Today's Daily Readings for the Tuesday in the 4th week of Advent included the account of the Annunciation as recorded in Luke 1:26-38. Father Kirby at Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church gave a homily specifically on what the angel Gabriel declared to Mary in verses 31 through 33:
"...Behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall name him Jesus. He will be great and will be called Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give him the throne of David his father, and he will rule over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end."
Jesus is the son of David and David was the greatest ruler which Israel had ever had. Likewise Israel under David was the most powerful that it had ever been in both antiquity and modern times, and thus the Star of David remains the symbol of the Jewish State. David in a sense was a "son" (de-capitalized "s) of God (and certainly called a man after God's own heart). Jesus was the only begotten Son (capitalized "s") of God. David ruled over the 12 Tribes of Israel and Jesus surrounded Himself with 12 Disciples. David's mother would in the practice of the ancient Hebrew kings be the Queen, not David's wife for he had many wives. This we know was the case when in 1st Kings 2:19-21 when Bathsheba, the mother of King Solomon, went to her son for Adonijah's request that he be granted Abishag the Shunamite as his wife. Verse 19 states:
"Then Bathsheba went to King Solomon to speak to him for Adonijah, and the king stood up to meet her and paid her homage. Then he sat down upon his throne, and a throne was provided for the king’s mother, who sat at his right."
In the same fashion the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of Jesus, would become Queen of Heaven and Earth, something we see visualized in Revelation 12:1:
"A great sign appeared in the sky, a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars."
Jesus was also promised to rule over the House of Jacob forever. In the story of Joseph and the Multicolored Cloak, and its aftermath in the Book of Genesis, Jacob and his 12 sons (whose progeny would become the 12 Tribes of Israel) ended up in the land of Egypt. Jacob, to whom God gave the name Israel (meaning "God contended," a reference to the time when Jacob wrestled with God in Genesis 32:23-33) of course eventually died, requesting his bones to be returned to the land which God had promised him and his descendants. These descendants became the Hebrews who grew numerous Egypt. When finally after 400 years they left under Moses, they remembered the request of Jacob their father and returned his bones to the land which God had promised to him. From that land would then come David and then David's descendant Jesus who "would rule over the house of Jacob forever." The House of Jacob, the House of David is Mary's House (she being Queen Mother) and hence is Jesus' House (He being the one "of whose kingdom there will be no end").
I have found Fr. Kirby's homilies to be informative, thought provoking and orthodox. I would therefore encourage anyone living in the area of Lancaster, SC to visit Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church.
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