HW: how to read the birth stories of Jesus (e.g. today's Matthew 1:18-24)

A reflection on how all four Gospels introduce the story of Jesus. Written and spoken by Kieran J. O'Mahony OSA

Gentle piano music to close the meditation

Transcript

John’s Lane
D08 F8NW
21 December 2025
Advent 4A25
Hearing the Christmas gospels

Welcome
There are just a few days to the feast of Christmas. There is still time to prepare on a spiritual level and also, I hope, time to reflect on what we are doing as we mark the birth of Jesus. The biblical readings for this time of year are familiar, of course, but also remarkably rich. Their words are life-giving, if we can approach them in a grown-up, adult way.

Topic
So, I thought I might risk saying something about reading the Gospel readings for today and Christmas and about how to read them as adults, as grown-ups.

Steps
As you know, the Gospel according to Mark was the first to be written. The opening sentence is a kind of proclamation: The beginning of the Good News of Jesus, the Christ, the Son of God. With this title at the top, Mark tells the readers plainly who Jesus is before the story proper starts. In the rest of that Gospel, the first 8 chapters are devoted to the discovery that Jesus is the Messiah, the Christ, and the second 8 chapter explore his identity as Son of God.

The corresponding passage in the Gospel of John is called the prologue, John 1:1-18. It is read on Christmas Day. Certain phrases stand out:

In the beginning was the Word:
and the Word was with God
and the Word was God.
He was with God in the beginning.

The Word was made flesh,
he lived among us,
and we saw his glory,
the glory that is his as the only Son of the Father,
full of grace and truth.

No one has ever seen God;
it is the only Son, who is nearest to the Father’s heart,
who has made him known.

Again, the Gospel writer is giving us, the readers and hearers, a deep, privileged understanding of the identity of Jesus before the story of his ministry actually begins.

The birth stories in Matthew 1-2 and Luke 1-2 have exactly the same function. Their purpose is to give us the readers and hearers the richest possible portrait and understanding of who Jesus is for us before the narrative proper opens up. They do it differently to Mark and John. Both of these are somewhat doctrinal or even a little intellectual. Instead, Matthew and Luke achieve the same ends by story-telling, by recalling personalities, narratives and themes from the Old Testament.
The Gospel for the fourth Sunday of Advent is a good example. This time, it is all in the names. The name Joseph should trigger a memory of another Joseph from the book of Genesis, of the amazing technicolour dream-coat, who was known to have significant dreams, as does our Joseph. The name Jesus, which is the Greek for Joshua, reminds us of Joshua, the companion of Moses, who led the people finally across the Jordan and into the promised land. David is also mentioned: he was the shepherd king of Israel and became the focus of hopes for a longed-for new anointed successor. Emmanuel, God is with us, echoes a phrase first uttered to Jacob in the Bible: I will be with you. This is spoken to many people, for example, not only to Jacob but also to Moses, Joshua, Solomon, Isaiah and many others. There is more: the “little annunciation” to Joseph in a dream reminds us not only of the annunciation to Mary in Luke but also evokes the birth stories of Ishmael, Isaac and Samson.

Even in this short passage of a few verses, Matthew has woven a rich tapestry of personalities, narratives and themes. With all these threads, some more obvious than others, Matthew is teaching us about Jesus, his identity and his destiny. This Jesus, a real human being, a descendent of David, is also the Son of God. He is God with us and he comes to save us. He fulfilled all that God did before and surpassed it. In this way, Matthew does exactly the same as Mark and John — telling us who Jesus is — but pictorially or graphically and in a more accessible and memorable way. We all do “get” what the pictures are about. (Much the same could be said of Luke 1-2.)  Matthew is also offering us the possibility of stitching the threads of our own story into this tapestry of stories.

Conclusion
If these observations are more or less accurate, we can draw two conclusions, one for understanding the faith and other for living it. In terms of understanding, the stories are more about the identity of Jesus than they are about history. There is some history but the writer’s focus is elsewhere: the present Jesus, crucified and risen from the dead, with us always to the end of time. In a word, not everything is to be taken literally.

The second consequence is an invitation. As the feast approaches, how can I today open my heart, my life, to this same Jesus? He fulfils ancient longings, the hungers of the heart. He comes to save us, not just from sin, but from absurdity, evil and death. He reaches out to each one of us as Emmanuel, God-with-us always, to the end of the age.

So, lots to reflect on between today, the Fourth Sunday of Advent, and feast of Christmas, the birth of Jesus.  Let us pray:

Teach us to welcome Jesus, 
the promised Emmanuel, 
and to preach the good news of his coming 
that every age may know him 
as the source of redemption and grace.