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+ + + In Nomine Jesu + + +
Please join me in prayer: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Grace to you and peace from God our Father and from the Lord Jesus Christ.
In our time, there seems to be a greater interest in genealogy. In the past, perhaps one dutiful family member would gather together information and construct a family tree. But then, genealogy websites simplified such work for everyone, and now at-home genetic testing, through companies such as “23andMe” and “Ancestry-dot-com”, promises an understanding of how past generations come together to each individual family member. (Confer Hagan, CPR 31:1, p.51.) Tonight, as we this Advent continue preparing for Him Who came once, comes now, and will come a final time, we continue to ask the question “Whose Son is the Christ?”, and, for an answer, we again turn in part both to a genealogy, a different one from last week, and to a passage in which Jesus speaks of Himself as “the Son of Man”. That “Son of Man” title is the question’s answer that we consider tonight.
Last week we heard the genealogy recorded by the Divinely‑inspired St. Luke eventually describe Jesus as the son of Seth, the son of Adam, the son of God (Luke 3:38). And, notably for our purposes tonight, the proper name “Adam” in Hebrew is also both the word for “man” and the generic term for “mankind”. So, in a sense, Jesus, like Seth before Him, was a son of a man (or, “mankind”), who was the son of God (confer Genesis 5:1-3). Tonight, in the First Reading, we heard the genealogy recorded by the Divinely‑inspired St. Matthew call Jesus the son of David, the son of Abraham, but then the genealogy traced the line to Jesus from Abraham through ostensibly 42 generations of men, including David, and even through five women.
More than any women at all in a genealogy are notable, the women in Jesus’s genealogy are especially notable because they are not the great matriarchs you might expect—women such as Eve, Sarah, Rachel, and Rebekah and Leah—but at least four of the women are women who are, to some extent, associated with scandals involving the men with whom they are named: Tamar, who had an incestuous relationship with her father‑in‑law, Judah (Genesis 38:1-30); Rahab, who had been a prostitute in Jericho before uniting with Salmon (Joshua 2:1-24; 6:25); Ruth, who was also a foreigner before marrying first, presumably Chilion, and then, after he died, Boaz (Ruth 1:1-4:17); and, although referred to only as “the wife of Uriah”, Bathsheba, who had an adulterous relationship with David that led to murder (2 Samuel 11:1‑27). (Confer Hagan, CPR 31:1, p.55.)
Men and women in our own genealogies may also be, to some extent, associated with scandals, maybe even the scandals of incest, prostitution, adultery, or murder. And, scandal is not something that we only find within the deeds of our ancestors, but our own actions have estranged us and perhaps also others from God (confer Hagan, CPR 31:1, p.55). When our first parents plunged humankind into sin, we all not only lost things like the perfect knowledge and relationship with God, but we all also were corrupted so that left to ourselves all that we all can do in God’s sight is sin.
In the Second Reading, even with Jesus standing right there before the crowd and the Father’s voice thundering from heaven, the people to some extent still struggled to understand the Scripture and Jesus’s own revelation about Himself as “the Son of Man”. We, too, may so struggle to understand Scripture and Jesus’s own revelation of Himself. We, too, may be guilty of loving our lives in this world too much, of walking in darkness and so not knowing where we are going, or of not believing in the light and so not being sons of light. Then, Jesus spoke of judgment of the world and of casting out the ruler of the world, but we do not know when our day of judgment will come, whether at the moment of our deaths or the Lord’s return, whichever comes first. So, we should always heed Jesus’s call to repent—to repent of our sinful nature and all our sin. When we repent, then God forgives us; God forgives us for the sake of Jesus, the Son of Man.
Some Bible scholars debate the origin of the term “Son of Man”, what influenced the term’s use, and whether or not Jesus thought of and spoke of Himself as the Son of Man. Those of us who take Holy Scripture as the inspired and so inerrant Word of God more readily conclude that the term “Son of Man” originates in the Old Testament, even if originally only as a lofty term for any man, such as the prophet Ezekiel to whom the term is used to refer some 93 times (Colpe, TDNT 8:402); we can more readily conclude that, under the influence of Daniel 7:13, the term “Son of Man” came to be used to refer to the Messiah (confer Revelation 1:13‑15), perhaps especially in the time between the Old and New Testaments; and we can more readily conclude that Jesus certainly thought of and spoke of Himself as the Son of Man.
Indeed, we can say that the term “Son of Man” is Jesus’s own way of referring to Himself as the Son of God Who has all the abilities of God but has chosen to humble Himself for the benefit of others (Scaer, CLD VI:45). Some in Jesus’s day may not have understood His use of the term, but others clearly did understand (Luke 22:66-71). The titles “Son of God” and “Son of Man” both refer to Jesus, but the titles both emphasize different things (confer Matthew 16:13, 16; 26:63-64; Scaer, CLD VI:45-46). “Son of God” arguably emphasizes Jesus’s Divinity, and “Son of Man” emphasizes Jesus’s true humanity and His readiness for suffering (Colpe, TDNT 8:406). Thus, Jesus Himself said the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, namely by giving His life as a ransom for all (Mark 10:45). That “all” includes you and me! On the cross, Jesus died for us, in our place, the death that we deserved. What tonight’s psalmist may have asked and said of God’s regard for people in general, the Divinely‑inspired author of Hebrews understood as referring to Jesus, Who tasted death for everyone (Hebrews 2:5-9). As Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so Jesus, the Son of Man, was lifted up, that whoever believes in Him may have eternal life (John 3:14, with reference to Numbers 21:9). And, when He was lifted up, He drew all people to Himself.
Jesus draws all people to Himself by the power of His Holy Spirit working through His Word—His Word read and preached to groups such as this and administered to individuals with water in Holy Baptism, with the pastor’s touch in Holy Absolution, and with bread and wine in the Sacrament of the Altar that are Christ’s Body and Blood given and shed for us for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation. Not only God in heaven but also the Son of Man on earth has authority to forgive sins (Mark 2:1-12), and the Son of Man further gives that authority to those men He sends out in order to preach His Gospel and administer His Sacraments (Matthew 16:19; 18:18; John 20:21-23). That authority given to men in Jesus’s day caused crowds to be afraid and glorify God (Matthew 9:7).
As God forgives us through His Means of Grace, we cooperate in His making our lives holy, and so He brings forth from us good works in keeping with our vocations. As God used the sinners in Jesus’s genealogy, so He uses us. We do as Jesus in the Second Reading calls us to do: we “hate” our lives in this world and so keep them for eternal life; we follow Jesus and serve Him, especially in the persons of our neighbors; we believe and walk in the light and are sons of light. Jesus may rhetorically ask whether the Son of Man will find faith on the earth when He comes the final time (Luke 18:8), suddenly (Matthew 24:37) and visible to all (Matthew 24:27), but, as we are prepared this Advent, so we are prepared at all times, with repentance and faith.
“Whose Son is the Christ?” As we have considered tonight, the Christ is the Son of Man. He remains true God in human flesh and was willing and able to die for us, so that we can live eternally with Him. The next two weeks we will consider the Christ as the Son of Mary and the Son of Joseph. More than anyone else we might identify on our genealogies, the Christ is the most-famous and greatest of all (Hagan, CPR 31:1, p.53), and we are truly blessed to be His brothers and sisters and to be brothers and sisters of one another in Him.
Amen.
The peace of God, which passes all understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.
+ + + Soli Deo Gloria + + +