26th Sunday After Pentecost – Orthodox Homily on the Prefiguring of Christ

Today on the Sunday before Nativity, we remember those ancestors of Christ who prefigure Hm. Matthew’s Gospel for today intentionally traces Jesus Christ’s lineage through Abraham and recounts Christ’s lineage not through Mary but through Joseph, Christ’s earthly father through adoption. In doing so, he gives us one of those signs of our salvation: Jesus Christ, in turn, adopts all mankind by bringing us to the Father as adopted sons. Christ’s lineage through Joseph is accurate for Mary as well, who was of the same lineage and royal tribe as Joseph.

The righteous ancestors of Christ pre-figure and point us to Him; they ready us for the coming of the Messiah, our Savior, Jesus Christ. Throughout the Old Testament, their stories of faith are also stories of redemption, of God working through human sin and failings to prepare the way for the salvation and renewal of the entire human race, as God brings about the fulfillment of all His promises to Israel, for a new way of our interacting and relating to Him—that of sons and daughters of the living God, sealed by the Holy Spirit, capable of growth in divine grace.

The righteous Seth, who was born to Adam in the place of Able, murdered by his brother Cain, reminds us that Christ was born as the new Adam, to inaugurate the new spiritual race of Adam. “As in Adam all die, so in Christ all are made alive” (I Cor. 15:22), as St. Paul assures us.

We remember Noah, who saved his family from the wickedness of those around him, whom God used to continue the human race and save animal life on earth. He believed God and put his faith in His saving power, thereby preserving his household, bearing them upon the waters of the flood in the ark until they reached the dry land God provided for them. Christ, likewise, saves his ‘household’—all those in the Church—from the stormy seas of deceptive doctrines that are blown about by every wind of heresy. Christ carries us upon the ‘ship of faith,’ His Church, to the shore and haven of His Heavenly Kingdom.

We remember Abraham, who offered his son, Isaac, in obedience to God, pre-figuring the offering of Christ Himself, who is both the Offerer and the Offered: the ultimate and final ‘sacrifice’ through His defeat of sin and death on the cross. And whereas Abraham’s hand was stayed from offering his son, Isaac (as it was a test of his love and devotion toward God), God does not withhold His Only-Begotten Son, indeed, Himself, for the salvation of the world.

Fittingly, Christ’s lineage is royal as it is priestly, for Christ is both our Great High Priest and King of Kings. He draws His human ancestry from both the royal line of Judah, from which King David hails, and of Levite, the priestly line.

The Feast of Christ’s holy Nativity, Christmas, is also then referred to as “the Winter Pascha” because We trace our salvation through the incarnation, in which Christ, the life of the world, enters into and renews human nature, completing this salvation by defeating sin and death itself on the cross by His death and glorious resurrection. So, you could say, the Feast of the Nativity and Christ’s baptism lead us directly to His cross and resurrection.

St. Athanasius writes, “It was in the power of none other to turn the corruptible to incorruption, except the Savior Himself, that had at the beginning also made all things out of nought: and that none other could create anew the likeness of God’s image for men, save the Image of the Father…” (4th century, On the Incarnation).

Isaiah, prophetically told God’s faithful 700 years before Christ to look for this sign as they awaited the Messiah and all that God had promised Israel and the world: “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a Son, and shall call His name Immanuel” (Isaiah 7:14). Emmanuel means, “the Lord is with us.” These are the very words used by St. John to describe this miraculous phenomenon: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).

The Sunday before Nativity is then an invitation to become adopted sons of God, just as many were grafted into the ancestry of Christ—even though they were Gentiles or sinners who repented. We too can become part of salvation history, part of the spiritual genealogy of Christ, His progeny by grace. St. John declares in the Gospel, “as many as have received Him, to them He gave power to become sons of God” (Jn. 1:12-13).

We have in promise this gift of grace as we journey to its attainment. We battle with all those passions that would otherwise drive us from this redeemed life with Christ. We pray. We pray more. We repent. We confess. We learn step by step to cooperate with the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives, to become obedient as Christ is obedient, to become humble, as Christ is humble, having condescended to become one of His own creation. So, in this way, you and I become lovers of the Truth even as we die to self, even as Christ Himself has led the way in His defeat of sin and death on our behalf by virtue of His cross.

This is the message that the genealogy of Christ directs us to. In order to attain salvation, each of us learns to live, not for our own will, but for the will of God who became incarnate for our sake.

Now the Feast of the Incarnation is upon us. Now in the short time that remains, we look with great expectation with renewed vigor and awe to Christ, the Author and Finisher of our faith, as His salvific Incarnation draws near. He who has become incarnate in the flesh for our sake, for our salvation, desires to make us adopted sons and daughters of the Father and co-heirs of His eternal Kingdom. I leave you with these words of St. Gregory Palamas, who offers us this challenge: “May we all attain to this, to the glory of Christ and of His Father without beginning and of the life-giving Spirit, now and forever, and unto unceasing ages. Amen” (Homily Fifty-Seven on the Sunday of the Fathers).

Fr. Robert Miclean
Holy Archangels Orthodox Church
Sunday, December 19, 2016
Sunday before Nativity—Sunday of the Holy Ancestors of Christ

Epistle: Heb. 11:9-10, 17-23, 32-40
Gospel: Matt. 1:1-25