Grimly Optimistic

   Lections: The Epiphany of the Lord , AD 2025 A Homily: Lord, we pray for the preacher, for you know his sins are great. Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The Holy Gospel According to St Matthew is generally considered the most Jewish of our written Gospel accounts. Every book of the Bible is, of course, a Jewish document. But Matthew assumes a Hebrew audience well-versed in the Hebrew Scriptures: the Torah, the Prophets, the Psalms. An old tradition goes so far as to claim that Matthew’s Gospel, as we have it now in Greek, is based upon an older Hebrew Gospel no longer extant. Matthew starts off by tracing Jesus’ lineage back through David to Abraham. He’s very concerned that we understand that Jesus is the rightful Davidic King. This emphasis on Jesus as the Jewish Messiah makes Matthew’s account of the Magi all the more remarkable, for the Magi are emphatically not Jewish. Yet he has them come to Jesus, lon...