MAR 3

Fulfillment in scripture, in my view, is the idea of completing something once promised. Often I have found that God is the One who initiates this promise, and throughout the course of several narratives we find that it slowly begins to become fulfilled. The smaller words interwoven in the larger word, namely “full” and “fill,” are appropriate components of the word which I think work well in explaining the meaning of “fulfillment.” Fulfillment seems to be a lengthy process of filling until that thing is full. As Hosea notes, “that what the Lord said through the prophet might be fulfilled: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (Mt 2:15), this idea of fulfillment is reliant on two parties, namely God and His people who He has called upon to perform the duty of fulfillment.

The opening chapters of the Gospels of Matthew and Luke are filled with references and allusions to the Old Testament. Matthew 1’s genealogy of Jesus is an obvious example, but references to the Abrahamic covenant as we see in Luke 1 for example, “and to remember his holy covenant, the oath he swore to our father Abraham” (Luke 1:72-73), are equally clear. Our two other readings make note of how heavily influenced these Gospels are by the Old Testament, and make note of how the story of Jesus works perfectly with the prologue established by the previous Testament. Understanding the New Testament hinges upon a thorough understanding of the Old. As Luke and Matthew have made clear through their very first writings, the connection is to be made immediately.