Matthew's Gospel begins and ends with scenes of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. In chapters 1-2, the Mary and Joseph are his parents; in chapter 27, there's Joseph of Arimathea and Mary has "doubled" into Mary Magdalene and the "other Mary."
The first story is a story of life, the second a story of death. The first tells about the miracle of the virgin conception, while the second tells of a burial. The first focuses on the child in the womb, the second on the crucified man in the tomb.
Overriding the contrasts, though, is a basic similarity: The first scene is about the coming of the Son of God, the second about his coming again from the tomb; the first presents him as the firstborn of Mary and Joseph, the second as the firstborn of the dead; the first is Jesus' birth story, the second a story of his rebirth, and the rebirth of creation.
As Matthew tells the gospel story, the incarnation at Christmas is wonderful but it is not completed until the resurrection story of Easter. The story of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph in Bethlehem is good news, but it's not yet the whole good news without the story of Jesus, two Marys, and the other Joseph in a garden near Jerusalem.
--Peter Leithart, from the "Quodlibet" section of Touchstone (Nov/Dec 2009)
