On the Sunday before the Nativity of the Lord, the evangelical pericope of Matthew 1:1-25, presenting the genealogy of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, was read at the Divine Liturgy.
Present at the Divine Liturgy celebrated in the chapel of “Saint Gregory the Enlightener” of the Patriarchal Residence, His Beatitude Patriarch Daniel showed that the text includes the divine pedagogy and wisdom which expresses the expectation full of hope of Messiah throughout the generations. It also shows the preparation of the people in faith for the coming of Jesus Christ, our Lord.
“First of all, the Gospel presents the preparation of the people chosen (Israel) so that the heavenly Son of the eternal God should be received in the world as a result of the preparation made by the prophets and righteous of the Old Testament who were actively – spiritually waiting for Messiah, namely Christ, the Saviour. Some righteous of the Old Testament were really predictions or typologies of Messiah, like Abel, Joseph, Elijah, Joshua Navi, Moses, Aaron, the Hierarch or High Priest, etc. Secondly, we learn from the Gospel that Messiah – Christ comes into the world not only for the Jewish people, but also for all the peoples who will believe in Him.
Thirdly, the second part of the Gospel of this Sunday shows that the birth of the Lord into a human body is not a usual one, namely not a man’s initiative, of the body’s desire, but made at the direct initiative of God”, His Beatitude said.
God-the-Father wanted to begin the birth of the people in the spirit or their divine adoption through the double work, heavenly and earthly, manifested in the physical birth of the Saviour.
“Because Jesus Christ is incarnated from the Holy Spirit and from Virgin Mary, He prepares the mystery of the Christian Baptism, by which man is born from the Holy Spirit and from water, to live another life than the biological one, namely the heavenly eternal life. Thus, today’s Divine Gospel shows us that the divine saving work for the world begins with the conception and birth of Jesus Christ, our Saviour, the One who is eternally born from the Father, with no mother, and on the earth born from a mother, with no father. We see more clearly now that this work of humanisation of the Son of God is designed to deify man through grace and to adopt him in the love of God-the-Father”, the Patriarch of the Romanian Orthodox Church underlined.
Next week the Orthodox Church will be on the first Sunday after the Nativity of the Lord.
