Family Names in Stone
Luke 3:23-25
Today I want to look at Jesus genealogy as recorded in Luke chapter 3. Here we have listed Marys family tree that is traced all the way back to Adam. In Matthews gospel we have the genealogy from Abraham to Jesus.
Matthew traces Jesus to Abraham for a Jewish audience and Lukes gospel traces Marys genealogy to Adam for a gentile audience. In this way we have Jesus tied to God through Abraham and tied to man through Adam. Jesus is then tied to Jews and Gentiles.
Each list has different names but there are points where the names intersect. These intersections are important and help validate the record as it is cross-referenced one against the other. But that is not what we are concerned with today.
I know that our bibles have many genealogies listed throughout its pages and they seem like such a long introduction that we often race past them to get to the meat of the story. I know that I have often done this and maybe you have too.
But there is more than meets the eye than a simple list of names as a preamble to a story. We have to look at each name and the time that the name is referenced to in order to get the picture that we are being shown. This is how ancient Jewish writers wrote their stories. They often started by giving a long list of names but for the Jewish reader the names all meant something important and helped set the stage for the story.
Since we are two thousand years removed from the telling of these stories and since we are not Jewish we have a couple of hurdles to overcome. We have historical distance and cultural distance to cover. It is not always easy to overcome but often when we make the effort we see scripture in a different context that reveals things we might otherwise have missed.
Why is this important? It is all about how we present Jesus to people who do not know him. In first century Jerusalem they presented Jesus using this long genealogy which made sense to the listener. That list tied Jesus to Jewish history.
Many of the names listed in Luke would be familiar to Jewish listeners as names that were common to Jewish patriots during the Maccabean revolt. That revolt saw a Jewish family defend the Jewish faith against Antiochus IV, Epiphanies (God Manifest the Illustrious) (168-135 BC) he managed to keep some of what was once Alexander the Greats empire. So he would have been Hellenistic in his religious beliefs. He sought to slaughter the Jews because they would not make a religious offering to Antiochus as a god. It sounds like a familiar theme doest it.
The Jews defeated this enemy and won 100 years of control over Jerusalem until the Romans took over. Many of the these freedom fighters names were remembered and given to succeeding generations as a memorial to that battle much like we carve the names of our war dead on a Cenotaph. Some Jewish parents would have named their children after some of these Great War heroes. Some of those same kinds of names show up in this genealogy.
Today we would not present Jesus in the same way by bringing up the names of past war heroes or family members named after war heroes. Our challenge is different.
Most people around the world have some idea as to who Jesus is and what he represents so for us a basic introduction is not always needed. Instead we are challenged to distinguish Jesus from other religious figures of history. Jesus is no longer a new religious character to the world but rather a competing character for people seeking faith in God.
Our task is in many ways more difficult than in first century Jerusalem. Our audience is not Jewish and our audience does not believe in creation as the origin of the species. Our audience is not one that associates itself with God in the ways the Jewish people did. Instead our audience does everything to distance itself from God in every way possible. Even to the point of embracing other gods or beliefs that include science or old pagan religions once abandoned but now re-made as New Age ideas. We have a world that in many ways has turned its back on the person of Jesus as Gods Messiah and they are off looking in other directions.
This may be in part because most of the world is not Jewish and so they do not see a link between themselves and this Jewish connection. Or it may be that we the Christians have failed to convince the world of Jesus deity as reflected through our lives and actions throughout two thousand years of history.
In any event we have an entire world that needs to be convinced that Jesus is their Savior and that He died on the cross for their sins and rose again to give them eternal life conquering sin and death as Gods perfect sacrifice for the redemption of mankind.
So how do we tell our modern society this ancient story and connect them to Jesus like the Jewish writers of old connected their audience to Jesus?
I think we have to find the common denominator. It is Romans 3:23
There is no difference between Jew and Gentile, 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
Our world does not see itself as a world of sinners. It sees itself struggling against other things like ideology (communism, capitalism, socialism) not theology (Jewish, Christian, Islamic) although sometimes it does look in that direction. We have a world filled with people competing with each other to survive instead of relying on each other for survival. We have a world that is selfish and self centered instead of selfless and self sacrificing.
Our world has not chosen to model itself on Jesus Christ and we Christians have in many ways failed to model ourselves after our Lord. The result is too few examples of Jesus living amongst the nations of men.
How do we overcome this problem? In my view it is time for a new kind of missionary. It is time for a new kind of martyr. It is time for a new kind of Christian army one that has within its ranks men and women who are prepared to give all that they are or ever hope to be in sacrifice to the message of Jesus Christ.
This may seem to be an extreme view but I believe that history validates such a measure. There have been many successful missionary efforts in the past which have had deep and lasting effects on other countries and cultures. There have also been self serving and foolish attempts to force the message of the gospel onto people who were not open to it.
In our time Islam has decided to do battle with the ideology of the Western world and in so doing it also takes on the theology of our Western world which is for the most part Christian. So we see this as a battle of social order and religious domination. But in reality the battle is about how we wrestle with sin.
Islam sees itself as a purer more faithful people to God since the west has become so decadent and proud and its leaders are consuming the resources of the world at a rate of 25% when they make up only 4% of the world population. Most of the world sees us as selfish.
I believe that we can turn this image around but it will take the effort of the church to demonstrate our selflessness in a new way. We the church must insist that our governments share our wealth as never before and that we share without expecting anything in return. We must set an example of sacrifice. Only by seeing our generosity will the world connect that generosity to the great gift of our God and Father in the generous gift of salvation that Jesus represents?
We have given our sons and daughters in all kinds of warfare on a secular scale but have we given ourselves by the same measure to the war against sin. I think not. Until the world sees and knows the extent to which we are willing to sacrifice they will continue to look to other gods to another Saviour.
Our bible tells us that one day a person will promise peace and prosperity but he will be an impostor an Anti-Christ. While there is still time we have a small window of opportunity to show the world the true Christ but it is up to us to insist upon it and to demonstrate it.
Our church as a national church in this country could lead such a mission but are we willing to make the sacrifice? In the great battles of our times we have taken to remembering our men and women by etching their names in stone on national monuments of war. Will our names be etched in the Lambs Book of Life as a remembrance of our sacrifice to His cause or will we sit by and watch the world surrender to sin?
Today I call you to arms in the battle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Will you dress in the Armour of God and enlist as a foot soldier for Jesus or will you sit and watch as souls are lost? How will your name be remembered?
