(Based on a sermon for the Sunday of Genealogy. READINGS: - Hebrews 11.9-10, 32-40; Matthew 1.1-25.)

When I was young, just like every other schoolboy of course I used to look forward to Christmas. But just before that there was always an event that was not so welcome. On the eve of the Christmas holidays we received the first school report of the academic year!

In those days headmasters could be as sarcastic, even as cruel as they liked. My headmaster considered himself responsible for moulding the characters of his pupils as well as educating them. So he included remarks about character in his reports.

I still remember my first report at secondary school, issued at the end of my first term in the first form. “This boy’s eccentricities often trouble us.” Perhaps I haven’t changed since!

A retired headmaster recently published a book of choice comments from school reports. (I don’t think they are all comments from reports he wrote himself). Two of them especially amused me.

“This boy appears to have an I.Q. about equal to room temperature.”

And the other one: -

“This pupil always seems lost in thought. No doubt this is because it is very much alien country.”

Well, have you thought what sort of character reports could have been written about some of the people who appear in the long lists in today’s readings? The people listed in the passage from the letter to the Hebrews are all right. The prophets and other holy men listed there are all people of faith. They were holy and brave, often enduring great suffering.

But the list of Jesus’ ancestors that forms the man part of today’s Gospel reading contains some very odd people indeed. (We commemorate Jesus’ ancestors today, because, besides being the Sunday before the Nativity, it is also the Sunday of Genealogy). Many of them were holy and brave, but others were very different. King David, for instance, was an adulterer and a murderer (though he improved later in life). Some of the kings of Judah, such as Manasseh, were much worse. They were worse tyrants than modern dictators like Hitler or Stalin.

In short, Jesus’ ancestors included not just the good, but the good, the bad and the indifferent. That is as it should be, for he came to save the good, the bad and the indifferent. He did not become man just to save the good.

God sent his only Son into the world for the benefit of all mankind. We should remember that. Jesus is not just for Christians - certainly not just for Orthodox Christians. He is also for Moslems, Hindus, Buddhists and even for agnostics and atheists. He came to save us all.

“For”, as St John quotes Jesus as saying in his Gospel, “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life”. (John 3.16).

The remainder of today’s Gospel reading consists of St Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth at Bethlehem. The message of Jesus’ genealogy is something to bear in mind as we prepare to celebrate the events more graphically described by St Luke. How the Son of God was born in a cave and placed in a manger by a virgin mother, Mary most pure.