In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! [Glory to him forever!]

It struck me as the deacon was reading the gospel that you have this genealogy, and we’re going to talk a little bit about why—why do we have to hear that genealogy every year? Why does Matthew list it? Who are all these people? Why is that relevant? But at one point in the gospel reading, it says, “Joseph her husband, being a just man and not wanting to make her a public example, was minded to put her away (that is, Mary) secretly.” Joseph had his doubts. What was happening? He was betrothed to Mary. She was with child. He wasn’t the father. And he just wanted to deal with it quietly, just put her away, make it go away.

But of course, it doesn’t go away, because the angel intercedes and tells Joseph in a dream what the truth is about Jesus. I think for us, especially as Orthodox Christians who live in this land, this free land, in which we know that everyone is free to express their opinions, their doubts, we have to remain strong and we have to listen. We have to listen to the voice of that angel. We have to listen for the truth about who Jesus really is. We heard of course—if you follow the news, you heard the story about what was happening in the state of Washington where there was a display of the nativity scene, and some were objecting that don’t believe that Jesus is the Christ, and they were saying that, well, you know, the atheists want to put up a display, and even they wanted to put up a display about Festivus and spaghetti and so forth, and it became to the point of the ridiculous.

When we’re surrounded by that attitude, we have to remain firm. We have to realize that in this story today, in the gospel reading today, we have the whole mystery of our salvation in this story. Why did Jesus come and take on human flesh? Why, in fact, was he born of this rather notorious lineage? You know, it’s said that you don’t choose your families. You don’t choose whom you’re born from. And it’s significant who is in the lineage of Jesus. What it proves to us is this saying that Jesus says in his ministry. He says, “I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.”

You would think that if you’re going to hear about the lineage of Jesus, you would hear about all of these wonderful, perfect people, right? But it’s not true! We know of many of the names. But from the very beginning, Abraham—Abraham who is the father of Israel, the father of many nations, it says—Abraham told a terrible lie. He said that Sarah, his wife, was really his sister, because he didn’t want anyone to take her away. You hear about Tamar in this lineage. Tamar! Tamar had a child with her father-in-law. Imagine. Rahab is mentioned in here in the lineage of Jesus, who was a prostitute and a Gentile, not even a Jew. We know of David’s exploits, David who gave us the psalms, David who was also the adulterer, who was also the murderer, and it’s also mentioned—it says, “the wife of Uriah”: who’s the wife of Uriah? It’s Bathsheba, the woman that David committed adultery with. That’s in the lineage of Jesus! Jechoniah was one of the most wicked kings of Israel, so wicked that God told him, “No one who is in your lineage will ever become king again.”

But Jesus takes all of that on himself, and he says in his ministry, “I did not come to call the righteous— I didn’t just come here to say: You’re righteous, you’re righteous, come on and follow me.” What he said was: “I came to call sinners to repentance.” And that’s who’s in his lineage! So it’s important for us to recognize that, when we hear these names, when we have to sit through hearing all of these names.

Not only that, Jesus comes to identify with our condition. He could have very well never have become incarnate, never had taken on a body, never had taken on human flesh. He can do anything he wants. He was the eternal Word of God. John 1:1: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was ,em>with God, and the Word was God.” Jesus is God, from all eternity, but what he does is he takes on flesh in order to know what it is to live in our life, to live on this earth, to live in this body.

The Fathers have a saying. It says, “That which is not assumed is not healed.” Think about that for a minute. “That which is not assumed is not healed.” In other words, if Jesus came to this earth but he didn’t take on flesh or he didn’t experience hunger, or he didn’t experience temptation, or he didn’t experience death, how could he have healed our condition so that we could be raised to new life? That’s why we say this is not some fairy tale, this is not some fantasy: this is about the dirt and the grime in all of our lives, and Jesus takes it on himself so that he can clean it, so that he can cleanse it, so that he can kill it, so that he can resurrect it, so that he can heal it.

That’s why he has the lineage he does, and that’s why he comes sort of in humility. He comes in a cloud of doubt. Even from the very beginning there’s controversy surrounding his birth. You don’t hear about the first 30 years of his life at all, just one incident when he’s 12. And in all of this we have to see our own condition. We have to see our own foibles, you might say, our own failures. Because if we don’t, then what we’ve done is we’ve taken the story of Jesus and we’ve sort of cleansed it and we have sanitized it. And we’ve made it what those who reject Jesus think they’re really rejecting: a myth. That’s what that sign said in Washington, right next to the nativity scene. It said, “Religion is a myth.”

What I’m here to tell you is that this is not a myth! This is real. These are real people. Jesus is a real Person. Mary was a real woman. Joseph was a real man. All of these people in this lineage are real, and they had real failings. But Jesus does not eschew it. He takes hold of it, and he grasps it, and that’s what he takes on the cross with himself, by the way.

The final point is that all of this does not lessen who he is in his divinity. We know that as Orthodox Christians Jesus is fully God. He is God from God, Light from Light, and he is truly a man—not a mere man, like us, but he is a man. So in his divinity, what we have to see is that it has not lessened at all. He is still the eternal God. He is still the eternal Word. He is still the One who created the world with his words. When it says in Genesis, “And God said, ‘Let there be light,’ ” there was light. When it said, “God said,” that’s the Word of God; that’s the eternal Word of God, being present in creation and creating all things.

And he comes into creation as a man to re-create us. Each one of us when we go into the baptismal font, we die to our old life and we raise, promising—promising—to strive, to live, a new life. Promising to look at the hard sayings of Jesus when he says, “He who desires to come after me, let him take up his cross and follow me.” When you die to your old life and you are raised to a new life, you’re promising to follow that; you’re promising to take on your cross, to follow in his footsteps.

All of this, when we exchange the gifts, when we have the dinner, when we have the beautiful decorations, we can’t—we must never, ever diminish Christ’s divinity, Christ’s humanity, or even, God forbid, to think that somehow this is some quaint myth. This is very real, and that’s what this gospel reading shows us today. It’s gritty. It’s dirty. It’s difficult. All of the difficulties that you have in your life, these people have them in their lives, and that’s the lineage that Jesus comes from. But in his teaching he says, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me,” that is, “Take my burden.” You know, a yoke is that big thing they put around a horse’s neck. “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me.” So we have to learn from all the things that Jesus takes on himself, all the people that are in his lineage, so that we could see it, so that we could die with it, so that we could rise to a new life.

Dear brothers and sisters in Christ, this gospel reading this morning is preparing our hearts to receive Jesus, who will be born as a little Child, who will be born in our hearts, who is a real man, who is truly God. But he comes into the difficulties of this life, into the stirrings of this world. Whatever is in your life, don’t let that distract you from worshiping Christ, from understanding who he is, from honoring him, from adoring him. This Nativity, this feast that comes up on Wednesday and Thursday, please, do not neglect. Do not cast it off as some quaint ritual, as some quaint holiday, but come to church. Worship at the manger of Christ, thanking him for doing everything possible to identify with us, to be with us, to heal us, and to save us. The very name Jesus, it is revealed in this gospel, means that he will save his people from their sins.

To him who is our life be glory, honor, and majesty, always, now and forever, and unto ages of ages. Amen. Glory to Jesus Christ! [Glory to him forever!]