Day 001: God's Transcendent Love

But while he thought about these things, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take to you Mary your wife, for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Spirit.  And she will bring forth a Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His people from their sins."  Matthew 1:20-21

This new year, I really like the message that I get from the first chapter of the Gospel according to Matthew, for it gives a long explanation for a central truth: that God's love is transcendent.  God's gift, our savior, Jesus, is something that transcends all of our boundaries:
that it is for us regardless of our pasts,
that it is something that might not even make sense for us,
that our social constructs may not permit us to have it,
that it is just weird.

The chapter begins with the ever famous genealogy, with all the "begats" that we just love to make fun of (who even uses that form anymore?).  However, the interesting thing about the list of names is that many of the names are of men and women who were sinners, and even the most despicable, at that!  Kings drove God's people away from God's ways, people who were deceptive.  But, from this complicated family tree came Jesus.
To make matters even thornier, Jesus was conceived before Joseph and Mary were married, which is a taboo even today.  But, God takes care of things.  Sometimes, we like to think that God is far away from us and that we are alone in all of our tests and troubles.  God sent an angel to calm Joseph down, and it worked.  Though things were getting out of hand, God reassured Joseph that things were supposed to go just that way.

And so, as we might like to think that all the torments of the past year are behind us, some that we hope never to have to revisit, we must remember that God has our lives under God's control.  God's love, which is perfect for each one of us, has no boundaries.  We can push it away as much as we want to, but God has an angel waiting to tell us to keep calm.