Matthew begins and ends with scenes of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In chapters 1-2, the Mary and Joseph are his parents; in chapter 27, there’s Joseph of Arimathea and Mary has doubled into Mary Magdalene and the “other Mary.”
The first story is a story of life, the second a story of death. The first tells about the miracle of the virgin conception, while the second tells of a burial. The first focuses on the child in the womb, the second on the crucified man in the tomb.
Overriding the contrasts, though, is a basic similarity: The first scene is about the coming of the Son of God, the second about His coming again from the tomb; the first presents Him as the firstborn of Mary and Joseph, the second as the firstborn of the death; the first is Jesus’ birth story, the second a story of His rebirth, and the rebirth of creation.
YOU MIGHT ALSO LIKE
Rome and the Church in the United States
Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore, who confirmed my father, was a pugnacious Irishman with a taste…
Marriage Annulment and False Mercy
Pope Leo XIV recently told participants in a juridical-pastoral formation course of the Roman Rota that the…
Undercover in Canada’s Lawless Abortion Industry
On November 27, 2023, thirty-six-year-old Alissa Golob walked through the doors of the Cabbagetown Women’s Clinic in…
