous attempt at piety, I thought I would hand write one of the Gospels, little by little every day. I chose Matthew, it being first and all.
Reader, I had forgotten that the Gospel of Matthew begins with the genealogy of Jesus. If you think listening to this Gospel is boring, try writing it. I suffered through writing out the 42 generations and abandoned my Lenten dreams shortly thereafter.
There is a temptation to skip past this long list of names that links Jesus to Abraham. But I think there is a spiritual discipline worth exercising, at least for today, to resist the many distractions that might pull upon your attention this Advent season while reading today’s Gospel.
Jesus had a family tree. The Incarnation is a pivotal moment in salvation history, but it is also placed within family history. And in Matthew’s telling, it is not sanitized: “Nothing is simplified, erased or invented,” Pope Francis wrote about Jesus’ genealogy in a recent letter on the study of church history. “The Lord’s genealogy consists of the true story that includes a number of figures who are problematic to say the least, and the sin of King David is also emphasised.”
In that same letter, Pope Francis reminds us that “No one can truly know their deepest identity, or what they wish to be in the future, without attending to the bonds that link them to preceding generations.”
If we want to truly understand ourselves and our place in the world, we need to look at our own family histories. Our genealogies remind us that the world did not begin with our birth. We are part of a story that has been written over generations, and that will continue to be written long after we are gone. But too few of us know that history. One 2022 survey found that more than half of Americans could not name all four of their grandparents.
For some, genealogies can turn up trauma and pain. But even painful histories are real ones and can ground us. More still, there are other ways of reaching back into a shared past that help expand the present and give direction for the future.
This Advent, call up that one relative who has the genealogy hobby and ask them about your family’s history. If you don’t know who that relative is, maybe this is a sign that you should start investigating.
After all—whether it’s Jesus’ our ours—a story with only one character is a dreadfully boring one.
Get to know Zac Davis
A favorite Advent photo?
Here is a recent one. I have been taking my own medicine and dabbling in some amateur genealogy. I had known that my maternal grandfather’s uncle had been a Dominican priest—I did not know that he had been assigned to St. Vincent Ferrer parish here in New York City. Coming from a long line of Ohioans, I did not know that anyone in my family had any other connections to New York City. Neither did my grandfather—“Uncle Walter” was here before my grandfather was born. This Advent I was able to take my grandfather and my mom on a pilgrimage to a church where Walter Durbin, O.P. had prayed and ministered in the early 1940s.
