Roots

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah . . . the father of HardName, the father of HardName, the father of HardName, the father of HardName, the father of HardName . . . the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.

Matthew 1:1–16 (ESV)

BEWARE: This week’s devotion is a long one. However, as you probably noticed above, I took some liberty and shortened the passage, but you ought to go back and read the whole thing.

Whether someone emailed you a link to my devotions or you landed here from a social media post, you probably never imagined that this passage, a “dry” list of names, would be part of it. I am probably one of those weirdos who loves reading genealogies. This one clearly holds a special place in my heart because of where this genealogy lands.

Let me return to the Fall of 2000 when I finished reading the Old Testament. I briefly mentioned, in the preface of this book, that I had no intention of ever, in a million years, reading the New Testament. In my Jewish mind, even as a “nominal” Jew, I did not consider the New Testament to be the Bible. Only the Old Testament was the Bible.

However, when I got to the end of Malachi, my heart and mind were whispering to my ear, “The story’s not over yet.” There had to be more. It was like reading The House At Pooh Corner without reading the last line, “But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.”[1] Who would do that? There just had to be more.

I wrestled with myself for about a week, and then pressed on into the first book of the New Testament, The Gospel According to Matthew. By the way, it’s not arbitrary that Matthew is the first book of the New Testament. It is providential. Matthew’s primary audience is Jews. It’s the perfect bridge between the Old Testament and the New.

It is not unintentional that Matthew begins with a genealogy. As I plundered through it, I had no idea whose genealogy it was—just that there was a bunch of father of, father of, father of things going on. Then I got down to the end of verse 16: “. . . of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ.”

I had not encountered this Name between Genesis and Malachi. The feeling that the Name gave me, frankly, was not a good one. I wish I could tell you that my heart melted upon reading the name Jesus . . . that I fell on my knees and surrendered my life to Him, but I can't. The first thing that popped into my head was, “OK, here we go. Here comes the brainwashing. Here comes the coercion. Now they’re gonna try to get me to join the cult.”

I took a deep breath and backed up to verse one. You see, my Bible was a reference Bible. I giggle now, but at the time, I didn’t even know what a reference Bible was. Amazingly, there are 18 cross-references in the first 16 verses of Matthew, and I went back and read every one of them. I even researched several of the people in the list for whom there wasn’t a cross-reference.

I read about Jacob blessing Judah (Genesis 49:8–12) and the critical role he played among his brothers in the Joseph narrative (Genesis 37:26–27; 43:3–10; 44:16–34). I read about Rahab, the prostitute who played a critical role in bringing down the walls of Jericho (Joshua 2:1-4; 6:1-27). I read about Ruth the Moabitess. She even landed her own book in the Bible 😊. I read about kings who were jacked up . . . like Rehoboam, who built altars to foreign gods (1 Kings 14:21-25), and Manasseh, probably the most wicked and corrupt of all the kings of Judah (2 Kings 21:1–18 and 2 Chronicles 32:33–33:20).

There were some “good” kings in this genealogy as well. Hezekiah did remarkable acts of service for the Lord (2 Kings 18-20), and Uzziah “did what was right in the eyes of the LORD” (2 Kings 15:3). This whole lineage seems like the good, the bad, and the ugly.

And then there was King David. The king revered in Judaism as the greatest king that ever lived. In Sunday School at Shearith Israel Synagogue, all I ever heard about David was how great he was. But David peeping over a wall at Bathsheba bathing, and all the “nasty” resulting from it (2 Samuel 11-12; 1 Kings 1-2), wasn’t in the coloring books at the synagogue.

I bet I spent a few hours every day for a week engulfed in this passage and the web of narratives it led me to. The little superscript cross-reference “b” in Matthew 1:1 led me to 2 Samuel 7:12-16.

 . . . I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom forever . . . your house and your kingdom shall be made sure forever before me. Your throne shall be established forever.

Here's a promise that David’s son Solomon would build the Temple, but the “house” also refers to the line of descendants from David onward. The prophets, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, and others, looked towards this promise being fulfilled by the final Son of David—Jesus the Messiah.

There were two things that, at the end of the day, blew my mind. First, the genealogy in Matthew proves that this guy named Jesus is a legal heir to King David’s throne. For 3,000 years, Jewish eschatology (the study of end times) taught that the Messiah, or Anointed One, would come through King David’s line. Jesus fits that bill.

The second thing is something that flat-out shocked me. I was forced to take pause. The bad and the ugly in His genealogy really bothered me. I was good with the good, but I wasn’t good with the bad and the ugly. How could the Savior of the world possibly have pagans, hookers, adulterous and murderous men, idolatrous kings, etc. in His family tree? It was a genuine struggle.

I pridefully believed His entire line should be pure, undefiled, and royal. I wasn’t even necessarily denying the truthfulness in the record of His lineage. But I wasn’t buying into His being the Messiah.

A few weeks later, when I read that “all have fallen short” (Romans 3:23), that “God shows no partiality” (Acts 10:34; Galatians 2:6; Ephesians 6:9), and that if you and I start thinking we’re all that, then we’ve become deceived (1 John 1:8), and that we are saved by grace, I started thinking about this genealogy.

It seems like Matthew intentionally writes Jesus’ lineage to point out to His Jewish audience (an audience that thought, because Abraham was their grandpappy, they had a free pass) that God’s intention from the beginning was for His promises to be available to everyone. And everyone means blacks and blues, whites and greens, outsiders and insiders, outlaws and in-laws, crooks, and sinners. If I forgot a category, please add it here __________________.

We live in a repulsive world. They lived in a repulsive world. It was into the messiness of a repulsive world that Jesus was born, with a messy and sometimes wicked family tree, to save wicked and messy people who were headed for a disastrously messy future.

Therefore, it is all the more astounding that it is “for our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21). It’s astounding that Jesus “redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us” (Galatians 3:13). I encourage you to rest in the truth claim that He stepped into the depravity of humanity solely because He loves you, wants to rescue you, and wants to spend eternity with you.

Father God, thank You that we can see the realness in the men and women in Your Son’s ancestors. They were real people, with real problems, with real sin in their lives, and real brokenness in their families.  What a beautiful image of Your sovereignty and providence it is. Lord, You are the Master of making lemonade out of lemons. We are amazed that You used Matthew, a hated tax collector, to pen the list of degenerates that You used to send the Savior of the world on a rescue mission for us . . .  WOW! Thank You! Thank You! Thank You! Amen.

[1] Milne, A.A., The House at Pooh Corner. Methuen & Co. Ltd. (1928. London).