“And she will bring forth a
Son, and you shall call His name Jesus, for He will save His
people from their sins.” – Matthew 1:21
The
Christmas season is one of the most wonderful times of the year, but it’s also
one of the most hectic times. With all the shopping, decorating, school
programs and parties—for many of us, this season has become too much of a rat
race. So this year, I hope you’ll take the time to stop and smell the poinsettias.
(Do poinsettias even smell? It doesn’t matter.) If you slow down and push aside
the commercialism and hecticness of the season, underneath it all you’ll find
the simple heart of Christmas: Jesus Christ—born to save the world.
As with
anything simple, it’s best to begin at the beginning: the opening chapters of
Matthew. Usually, when we read the Christmas story from Matthew, we skip the
first 17 verses. Because, after all, 15 of the first 17 verses are a
genealogy—just a list of names. And that’s not very important, right? Yet for
some reason, it’s the first scripture to appear in the Bible after the book of
Malachi, some 400 years before. Why on earth would the Holy Spirit lead Matthew
to break the silence with a genealogy?
Great
question. He did it, in large part, because Matthew’s original audience was
Jewish. And the Jewish people in Matthew’s day were very concerned about
pedigree. For example, a priest was required to give an unbroken record of his
genealogy all the way back to Moses’ brother Aaron. So, to the Jews of that time,
it would be impressive that Jesus’ ancestry could be traced all the way back to
Abraham, and that his lineage also included King David. As Matthew set out to
prove that Jesus is the promised Messiah and the King of the Jews, proving that
Jesus was both a descendent of Abraham and a descendent of King David was
critical. Otherwise Jewish readers would have ignored the rest of Matthew’s gospel
account.
After
establishing that sterling pedigree, here’s a surprise: Four women are listed
in Jesus’ genealogy. Back then, this would have shocked every Jewish reader.
The nation of Israel
was a very patriarchal society, and most Jewish men would never list any women in
their genealogy—especially women with mixed blood lines and sordid pasts. Yet
Matthew lists Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. The first two women practiced
prostitution. Ruth was from the wicked nation of Moab . And we all know the story of
Bathsheba’s affair with King David.
So, what
was Matthew thinking? What’s the deal with these four not-so-upstanding women
being included in Jesus’ genealogy?
As
theologian William Barclay puts it, “If Matthew had ransacked the pages of the
Old Testament for improbable candidates he could not have discovered four more
incredible ancestors for Jesus Christ [than these four women]. But surely,
there is something very lovely in this.” Barclay points out that by including these
names at the very beginning of his gospel, Matthew was showing the essence of
the good news to come. The story of Jesus Christ is all about barriers going
down: the barrier between Jew and Gentile; the barrier between male and female;
and most of all, the barrier between saint and sinner. As Jesus says in Matthew
9:13b, “For I did not come to call
the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”
You see,
the Good News of Jesus Christ is contained right here—in this genealogy that
you’ve always thought was boring and unimportant. Jesus didn’t come to be the
Savior of those who have their act together, those who have a squeaky clean
past, those who have no skeletons in the closet. Jesus came to be the Savior of
the whole world. That includes prostitutes, addicts, liars, cheaters, thieves
and murderers. So, no matter what you’ve done, no matter how far you’ve
strayed, no matter how many skeletons you have in your closet, Jesus came for
you, too. He came for you.
And here’s
one more dollop of heartwarming icing on the Christmas cake. In Matthew 1:17,
Matthew strategically lists Jesus’ genealogy in three groups of fourteen
generations each. If you take a closer look at the beginning and ending names
in each group of 14, you’ll discover a beautiful snapshot of human history and
the reason for Christmas.
The first
group begins with Abraham (the “friend of God”) and ends with David (the “man
after God’s own heart”). The second group begins with David and ends with the
Babylonian exile—a punishment by God for Israel ’s rejection of God. And the
third group begins with the exile and ends with the birth of Christ.
Herein lies
the unfolding of human history: We were created as friends of God to become men
and women after His own heart. But we squandered that wonderful gift by turning
our backs on Him. As a result, we suffered defeat and death. But Jesus came to
give us grace and hope and life. That’s the story of human history. And that’s simply
Christmas!
Dane Davis is the Pastor of First
Christian Church in Victorville. For more information, visit www.fccvv.com and join us this
Christmas season for our message series, “Simply Christmas,” Sundays at 10 a.m.
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