Several years ago I remember getting very interested in my family tree, my genealogy. I can’t remember why. Perhaps it was the old black and white pictures my grandfather showed us of our ancestors and their stories I never knew. What brought them from Germany to the U.S.? Did they come to here for opportunity or did they come to escape something? Or maybe I was interested because of the sense of connection of knowing where I came from, my roots if you will. I don’t know. But I remember I began to do some research. I purchased a genealogy program for the computer which keeps track of the family, and I started checking out my family tree. I came to find out my aunt had done extensive research on our family. So far we have traced back our family tree 6-7 generations, going back about 150 years. I thought that was pretty good, until I look at Biblical genealogies.
Take a look at Matthew’s account of Jesus’ family tree. It goes back over 28 generations, representing about 1600-1800 years. To the Jewish people (at least in Biblical times), genealogies were very significant. It was important to know where you came from, whose ancestry you followed, what tribe of Israel you descended from. As my own family tree demonstrates we have no concept of family history in our modernized Western world. It’s not important to us, I suspect, because of our independent spirit, we want to be our own person. In fact if you’re like I was, when I cracked open Matthew’s gospel I would skim right over the beginning of the first chapter, Jesus’ genealogy, because it seems like just another one of those boring genealogies in the Bible. So and so begat so and so, who begat so and so, the son of, the son of [pretend to fall asleep]. Come on, admit it, you thought it was boring too. But when I was in seminary one my professors pointed out how Matthew’s presentation of Jesus’ family tree is anything but boring. We discover there are a few skeletons in Jesus’ closet as far as his relations go. Jesus lineage is far from perfect. But rather than overlooking these, like we would, Matthew actually goes out of his way to point them out, because he is setting the stage for Jesus’ arrival into our world. These skeletons point us to the stories behind the birth of Jesus, which demonstrate who God is and why he was sending the Messiah into the world.
If we could all turn to Matthew chapter one as we look at the family tree of Jesus. We’re not going to read all of this but I will point out these oddities in his genealogy. First we read, “a record of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.” Matthew wants us to understand that Jesus is a child of Abraham and therefore part of God’s covenant promise as an Israelite. God’s promise to Abraham was that his descendents would have the Promised Land, and they would be a blessing to the world. Jesus is also a descendant of David, therefore qualifying him as the possible Messiah because the prophesies declared the Messiah would be a descendent of David and he would rule forever. That sets the stage.
1. Tamar
Shortly into Jesus’ genealogy we see the first skeleton, “Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers. Judah the father of Perez and Zerah whose mother was Tamar.” Wait a minute here, why is a woman mentioned in Jesus genealogy. If you look at Jewish genealogies in the OT women are not usually mentioned, but here we have Tamar. Matthew puts her name in there for a reason. He is trying call our attention to something.
You may not remember the story of Tamar so let me refresh your memory (Gen. 38). Judah had three sons, his oldest was Er, and Tamar became his wife but the Bible says the Lord put Er to death because he was wicked. So according to their custom, the next youngest brother’s responsibility was to marry and bear children with Tamar. Then the children she bore would actually be considered a child of her first husband to continue his line. Being married and having a child would also bring honor to Tamar because being childless was a great shame in their culture. But the next brother refused to do it because he knew the child wouldn’t be his. Because of his refusal, God put him to death. Then Judah pledged to give his youngest son to her when he grew up, but Judah never did it because Tamar was looking like a death sentence for his sons. Judah left Tamar in shame, unwanted, unmarried with no children. Fast forward several years and Judah’s wife died and during his time of grieving he went to town to shear sheep. Tamar meanwhile heard of this, dressed like a prostitute and went into town ahead of Judah and stood alongside the road. Judah propositioned her, and she ended up having two children from her father in law, Perez and Zerah. Perez ended up being in the lineage of Jesus.
And you thought you had skeletons in your closet. Not very flattering lineage for Jesus is it? Nothing you would want to put in your family tree is it? Most of us have a tendency to gloss over the skeletons from our past, but Matthew goes out of his way to draw our attention to this story. Let’s move on to the next oddity and I will tie these two together to see what’s going on.
2. Rahab – Jesus is the Savior
We continue reading (v. 3), “Perez…Salmon was the father Boaz, whose mother was Rahab.” Wait a minute, here we go again, Rahab. What is she doing in this genealogy? Do you remember Rahab? Let me remind you, Rahab was a Canaanite prostitute living in the town of Jericho before Joshua and the people of Israel conquered the land. There are two marks against her, her profession and her nationality. Her profession was definitely against God’s law and God was going to destroy her people, the Canaanites, because of their wickedness, and give their land to the Israelite people. God promised Abraham over 400 years earlier he would do this for his descendants. God told the Israelites that none of them should intermix with any Canaanites.
The Israelites were getting ready to conquer the land of Canaan and their first stop was Jericho. The Israelites sent spies in to check Jericho out but they were discovered. God directed them to the home of Rahab who protected them, at risk to herself, because she knew the God of the Israelites would prevail (Josh. 2:1-21). Sure enough, the spies made it back to the camp, and the people of Israel came and marched around the walls of Jericho seven days, and on the last day at the blowing of the horns the walls of Jericho miraculously came tumbling down. Only one family was saved, Rahab’s. God protected her because she believed in the power of the God of the Israelites and she demonstrated her meager faith by protecting the Israelite spies. Even though she was a Canaanite and a prostitute, God saved her. Not only did God save her life but after this encounter she married an Israelite, had children, and apparently lived a respectable God fearing life. She is even mentioned in the NT book Hebrews chapter 11 as one of the heroes of faith in the OT, right up there with Noah, Moses, David and Samuel.
What do these two women teach us about God and about this child Jesus who was about to enter our world? I think Matthew is trying to tell us that God can take the unlikeliest people and even the worst situations and turn them around use them for his purposes. It reminds me of the passage in the NT, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purposes (Rom. 8:28).” God loves and cares for all people. If God can save a Canaanite prostitute and turn her life around and use her, he can definitely take any one of us and do the same. If can take a relationship fiasco like Tamar’s and use her child as an ancestor of Jesus’ line, this God can work miracles.
I think Matthew is trying to set the stage for coming of Jesus, that God was sending this infant Messiah to save his people, that’s why he was to be named Jesus, which means “the Lord saves.” He would bring those who are far from God near to him. It doesn’t matter what our background or heritage is, what sins we have committed in the past, Jesus was coming to transform our lives to turn our hearts back to the Lord. He would bring healing, restore relationships, and set our path straight. He would take our mistakes and our waywardness and accomplish good through them. God passionately cares about every person, and wants them to be his people. The purpose of sending Jesus was so all people could be saved from our sins and past to find new life in him. Isn’t that Good News?
3. Ruth – Jesus is Redeemer
Let’s continue in the genealogy, “Boaz the father of Obed whose mother was Ruth.” Here we go again, another anomaly. Do you remember the story of Ruth? She has a book in the Bible named after her. It began with a woman named Naomi who travelled with her husband and sons from Bethlehem in Israel (that name should sound familiar) to a country east of the Jordan River called Moab to escape a famine. While they were living in Moab Naomi’s sons married Moabite woman, they were foreign women, which God frowned on. Naomi’s husband died and ten years later both her sons died. It left Naomi with only her two daughter-in-laws, Orpah and Ruth. Orpah decided to head back home, but Ruth loved Naomi so much, she decided to head back with Naomi to her land, to her people, even to worship her god.
They headed back with nothing. When they arrived in Bethlehem, fortunately it was harvest time and the only way they could survive was to rely on the gleanings, the food left over after the harvesters went through the fields. A relative of Naomi’s, Boaz, allowed Ruth to glean his fields, and offered her protection (since women were very vulnerable). Soon after we discover that Boaz is their kinsman redeemer. A kinsman redeemer was a relative who could buy back ones property in their family name, so their relative no longer lived like a slave or in poverty like Ruth and Naomi were because they could raise their own crops. It was like purchasing their freedom. Boaz offered to redeem Naomi’s property and take Ruth as his wife, even though he would neither own the property, nor would Ruth’s child be considered his.
Matthew doesn’t mention Ruth on accident. He wants us to see that in Jesus’ own family tree we see God is a Redeemer. God redeems people, he purchases their freedom. He cares about the foreigner, he cares about the widow, he cares about the poor, and he cares about the lost. He seeks to purchase their freedom and restore them, restore their relationships, particularly their relationship with Himself. In Jesus, God’s eternal plan was coming together by sending his Son to earth to redeem us, to purchase our freedom, to set us free from sin, from self-centeredness, pride, hatred, violence, from brokenness to wholeness. Listen to these verse from the NT:
Gal. 4:4 But when the fullness of time had come, God sent his Son, born of a woman, born under the law, 5 in order to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as children.
Titus 2:13 while we wait for the blessed hope-- the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.
Just like Ruth, God loves us and has a plan to redeem us. He purchased our freedom, he paid the price himself by dying on a cross for us, unselfishly so we can receive all the benefits, forgiveness of our past, purify us and make us clean, and adopt us as one of his children. We go from being foreigners to God because of our sin, to being part of God’s family. None of us deserve it, it is God’s gift to us, the greatest present of all.
Conclusion:
And you thought it was just another boring genealogy didn’t you? There’s more to Jesus’ genealogy which I don’t have time to get into, but this is enough to serve as a powerful reminder that this infant child born into our world would come to bring salvation and redemption… freedom, to all who are willing to receive it in faith. There is no person whose sin is too great, no person who is too far away from God. God doesn’t care about our history, our lineage, our family skeletons, all of us can be brought near to God through Jesus and our story can become part of His story and he can turn our life around and use us for his glory.
