Sunday after the Nativity of Christ: Commemoration of the Holy and Righteous Joseph the Betrothed, David the King, and James, Brother of the Lord; Octoechos Tone 4; The Two Thousand Martyrs who were burned in Nicomedia; Blessed Hieromartyr Hryhoriy (Gregory) Khomyshyn, Bishop of Stanyslaviv.
Galatians 1:11-19; Matthew 2:13-23.
Read Matthew 2:13-23
The Chief Priests rebuked Nicodemus saying, “Search and you will see that no prophet is to rise from Galilee” (John 7:52). When the Magi came, they told Herod that Christ would be born in Bethlehem (Matthew 2:3-6). They couldn’t conceive of Christ having downward social mobility and relocating to Nazareth.
The Chief Priests didn’t identify with most of the people of Israel. As far as they were concerned, most other people were the reason Israel had gone into exile in Babylon. They assumed the worst about others from what they saw in themselves. They were preoccupied with restoring Israel’s glory. They assumed from the scriptures that Christ’s coming kingdom would be the fulfillment of their personal aspirations. They should have known from the scriptures that God loved people and that Christ would identify with them.
They couldn’t conceive, in reading Hosea 11 – “Out of Egypt have I called my son.” – that Christ would identify with Israel’s bondage.
They couldn’t conceive, in reading Jeremiah 31 – “Rachel weeping for her children because they were no more.” – that Christ would identify with Israel’s exile. Ramah, with Rachel’s tomb nearby, was on the way to exile in Babylon.
They couldn’t conceive, in reading Isaiah 11 – “There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and the Spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him.” –that the king from the line of David’s father, Jesse, would be of humble social standing. Netzer, “shoot,” in Hebrew, is the linguistic root of Nazareth.
Christ identified with people in their bondage, their exile, their humble state. He still does. The Chief Priests didn’t acknowledge their own, so they couldn’t recognize him. “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”