Fathers, Mothers And Grand And Great Grandparents

In Western Christianity, this day (July 26th) is celebrated as the “feast of grandparents.” This feast began with the earliest church traditions, which marked the maternal grandparents of Jesus, Joachim, and Anne.

A little bit later, in about the third and fourth centuries, the universal church formalised the practice of observing this feast day across the church. The Eastern Church observes the feast on the 25th of July, and the Western Church on the 26th of July—that’s today!

Although the grandparents of Jesus or their names are not mentioned in the New Testament, there is a beautiful account of them in the gospel called the proto-gospel of James. In this gospel, they are named Joachim and Anne.

Before I share their story with you and say why we celebrate Joachim and Anne and all grandparents today, I want to share a small story that describes the depth of my love for my maternal grandmother. Her name was Gertrude. She played a huge role in bringing me up and instilling faith in me with a love for the Lord.

As with all the first grandchildren, I was the first grandchild born to the family, and I received a lot of attention from the day I was born. My grandmother took the leading role in caring for me; over the years, I deeply bonded with her.

One beautiful morning, she was walking me to the school down a beautiful lane across a garden adorned with many coloured roses and orchids. The dew that had fallen that morning was still fresh. My Grandma held me close to her to stop me from kicking on the grass that would have wet my socks with the dew. The birds were singing, the freshly blossomed roses were emitting their scent, the air was fresh, and the gentle morning sun was warming our faces. This beautiful atmosphere had magic enchanting my heart even though I was only five years old.

Some other-worldly sentimentality arrested my soul, and I made a very bold statement to my Grandma. I kissed my Grandma’s hand that was holding me and said to her, " Grandma, you know I love you so much; when I grow up to be a big man, I want to marry you!” She laughed, lifted me up, kissed me on my cheeks, and put me down. That day, I still remember spending school hours thinking of Grandma.

That beautiful childhood experience still wells up in me, and my eyes are wet when I think of Grandma. As I was growing up in the pursuing years, I relived that moment, recalling my words again and again. I thought they were the best words I could have said to her to express my great devotion and love for her. In my childhood, I wanted to be bonded to her and receive that love and nurturing for my spiritual, emotional and physical development. Below is a pic of me and my Grandma after my ordination as a Deacon in 1992 at St Paul’s Cathedral in Wellington, NZ. God called her Home in 2002.

I wanted to share this story with you because today is the feast day of Jesus' grandparents and the feast of our grandparents, and ours if we are grandparents. I think the feast day could be extended to all of us who also have the prefix “grand” describing our family relationships. I am a grandfather to my niece’s two children.

Now, to the story of Jesus’ grandparents, Joachim and Anne, and the message we have from God in celebrating their feast today.

The way I understand it, we miss knowing Joachim and Anne because there is a sad aspect to the two family tree records we have for Jesus in the Bible. These two family tree records are found in Matthew (1:1–17) and Luke (3:23–38). The sad aspect of these two records is that the family line on Jesus’ mother’s side is entirely left out.

This seems to be the result of Matthew wanting to highlight Jesus’ lineage from King David and his forefather Abraham, the father of the nation of Israel. On Luke’s part, the negligence seems to result from him wanting to trace Jesus’ lineage back to Adam, whom he states was the son of God.

Matthew, who wrote the gospel to the Jews, had wanted to present Jesus as the long-expected Messiah from the line of David. Luke, who wrote the gospel to the Gentiles, had wanted to cast Jesus’ mission to the whole world, which had originated from God, who had created humankind.

However, there was no good reason to leave the mother’s side of the family out.

For the second and third-generation Christians who had not met the Lord and his mother, the lack of any record of the mother’s family line may have been an anathema. I know how hurtful it would be for us to have an ancestry record that does not record our mother’s side of the family tree. My guess that this gave birth to the legend of Joachim and Anne. This legend was compiled more than a century after Jesus ascension into Heaven.