Dear Emanuel
Members and Friends –
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations. (Matthew 1:1-17)
Matthew– thought to have been written by a Jewish convert (by tradition, Matthew the tax collector) to the way of Jesus to convince fellow Jews that Jesus is the Messiah – begins his Gospel with a genealogy, a list of Jesus’ ancestors going back to Abraham. For modern readers, while it’s possible that we may be interested in our own family’s genealogy, we probably can’t imagine anything more tedious to read than an ancient genealogy for somebody else’s family. As we begin to read through it, our eyes glaze over, and most of us just skip over these verses to get to Mary and Joseph and the baby. But for ancient cultures and for more traditional cultures even today, genealogies are very important. In these cultures, remembering the family line was and is crucially important; one’s lineage says a great deal about who a person is. So what does this genealogy tell us about who Jesus is?
On one
level, the genealogy is intended to associate Jesus with Abraham and David, key
figures in Jewish history. It was expected
that the Messiah be descended from King David, and this genealogy demonstrates
this connection. Indeed, the descendants
in the second set of fourteen names (from David to the deportation) were
likewise kings, and so generations of royal blood flowed in Jesus’ veins. It should be noted that In numerology, the
number seven is the number of perfection, and so the number fourteen – two time
seven - signifies double perfection. (It
should likewise be noted, though, that David’s descendants included kings that
were regarded as relatively faithful, such as Hezekiah and Josiah, as well as
kings who were extremely unfaithful, such as Manasseh and Jeconiah.)
On the other
hand, while most of those listed are males – not unusual for a highly
patriarchal culture – four women are identified early in the genealogy. What’s notable is that each of these women
acted in ways that were unconventional and even scandalous, and yet each had a crucial
role in continuing the family line of King David. Tamar (Genesis 38) pretended to be a
prostitute and slept with her father-in-law, Judah, in order to continue the
family line. Rahab (Joshua 2, Joshua 6) was a prostitute who provided
hospitality to the spies from Israel who were scouting out Jericho in
preparation for the conquest of Canaan.
Ruth (about whom the book of Ruth was written) was Moabite woman who
married into the family of Boaz; their son Obed was the grandfather of King
David. (Ruth’s marriage to Boaz would
have raised eyebrows, as Israel detested the Moabite people. Deuteronomy 23:3
states “No Ammonite or Moabite shall be admitted to the assembly of the
LORD. Even to the tenth generation, none
of their descendants shall be admitted to the assembly of the LORD.”) And “the wife of Uriah” was Bathsheba, with
whom King David committed adultery (2 Samuel 11-12). (In
this last mention, the genealogy not only references Bathsheba but her husband,
Uriah, whom David set up to be killed in battle in order to claim Bathsheba.) The
mention of these unconventional women with their scandalous stories prepares
Matthew’s Jewish readers to accept that just as God was at work in their lives,
God was working through Mary, who was “found to be with child by the Holy Spirit”
and in a potentially scandalous situation.
Matthew was preparing his readers for the reality that Mary’s son was not
from an illicit union, but from God.
The lineage
of Jesus includes patriarchs and kings – some faithful, some not so faithful –
along with some unconventional women, at least one of whom was a Gentile, Ruth
the Moabite. An old hymn states that “the ground is level at the foot of the
cross” – that is, all of us without exception are equally in need of God’s
grace – and this is the case at the manger as well. As we read this genealogy almost 2,000 years
later, we can be comforted and challenged by the reality that just as the
genealogy of Jesus included all sorts of people, likewise, all sorts and
conditions of people are welcome to worship the Christ child. Indeed, God can use anyone, even us, as
unworthy as we are, or even somebody we detest, as unworthy as they may be, for
God’s purposes. All of us are in need of
God’s grace, and none of us is beyond the reach of God’s grace. As
human beings created in God’s image, we are not defined by the worst thing
we’ve ever done, and no scandal is beyond the reach of the forgiveness Jesus
offers. At the manger, as at the foot of
the cross, all the lines we draw to separate ourselves from others, to define our
neighbors as “other” and “less than” – all of these lines vanish.
In this
season of Advent, may we prepare our hearts to make room for the Christ
child. May we come to the manger to
worship, and there may we be reconciled to God and neighbor. Let every heart prepare him room.
With prayers for a blessed Advent, Christmas, and New
Year – Pastor Dave
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