The Righteous Branch of David today

The history of the reassurances of Jeremiah in the texts from the Roman Catholic Lectionary is that the Lord God has provided for the people of Israel (and Judah) from the earliest times. The path of salvation from the experiences of Abraham and Moses and David has been that the Lord God with outstretched arm and mighty hand has returned the people to the Covenant. “You are my people and I am your God”. The destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians in the 6th century BCE is the event which is overshadowing the people who have turned away from the practices of their faith in relationship with the Divine to idolatry, and material concerns have overtaken the need for a relationship of peace and righteousness with humanity through intimacy with the Divine. Matthew’s Gospel, written for an audience of Jews, introduces the birth of Jesus as the dawning of the fulfillment of the promise of a Messiah who would lead the Hebrew people to return to great intimacy with God through the action of the Spirit which is evidenced in miraculous birth of a descendent of David who is the Son of God.