Romans 1:1-7
December
21, 2025
Paul, a
servant of Christ Jesus, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of
God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets
in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son,
who was descended from David according to the flesh and
was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of
holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through
whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of
faith among all the gentiles for the sake of his name, including
you who are called to belong to Jesus Christ,
To all
God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints:
Grace
to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
*****************************************
It feels ridiculous to me, and I
hope to you, as well, but such are our times that I feel compelled to point out
that Nazis are bad people, that bigotry toward any ethnic or religious group is
wrong, and that attacks on “the Jews” mean an attack on a man
“who
was descended from David according to the flesh and was
declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness
by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord”. [Romans 1:3-4]
No,
Judaism does not accept the identification of Jesus as the Messiah. No, Judaism does not accept Christian
descriptions or definitions of Jesus as holding as one identity both God’s
divinity and our humanity. But his
ancestry and belonging among the people of Judah, the Jews, is not in question
in either Judaism or Christianity – nor in Islam, for that matter. So when the Proud Boys marched through
Charlottesville on May 13, 2017 or when the American Nazi Party marched in
Skokie, Illinois in April of 1978 or when Nick Fuentes or Kanye West spout their
hatred of Jews or their admiration of Hitler online, they are announcing hatred
(from a Christian perspective) of the most blasphemous type.
I leave it to the imams to address
those who shoot innocent people on a beach in Australia or massacre children
for their genetic background in the name of Islam to take their own stand. I can speak only for Christianity here, and
pray that, on our part, we show no one anything but, as Paul says,
“Grace …
and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” [Romans 1:7]
At the time of year when Christians
celebrate the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem of Judea, we read accounts of that
birth that come from two gospel writers.
Matthew, one of Jesus’ direct disciples, opens his gospel with, as he names
it,
“An
account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of
Abraham.” [Matthew 1:1]
That’s
his opening summary; he fills in a lot of names between these as he goes
on. To him, Jesus’ life was the
culmination of Israel’s history to that point.
The end of Matthew’s gospel then has Jesus sending out his followers from
Jerusalem into the surrounding, gentile regions and into the entire world. “Go, therefore,” he says,
“and
make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of
the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I
have commanded you. And remember, I am
with you always, to the end of the age.”
[Matthew
28:19-20]
Christian
faith is rooted in the experience of Abraham and his descendants, and grew from
that soil into the world at large.
Luke’s gospel provides a genealogy
as well. Luke was a Greek doctor who
traveled with Paul around the eastern Mediterranean. The book of Acts describes some of their
adventures, surviving shipwreck in Malta, where they would be mistaken for
Greek gods, arguing with philosophers in Athens, and Paul’s final imprisonment
in Rome. So when Luke begins his own list
of Jesus’ ancestors, he gives it a wider scope than Matthew does, going back to
“Shem,
son of Noah, son of Lamech, son of Methusaleh, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son
of Mahaleel, son of Cainan, son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.”
[Luke 3:36b-38]
“Shem”
was held to be the progenitor of all peoples of the Middle East. Linguists refer to Hebrew and Arabic and a
handful of other languages as “semitic”.
People who express hatred of the ethnic groups who speak them are called
“anti-semitic”. Broad-brush condemnation
of Israelis or Palestinians alike are anti-semitic.
That’s a side-point, though. More relevant to Luke’s summary of Jesus’
background is that he shares the common humanity of all people, Jew or gentile. That was a message no doubt important to Luke
the Greek, who traveled around with a Pharisee named Saul who went by Paul and
held Roman citizenship and who fought with other apostles to make sure that the
gentiles would (literally, not just figuratively) have a seat at the table when
God’s people sat down to meals together, including the meal we now call “the
Lord’s Supper”.
Look at the nativity scenes you see
at this time of year. Yes, some wait
until Epiphany to add the figures of the Wise Men. Once everybody is in place, though, on one
side you see the shepherds who were in the fields outside Bethlehem when Jesus
was born, outsiders in many ways, but no doubt native to the neighborhood. On the other side you see the Wise Men,
Zoroastrian officials from Persia, strangers to Palestine from beyond even the
Roman world. In the center you see the
baby in the manger
“Jesus
Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace”, [Romans 1:4b-5a]
whose
miraculous birth and whose holy presence in the world draws them – all of them –
together to adore him.
Luke tells another story connected
to Jesus’ birth. It’s about the first
time that Mary and Joseph took him to the Temple in Jerusalem. He tells how they met an old, pious man named
Simeon who had been told by God that he would see the Messiah before he died.
“Guided
by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought
in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, Simeon took
him in his arms and praised God, saying,
‘Master, now you are dismissing
your servant in peace,
according to your word;
for my eyes have seen your
salvation,
which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples,
a light for revelation to the
Gentiles
and for glory to your people Israel.’” [Luke 2:27-32]
To that, the proper response is, “Amen.”
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