Matthew 1:1-17 – What a Woman
Someone once wrote these words: Things My Mother Taught Me. My mother taught me RELIGION: When I spilled grape juice on the carpet, she instructed, "You better pray the stain will come out of the carpet." My mother taught me LOGIC: From her decisive words, "Because I said so, that’s why." My mother taught me FORESIGHT: "Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident." My mother taught me IRONY: "Keep laughing, and I’ll give you something to cry about." My mother taught me about STAMINA: "You’ll sit there ’til all that spinach is finished." My mother taught me about WEATHER: "It looks as if a tornado swept through your room." My mother taught me THE CIRCLE OF LIFE: "I brought you into this world, and I can take you out." My mother taught me about BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION: "Stop acting like your father!" My mother taught me about ENVY: "There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don’t have a wonderful Mom like you do!"
Today, this being Mother’s Day, we are going to take some time on our journey through looking at how Christ is King, and perhaps even learn a lesson from a mother or 2. We are going to look at Jesus’ family tree.
Whenever anyone begins to study their family’s lineage and history, they are usually warned that they might find out things they weren’t expecting. They might find out that their great great uncle was a horse thief or that one of their ancestors was a deserter. When you study your family’s history, you are usually in for some surprises. In the genealogy of Jesus there are some surprises also; people that you wouldn’t necessarily expect to find in His family tree.
The Bible records 2 family trees of Jesus. Luke records the Lord’s genealogy in Luke 3. It is traced through Mary’s side, from Mary to Adam. Now, it establishes the physical descent from David, but it includes no women. However, Matthew’s genealogy in Matthew 1:1-17 is traced through Joseph, Jesus’ legal father, all the way back to Abraham. It establishes Christ’s legal royal lineage, and it includes the names of five women. Today, we are going to look at these 5 women. Each one by itself could stand as a sermon all by itself. But instead, this being Mother’s Day, we will just skim the surface, get a glimpse of Jesus’ ancestors, and hopefully get a nugget of truth about God in the process.
The 1st is Tamar - Matthew 1:1-3. The story of Tamar is located in Genesis 38. Judah, the son of Jacob, also called Israel, had taken a Canaanite, a foreign, pagan wife, who bore him 3 sons. He chose a wife by the name of Tamar for his oldest son, Er. Er was according to Genesis 38:7 "was wicked in the sight of the Lord; and the Lord slew him." He died leaving no heir. Judah then followed the law of the day: he gave Tamar as wife to the oldest surviving son, to Onan (Genesis 38:8). This was the law that was later to become known as the Levirate custom (Deuteronomy 25:5-10; Matthew 22:24). The law stated that if a man died without children, then the next oldest son was to marry his wife and bear a son. By law, the son was legally the first-born son and heir of the deceased brother. This assured two things: (a) that the family name continued, and (b) that the property holdings were kept in the family. Onan failed to obey this law and was slain by God (Genesis 38:9-10) Judah’s only surviving son, Shelah was too young to marry. Thus Judah told Tamar to return to her father’s home until Shelah was old enough to marry her. But Judah had no plan of letting Tamar marry his third son. He considered her bad luck. As far as he was concerned, she was either directly or indirectly the cause of his two sons’ death.
Now, Tamar realized that Judah had no intention of ever letting Shelah marry her. She worked out an elaborate scheme where she could trick Judah and bear a son through him (Genesis 38:14). She dressed in the clothing of a temple prostitute, veiled herself, and sat down out by the side of the road where the temple prostitutes usually sat. He had not faintest idea that the woman he thought to be a prostitute was his daughter-in-law, Tamar. Judah voluntarily agreed to sleep with Tamar after which she returned to her father’s house and put on her widow’s clothing once again (Genesis 38:19). She became pregnant with twins Perez and Zerah. This first born of prostitution to Tamar came into the messianic line that would go through David. An unlikely member of the family tree.
The 2nd woman listed in Jesus’ genealogy was Rahab - Matthew 1:4-6. Her story is found in Joshua 2:1-21 and 6:17-25. Rahab was a prostitute in the city of Jericho, whose house was on the city’s wall. She became convinced that Israel’s God was the true as she stated in Joshua 2:11 "...the Lord your God, he is God in heaven above, and in earth beneath. She hid the Israeli spies from Jericho’s soldiers, asked for and received mercy and deliverance by Israel for herself and her family when Israel destroyed Jericho. She became the wife of Salmon and the mother of Boaz in the lineage of Jesus. An unlikely member on the family tree.
The 3rd woman listed in Jesus’ family tree was Ruth - Matthew 1:5. Her story is found in the book of, well, Ruth, a short book with one story, 4 chapters long. An Israelite, Elimelech, his wife Naomi and their sons - Mahlon and Chilion - left Bethlehem to live temporarily in Moab until a famine in Israel had passed. The country of Moab originated when Lot became the father of Moab, after a drunken spree with his oldest daughter, just after having escaped the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Moab, Elimelech’s son Chilion married a Moabitess named Orpah. Mahlon married a Moabitess named Ruth. The Moabites idolatrously worshipped a false god called Chemosh. Both Ruth’s and Orpah’s husbands died in Moab as well as their father-in-law Elimelech. They left no heirs.
Orpah returned to her family and as far as we know her false religion. Ruth on the other hand turned from the worship of Chemosh to embrace the true and living God. Going to Israel as foreigner and not of Abraham’s seed, without any hope of every having children or heritage, Ruth through the law of the kinsman redeemer became the wife of Boaz, the son of Rahab, and the mother of Obed, and Great Grandmother of King David. Ruth, a former idolater in the direct line of Christ.
The 4th woman listed in Jesus family history is Bathsheba - Matthew 1:5-6. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah, the Hittite; one of King David’s mighty and high ranking soldiers. She apparently enjoyed the outdoors, because it’s recorded she bathed naked. Once when she did this, she was spotted by King David, who was overcome by her beauty. They had an adulterous relationship, and became pregnant with his child. David tried to hide his sin, and he finally arranged for Uriah to be killed. After going through the prescribed mourning period, Bathsheba married David. Later Bathsheba gave birth to Solomon and Nathan. Solomon is listed in the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew; Nathan in the genealogy given in Luke.
And the 5th woman listed in the genealogy of Jesus is, of course, Mary - Matthew 1:16. Matthew 1:18 says this: READ. It was against the law for an unmarried woman to have sexual relations. She was to remain a virgin until after the marriage ceremony. If anyone could prove that a woman was not a virgin when she married, according to Deuteronomy 22:20-21, she was brought to the door of her father’s house and the men of the city stoned her to death. Even Joseph, Mary’s engaged husband, was utterly shocked at what appeared to be the fruit of terrible sin on Mary’s part.
We read in Matthew 1:19. When an angel explained the situation to him, he married Mary and kept her virginity until after the birth of Christ. Mary, while being a virgin and having committed no act of immorality, still bore the stigma within the Jewish community of pregnancy outside of marriage.
Now, we come to the end of the list of women, and we ask, So what? What’s the point? Are you comparing me to a couple of harlots, a floozy, an idol-worshipper, a woman with a bad reputation? No, of course not. What this does show is that you don’t have to be perfect to be used by God. The earthly genealogy of Jesus Christ was filled with not just the good, but with the bad and the ugly also. Four of the five women were notoriously sinful. Tamar played a harlot. Rahab was a prostitute. Ruth had worshipped a pagan stone god. Bathsheba committed adultery. But all found forgiveness and reconciliation.
Which is why Christ came. Luke 19:10 says: “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost." God relied heavily on unworthy people to accomplish His plans. He used the wandering Jonah, the lying Abraham, the deceiving Jacob, the denying Peter, the murderous Paul and the deserting Mark to let us know that you don’t have to be perfect to be used. This is the message of grace, of love, of forgiveness. Zig Zigler put it this way; "On the planet earth there are many kinds of people. But in God’s sight, there are only two kinds. Not rich or poor, old or young, tall or short, fat or thin, black or white -- only saved or lost. In God’s Kingdom the mighty and the humble join hands when all of them become the children of God."
It doesn’t matter where you have been. It doesn’t matter what you have done. What matters now is what you allow God to do in your life through Jesus Christ. II Corinthians 5:17 says: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!”
When you come to Him and say, “I’m sorry for the mistakes I have made as a parent and as a person. Would you help me, Lord?”, God is more than willing to take you in and clean you and give you wisdom. That’s our King!
The famous author, Oswald Chambers, said this about forgiveness: “It is not earned, but accepted. All the pleading, which deliberately refuses to recognize the cross, is of no avail; it is battering at a door other than the one that Jesus has opened. Our Lord does not pretend we are all right when we are all wrong. The atonement is a propitiation whereby God, through the death of Jesus, makes an unholy man holy." That is our hope. That is our peace. That is the only thing that will give you strength in life. You don’t have to be perfect to be used by God… just available.
