Gospel: Matthew 1:18-24 Commentary of Bede

Night Office Reading

Gospel: Matthew 1:18-24

Saint Bede the Venerable (c.673-735), monk, Doctor of the Church
Sermons for Christmas Eve, 5 ; CCL 122, 32-36 (©Friends of Henry Ashworth) 

"You shall name him Emmanuel, which means "God is with us."  

Saint Matthew in his gospel presents the birth of our Lord as the initiation of a new era in the history of the human race. With the birth of a child the age of salvation has begun. This is the force of the allusion to the passage from Isaiah 7:14. Through Jesus God became present to his people in an entirely new way. Saint Bede underlines the implications of this presence by pointing to the priestly and royal dignity of Christ and the Christian.

Matthew the evangelist gives us an account of the way in which the eternal Son of God, begotten before the world began, appeared in time as the Son of Man. His description is brief but absolutely true. By tracing the ancestry of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ through the male line he brings it down from Abraham to Joseph, the husband of Mary. It is indeed fitting in every respect that when God decided to become incarnate for the sake of the whole human race none but a virgin should be his mother, and that, since a virgin was privileged to bring him into the world, she should bear no other son but God.

Behold, a virgin will conceive and bear a son, and he will be called Emmanuel, a name which means God-with-us. The name God-with-us, given to our Savior by the prophet, signifies that two natures are united in his one person. Before time began he was God, born of the Father, but in the fullness of time he became Emmanuel, God-with-us, in the womb of his mother, because when the Word was made flesh (Jn 1:14)and lived among us he deigned to unite our frail human nature to his own person. Without ceasingto be what he had always been, he began in a wonderful fashion to be what we are, assuming our nature in such a way that he did not lose his own.

And so Mary gave birth to her firstborn son, the child of her own flesh and blood. She brought forth the God who had been born of God before creation began, and who, in his created humanity, rightfully surpassed the whole of creation. And Scripture says she named him Jesus. (Lc 2,7.21).

Jesus, then, is the name of the Virgin's son. According to the angel's ex­planation, it means one who is to save his people from their sins. In doing so he will also deliver them from any defilement of mind and body they have incurred on account of their sins.

But the title "Christ" implies a priestly or royal dignity. In the Old Testa­ment it was given to both priests and kings on account of the anointing with chrism or holy oil which they received. They prefigured the true king and high priest who, on coming into this world, was anointed with the oil of gladness above all his peers. (Ps 45[44], 8).  
From this anointing or chrismation he received the name of Christ, and those who share in the anointing which he himself bestows, that is the grace of the Spirit, are called Christians.

May Jesus Christ fulfill his saving task by saving us from our sins; may he discharge his priestly office by reconciling us to God the Father, and may he exercise his royal power by admitting us to his Father's kingdom, for he is our Lord and God, who lives and reigns with the Father arid the Holy Spirit for ever and ever. Amen.