Sunday, December 24, 2006 Lagura: The best gift of all By Fr. Flor Lagura, SVD In the service of the word
ALL over the world from Makati to Manhattan, from Cebu to Timbuktu, people will be wrapping their gifts to show their love for the persons close to their hearts. The gifts will be carefully chosen and wrapped in a manner expressing in the best way possible that the giver really cares.
As we look into the way God “packaged” his gift to humankind we will be surprised to find the order, the symmetry befitting a most intelligent being. We find three sets of 14 generations giving us a total of 42 generations from Abraham to the Divine Savior.
A closer look at Christ’s finely presented family tree, however, will show us some serious flaws. We find among the men, first of all the figure of Jacob. He cheated his older brother Esau of the latter’s birthright and did so with the connivance of his mother Rebecca. Later on, Jacob would in a way cheat his uncle Laban in his quest for the hand of the beautiful Rachel whom he loved.
Another member of Christ’s family tree is David himself who committed the double crime and sin of adultery then murder by proxy in his quest to satisfy his lustful desires. Included in the family portrait of Jesus are some women who during the time of the Lord were considered inferior to men.
Not only that, some of the women mentioned in the line of Jesus are not exactly the wholesome kind, for we have Tamar who seduced her own father-n-law in her intense longing to have a child. Then, there is Rahab, the brave and kindhearted prostitute who hid and saved the lives of the Israelite spies. The third “questionable” figure is Ruth, a gentile. Finally, we find Bathsheba, the Jewess beauty who bewitched David by taking a bath in full view of the king watching from the royal balcony.
From the royal line of David came Mary, and of her was born the Savior as God’s gift to the world.
In His infinite wisdom God deliberately did not exclude questionable characters from the line of men and women to whom Jesus owed his coming into the world. Like a superb artist the Creator allowed light to be contrasted with and filtered through shadows and darkness, brilliant colors to weave through murky shades in order to create a masterpiece.
The package had undesirable elements, yet God still included them in the packing of the greatest gift of all.
The birth of Our Lord comes with the glory of divinity mingled with the lowness of humanity. With the coming of Christ, the brightness of spirit imbeds itself into but never gets dulled by matter. The dizzying heights of heaven bows down and lifts the earth on high. Such is the generous gift of God to the world He loves. This gift is at the very heart of Christmas.
“A family record of Jesus Christ, son of David, son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers.. Now this is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about. When his mother Mary was engaged to Joseph, but before they lived together, she was found with child through the power of the Holy Spirit.” Matthew 1:1 & 18
