it’s been a while since i wrote on here, but sometimes i do have the occasional writer inspiration. today’s entry comes courtesy of my amazing wife, who, when she heard i was preaching last week encouraged me to write a new sermon instead of being lazy and reusing one of my CHRISTmas sermons i’ve preached before. keep in mind that i don’t have as much time to prep as i would if i was in a pastoral job, but i acquiesced to her suggestion and began the task of selecting a passage. God directed me to focus on the genealogy of Christ, and if you know me at all, this would truly be a challenge. normally when i get to genealogies in the Bible, my tendency is to zone out until all i see is words, words, words, and then skip past the rest until i get to the story. however, God being God, He proved to me how valuable they are in this simple genealogy of Jesus in matthew! keep in mind there are two different genealogies, one in matthew and the other in luke. we’ll get to the reason for that in a minute. but the genealogy contains a whole list of people to be included in the characters of CHRISTmas, as they are important to the narrative of that first CHRISTmas! a note of warning: this is a longer post than usual because there were a lot of people in the genealogy, and even though i’m not covering everyone, there is still a lot to cover!
to set the background, you have to remember that until Christ was born, there was 400 years of silence from God. no books of Scripture were written during that time. when lori and i watch tv series, and there is a gap between seasons, the first episode of the new season usually starts with a recap of previous episodes, reminding you of what happened to get you caught up and ready for the new season. think of the genealogy as the o.g. series recap. matthew is writing to the jews and recapping the jewish history all the way back to abraham, through king david, and ending with joseph, the earthly father of Jesus. you might ask, why would matthew take the time to do the genealogy of joseph, if Jesus wasn’t his offspring? well, if you study jewish history, you would know that the jews placed great importance on the patriarchy, and Jesus was joseph’s legal son according to jewish law. matthew’s intent was to connect Jesus to both the jewish people through abraham and judah, referencing the prophecy in genesis 49:10; and to david in order to establish Jesus’ right to sit on the throne as King, referencing the prophecy in jeremiah 23:5-6. an important note is that matthew wasn’t fawning over king david like the majority of jews of that day. his genealogy showed the culmination of the monarchy in king david, and then the downfall, illustrating the failure of the earthly monarchy, and the need for the Messiah who would be the heavenly King beyond reproach. matthew also was a first-hand witness of how the jews treated Jesus, so this genealogy was to make a convincing argument to the jews of the first century that Jesus actually was the promised Messiah.
that being said, who were these people included in the genealogy? matthew didn’t include everyone, but used a writing trope of the day, using hebrew numerology and focusing on the number 14, which was the number of david (d=5 + v=4 + d=5), so he had intent with the people he included. he clearly intended to show Jesus was not of the typical aristocracy the jews were used to. one of the striking things about his genealogy compared with typical jewish genealogies was the inclusion of women. this was not an accepted practice of the day, and men of the day looked down on women. it is reported that a common prayer of men of the day was thanking God that they hadn’t been born “a gentile, a slave, or a woman.” matthew was clearly stating that Jesus came to change that, and there was a place for women in the Kingdom of God. however, the women he chose to include were sure to raise an eyebrow with the jews of the day. The first was tamar, and her story can be found in genesis 38. a short synopsis is that she was married to er, the eldest son of judah. er was killed by God for his wickedness, and tamar had not had a child with him, so according to levirate law, his brother was obligated to marry her and provide her with a child. this duty fell to onan, and let’s just say he shirked that duty (it’s quite scandalous! go read it!) and God killed him for it. judah, not being the most upright father, falsely blamed her for his sons’ deaths, and refused to give his third son to her as a husband. she decided to take matters into her own hands and disguised herself as a prostitute and propositioned judah, who then slept with her and got her pregnant. but she kept an insurance policy in the form of his staff, seal, and cord, and later when he found out she was pregnant, he ordered her to be burned for prostitution, at which point she showed him that she had his staff, seal, and cord, showing he was the father. the second woman was rahab, who was a canaanite prostitute that hid the hebrew spies in jericho and helped them escape. here is another woman associated with scandal in being not only a prostitute, but a gentile! another gentile woman included in the genealogy was ruth, a moabite. the fourth woman included was not named specifically, but referred to as the “wife of uriah the hittite.” this is clearly referring to bathsheba, the gentile woman king david had brought to his palace because he saw her bathing on the rooftop, and then took advantage of her. these were all women of scandal, yet matthew included them in this genealogy! charles spurgeon said, “Jesus is heir of a line in which flows the blood of the harlot rahab, and of the rustic ruth; he is akin to the fallen and to the lowly, and he will show his love even to the poorest and most obscure.”
who else was included in the genealogy? instead of picking the most upstanding people and conveniently leaving out the evildoers, matthew was completely transparent in who was in the line of Jesus. if this was today, calls to “cancel Jesus” would be prevalent! the usual jewish heroes were in there, but even they had their flaws. first, we see abraham, who doubted God and fathered a child with his wife’s servant. jacob is also in there, who deceived his father and stole his brother’s birthright. as mentioned before, judah was included, and it’s already been established that he was a pretty lousy father, and he evidently was ok with visiting a prostitute, and considering he had once sold his brother into slavery and lied to his father about it, saying that he had been killed by a wild animal, it’s safe to say that he was not a shining example of morality. king david is in there, and we know that he was an adulterer and murderer, and a horrible father, whose own sons fought a war against each other. we later see boaz, who is called the “kinsman redeemer,” and was a prototype for Christ. but we also see the ugliest of the line, including uzziah, whose story is told in 2 chronicles 26, where he grew arrogant as king and tried to burn incense in the holy seat so God struck him with leprosy. we see jeconiah, the son of king jehoiakim, an evil king who God cursed because of his evil, stating that none of his descendants would ever sit on the throne of david. this was why it was so critical that Jesus not be blood related to joseph, and why matthew reiterated that mary was a virgin (and not just a “young woman” as some have claimed) and that joseph did not have sex with her until after Jesus was born. this would liberate Christ from the curse of jeconiah, qualifying Him to occupy the throne of david. it also was a fulfillment of prophecy from isaiah 7:14, which says, “behold, the virgin shall be with child, and bear a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.” a sidenote here is that luke included the bloodline of Jesus through mary all the way back to adam, but through david’s other son nathan, showing that Jesus was also blood related to david.
there are others mentioned that we have no records of, other than this genealogy. it doesn’t mean that they aren’t important, because matthew included them. just that there was no significant historical event tied to them, so they are simply placeholders with their own stories and lives.
so what is the purpose of the genealogy? what can we learn from it? much! after all, 2 timothy 3:16-17 says that “all Scripture is God-breathed, and is useful for reproof, for correction, and for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” while it is tempting to skip over genealogies, they are included for a purpose, and we can learn from them. first, it established the prophetic qualifications of Christ, separating Him from other false Messiahs of the day. an interesting note is that there are over 300 prophecies concerning Christ in the old testament. a group of mathematicians calculated the probability of one person fulfilling just eight prophecies is 1 in 10 quadrillion, or 10 to the 17th power! that is like covering the entire state of texas in silver dollars, placing a black X on one of them, and then sending a blind man in to collect a silver dollar and him picking that one! the odds of one person fulfilling 48 prophecies is 1 in 10 to the 157th power! there isn’t even a name for that number! by comparison, scientists have theorized that there are only 10 to the 80th power atoms in the entire universe! the odds of one person fulfilling all 300 plus? impossible except for Christ!
a second thing we can learn from the genealogy is that no matter who you are, what’s been done to you, what you’ve done, or how insignificant you think you may be, God can still use you! God used cheaters, liars, adulterers, murderers, victims, kings, servants, men and women, and even the most insignificant of people to bring forth His Son! another thing we can learn is that God rewards the faithful! rahab was a foreign prostitute, but God used her because she was faithful. God rewarded ruth because of her faithfulness to naomi and to God! others, such as abraham and david, despite their flaws, were still faithful to God.
the genealogy shows that God can work through the most wicked of people to accomplish His purpose. it is an example of romans 8:28, where God says, “all things work together for good to them that love God and are called according to His purpose.” so when you look around at the evil that men do, and are tempted to despair, take hope that God is still at work, and can work through their wickedness to accomplish His purpose. this is true with leaders, with coworkers, with the most evil in society. God is all-powerful, and He is always at work, even when we don’t see Him working.
the genealogy tells us who the gospel is for! it is filled with interesting juxtapositions of characters: royalty and commoners, sinners and righteous, women and men, jews and gentiles, victors and victims, known and unknown. up until Jesus’ day, anyone not a jew was an outsider, unclean, a gentile. God including moabites, hittites, canaanites, and women in the genealogy demonstrated that the Gospel was open to all! Jesus embodied this in His ministry when He spent time with women, with publicans and sinners, and with samaritans!
finally, the genealogy tells us that no one is beyond redemption! Christ came to save sinners, and this couldn’t be more evident in the people that were included in His family tree! none of them were beyond grace and mercy, and Jesus took their shame and their sin upon Him when He died on the cross! He also did that for you!
so this CHRISTmas, be encouraged! Christ’s birth was an expression of good will toward all on whom God has found favor! you are loved, so much that God sent His only Son to die for you! he was born of flawed people, and God used them to accomplish His purpose! He can also use you!
