Today's Gospel reading looks to the time when Jesus began to preach the Gospel: "Repent! The Kingdom of God is at hand". As such, this passage does not seem to have much immediate relevance to this time after Epiphany, when we are still contemplating the mystery of Christmas and its immediate aftermath.

Nevertheless, the Gospel passage does have a certain relevance. As at the birth of John the Baptist, so also at the birth of Jesus, a great question arose in people's minds: What kind of person will this child turn out to be? Who is this remarkable child, at whose birth such wonderful things occurred? Indeed, this is a question that pervades the whole Gospel: Who is this Jesus of Nazareth? What kind of man is He? Jesus Himself will bring that question into the open one day: Who do people say that I am? Who do you say that I am? In today's Gospel passage, Matthew begins to answer these questions. For Matthew, as for much of the New Testament, in order to understand Jesus, we must go back to the Old Testament, especially to Isaiah, for Isaiah had the vision of God's love spreading beyond Israel to include the Gentiles.