My parents were not much interested in their antecedents. When I Asked them questions about the family they gave vague answers that obscured rather than illuminated. It made me wonder whether I was descended from a long line of undesirables! But I doubt whether they were that interesting.

I have cousins on both sides of my family who are the keepers of the family histories. They supply me with information when I need it. I am gathering material to write a fictionalized account of four generations of my family. In discovering what might have happened to them I understand better what formed my parents and grandparents, and influenced me.

Some years ago I participated in a continuing education program on Family Systems Theory, which explored how the dynamics of family histories can repeat themselves in the lives of each generation. The exercise of drawing up a genogram of your family history, which identifies the patterns of marriage, children, divorce, births and deaths, can throw considerable light on your own experience.

None of us is self-made. None of us is a stand alone. Each of us Comes from somewhere. We have continuity to the past. We are the product of generations and our own choices. Erik Erikson describes the stage of Integrity in the Life Cycle as "the acceptance of one's own and only life cycle and of the people who have become significant to it as something that had to be and that, by necessity, permitted of no substitutions. It thus means a new different love of one's parents, free of the wish that they should have been different, and an acceptance of the fact that one's own life is one's own responsibility. It is a sense of comradeship with men and women of distant times and of different pursuits, who have created orders and objects and sayings conveying human dignity and love." (Identity and the life Cycle, p.104) Erikson placed Integrity as the last stage in the life cycle.

I am presently reading The Hornet's Nest, a novel of the American revolutionary war in Georgia and the Carolinas, by Jimmy Carter. In writing about those times former President Carter is also trying to understand his continuity with his family members who settled in Georgia. By writing about that period he is getting in touch with what it must have been like for his ancestors. Some of the characters are based on them. He said that he began to study his family history in 1998. It was the 100th birthday of his ancestor who moved to southwest Georgia. As he started study the history he got interested in the period .

In Matthew's account of the early childhood of Jesus (Matt.2:13- 23) we find that Jesus experienced this continuity with the past. Like his ancestor Joseph he was taken to Egypt. Jesus recapitulated the history of Israel by his sojourn in Egypt. Like Moses he was saved from certain death at the hand of the king of his day. When the time was come to return, the holy family left Egypt and traveled to Nazareth. Israel discovered its identity in Egypt , and the exodus from Egypt was the central point in the history of the nation.

Pharoah tried to destroy the people in Egypt, but Moses brought them out into the land of promise. Just as Pharoah failed to kill Moses, Herod, the new Pharoah, failed to kill the Savior. Eventually, Moses brought the children of Israel out of the land of bondage and death, and Moses' successor was to bring the people out of a worse bondage and a worse death, the death of sin. Jesus is seen as the successor of Moses: he came to save his people from their sins. Jesus is going to rescue us. He is going to usher in the new exodus.

Matthew sees Jesus as fulfilling the Old Testament's predictions. The history of God's children is recapitulated in the history of God's Son. As Israel of long ago was led down to Egypt, so was Jesus. As Israel came out, so did Jesus. He embodies and fulfils the history of the people of God in his own person.

Michael Green, in writing about these stories about Jesus' childhood, concludes: "Matthew makes it plain that God works through both surprise and continuity to bring about his purposes. The story of Jesus is utterly continuous with Abraham, with David and with the whole history of the chosen people. Bu t it also bristles with surprises. Perhaps this is to encourage us to expect God to be working in our lives steadily and continuously, making sense of our past history, but also to be on the lookout for God's surprises in our lives, ready to grasp them and follow through their implications when they come." (The Message of Matthew, p.74)

Joseph was surprised by the angel of the Lord appearing to him in a dream and directing him to escape to Egypt. Yet in so doing he fulfilled the prophecies, and repeated the history of his family. When Herod ordered the mass acre of the boys under two years old he didn't realize that he was repeating the sin of the Pharoah who opposed Moses. At the right time the angel directed Joseph and Mary back to the land of Israel. There they were warned in a dream not to settle in Judaea but to go to Galilee.

How often do we repeat the history of our ancestors? Sometimes we slip into committing the same sins as they did. Joseph was enabled to survive and flourish, to take care of his family, and to move on toward fulfilling divine destiny because he obeyed the guidance that was given him.

God is working in our lives steadily and continuously. He encourages u s to make sense of our family histories, to discover patterns of behavior that are to be either avoided or embraced. We are also meant to be on the look out for God's surprises in our lives, and be willing to grasp them and follow through on their implications when they come.

What surprises will God have in store for you this coming year? Whatever they are, they are meant to be for your good. When you respond to them positively you will find that you will be fulfilling your divine destiny.

The Rev. Schroder is the rector of the chapel on Amelia Island Plantation. He is an Episcopal priest.

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