The Infancy Narratives: The Genealogy of Jesus and Jubilee

Tuesday 17th December 2024

As we journey closer to beginning of the 2025 Pilgrims of Hope Jubilee, we speak to Fr Joe Gee to find out a little more about the tradition of Jubilee and how this week’s scripture readings point to Jesus as the greatest Jubilee of all:

In this third week of Advent, the Church sets before us the great ‘O’ antiphons.

As well as being the verses of a popular Christmas carol, each of the “O Antiphons” refer to Old Testament figures that point towards Christ as the New Covenant, the long-awaited Messiah, the Incarnate Word, the Son of God made flesh.

As we begin the first of our “O Antiphons” today, our minds are also drawn to another text that seeks to highlight Christ as the fulfilment of all we read about in the Old Testament, by reflecting on the genealogy of Jesus through in our Gospel today.

The Gospel, the very opening of the Gospel of Matthew, takes us back through the extraordinary lineage of Jesus, back to Abraham himself, with whom God established the first Covenant – a promise of blessings for countless descendants who live a life of love for God.

In this passage, we are reminded of another great celebration that we are preparing for this Advent: the celebration of Jubilee Year of 2025, which runs from Tue, 24 Dec 2024 – Tue, 6 Jan 2026.

The idea of the great Jubilee is rooted in the Old Testament in the Book of Leviticus, chapter 25. Initially, a “Sabbath Year” took place every seventh year (a “week of years”), in which the land would be allowed to rest and lie fallow. However, every “seven weeks of years” – so, every 49 years – a year of Jubilee would follow (the 50th year), which involved the restoration or redemption of land, the return of all property to its original owners or heirs, the liberation of slaves, and the cancelling of debts.

This Jubilee pattern of sevens is used in a remarkable way by Matthew as he structures the genealogy of Jesus into three sets of fourteen: from Abraham to David, from David to the Babylonian exile, from the Babylonian exile to Jesus. In effect, three groups of fourteen generations also groups together six sets of seven generations, both equalling 42.

In this way, Matthew uses the Jubilee cycles of seven to bring us up to the sabbatical number of 49 with the life of Jesus; revealing Christ as the Sabbath of Sabbaths, the start of the seventh cycle of seven generations – which ends with the Paschal Mystery – his suffering and death. For Matthew, this in turn leads to the “next year”, the 50th, the Year of Great Jubilee and the Resurrection and New Creation in Christ. 

In the great Jubilee of the Resurrection of Christ, we see those themes of redemption and restoration, both of land and persons, fulfilled.  The earth of human nature (Adam means of the soil/earth) is restored from its fallen and captive state in corruption to the glorious liberty of the Children of God.  Liberty from slavery to sin and the forgiveness of sins from our first parents onwards is brought about. 

Later in Matthew’s Gospel, when Peter asks Jesus about how many times we must forgive someone who has wronged us, Jesus responds “not seven times but seventy times seven”.  Once again, we see Jesus pointing to the Jubilee nature of the act of forgiveness: that whenever we forgive and restore others, we participate in the great Jubilee action of God.

If the Sabbath originally had a purpose of rest from the work of creation, after the great Jubilee of the Resurrection, it now has a purpose for celebrating God’s victory over the forces of sin and evil.  This is precisely what we do in the Mass: we participate in the liturgy of heaven, giving God praise and thanks (thank you in Greek is Eucharitian) and we participate in Christ’s own worship of the Father.

By Fr Joe Gee

 

Tagged | Jubilee 2025