Legacy
Legacy
More than any other Gospel, Matthew’s, the most Jewish of the Gospels, refers to Jesus as “Son of David.” When we say that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah, we are saying, first, that he is the Chosen King of Israel, the heir of Israel’s greatest king, David. And God had made a promise to him: “Your dynasty and your kingdom will be secured forever before me. Your throne will be established forever” (2 Samuel 7:16). David’s descendants did rule in Jerusalem for nearly four centuries. They didn’t always live up to their ancestor’s legacy. In today’s reading from Isaiah, his descendant Ahaz is pretty gutless. No, no, I don’t want to tempt God by asking for a sign, especially if that sign tells me I’m making a big mistake.
Finally, in 587 B.C., the last Davidic King in Jerusalem watched as his sons were executed by the Babylonians, and then was blinded and taken away in chains. About 70 years later, the Persians conquered the Babylonians, and their King allowed the exiles to go home to Jerusalem. But there was only one king in the Persian Empire. And so for another five centuries, David’s descendants lived with the legacy of God’s promise, and how they had failed to trust that promise. And no doubt, they clung to the hope of that promise, not just for themselves but for their people as well.
When the angel calls Joseph, “Son of David,” he isn’t telling him anything he doesn’t already know. He has known it from his earliest memories, as his parents taught him the glories of his legacy, and later of their failures. His betrothed, Mary, was to give him the next heir of that legacy of loss, and hope. But once she was pregnant, and not by Joseph, that would not be possible, for the heir had to be of David’s blood in order to be David’s son. Joseph could divorce her quietly, as the Gospel says, or he could have her publicly tried for adultery and stoned to death. That might satisfy his bruised masculine ego. But within his limited understanding, it is to Joseph’s credit that he chose the more charitable option initially.
But the divine messenger gave Joseph a more radical understanding of what it would mean for God’s promise, and David’s legacy, to be redeemed and fulfilled. When Joseph accepts this message, and takes Mary as his wife, then he publicly “names” the child. And legally speaking, that child becomes “Son of David.” Those who live in the village can do the math. They will know that Joseph is not Jesus’s biological father. There will be whispers and sideways looks over the years. Only Joseph, Mary, and God will know that Joseph is “the bigger man.”
This child, the legal Son of David, will be taught his legacy as the years go by. He will come to know that legacy in the genealogy that precedes today’s Gospel reading. Starting with Abraham, it’s long and repetitive, with lots of men who “begat” other men. So, we never hear it in church. But just as family gatherings have certain wires that hopefully everybody knows not to trip, there are some tripwires in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. Every so often, he mentions a mother from the Old Testament with a whiff of scandal, as Mary seemed to have. For instance: “David was the father of Solomon, whose mother had been the wife of Uriah.”
Her name is a such a tripwire that Matthew couldn’t even write it. But her part of David’s legacy can’t be ignored. This is Bathsheba, whom David saw bathing, took what he wanted because he was King, and when she got pregnant while her husband was fighting David’s war, David had him killed. And by adoption, this is part of Jesus’s legacy. The late Romano Guardini, a Roman Catholic bishop, once wrote this about Jesus and his genealogy:
He entered fully into everything that humanity stands for—and the names in the ancient genealogies suggest what it means to enter into human history with its burden of fate and sin. Jesus of Nazareth spared himself nothing. In the long quiet years in Nazareth, he may well have pondered those names. Deeply he must have felt what history is, the greatness of it, the power, confusion, wretchedness, darkness, and evil underlying even his own existence and pressing him from all sides to receive it into his heart that he might answer for it at the feet of God.*
Families have legacies, good and bad. Churches have legacies, good and bad. Nations have legacies, good and bad. And most of the time, we try to bury the bad ones, except when they come out in the Airing of Grievances. But Jesus did not avoid any of his legacy. He embraced the best and the worst of his legacy as Son of David. He refused to be controlled by his legacy, either by tip-toeing around it, or by wallowing in it. He faced it in truth, and in love. Christ Jesus’s legacy did not control him, nor does ours have to control us. Whatever regrets the descendants of Israel had were nailed to the cross and died with Jesus, God’s Chosen King.
Jesus is coming in this Advent season, indeed, he is almost here, again in the manger. But when he comes, the story will have just begun, a story that will culminate in the cross, and the empty tomb where our worst legacies remain buried, left behind in the glory of Resurrection.
In this season of the coming Christ, let it be our care and delight to dive into the best parts of our legacies like a child diving into a pile of autumn leaves. In this season of the coming Christ, let it be our care and delight to confess the worst of our legacies, and leave them, piece by piece, day by day, at the foot of the Altar of our God, who claims each one of us, as Joseph claimed his Son of David.
* Romano Guardini, The Lord (Ch. 1, “Jesus’ Ancestry”), Regnery Publishing, 1954
December 21, 2025,
4th Sunday of Advent, Year A
The Rev. David Kendrick