Thursday, April 25, 2024
Read: Matthew 1:1-17, here’s just a snapshot of it.
This is the genealogy[a] of Jesus the Messiah[b] the son of David, the son of Abraham:
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, Isaac the father of Jacob, Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,16 and Jacob the father of Joseph, the husband of Mary, and Mary was the mother of Jesus who is called the Messiah.17 Thus there were fourteen generations in all from Abraham to David, fourteen from David to the exile to Babylon, and fourteen from the exile to the Messiah.
Has it ever puzzled you as to why Matthew would waste space in his Gospel recollection by writing the geneology of Jesus? For most of us, we have a family tree would just assume not bring up. Someone once said, “I smile because you are my brother, I laugh because there’s nothing you can do about it!”
As we look over the family tree of Jesus we notice there are 40 men along with 5 women recorded be Matthew. To the average person, we might become bored and just skip over this part of the Bible, but to the trained scholar and to the Jew that Matthew was writing there would be something that would just jump off the page. One such person would be, Rahab. I might have left her out if I were writing my family tree down. She’s the one you’d want to omit because she’d give a bad name to the family.
Rahab was a prostitute. She was a citizen in Jericho when Israel conquered it back in the Old Testament. She was not a Jew, yet some who discovered the God of the Israelites was the one true God and decided to change and serve him alone.
She’s not the only blemish on the family tree of the Messiah. There are several others if you look deep enough. So why would the Holy Spirit have impressed upon Matthew to have included these? There were other people he left out, Sarai for instance,
Abraham’s wife, now she would have been a good choice. Her reputation was of good character. So what’s the message? I’m glad you asked. The message, I believe, is simply, God’s act of Redemption! Your past doesn’t have to determine your future!
God’s love, if you choose to receive it, can overshadow any of your past. The good news of Chrstmas is that Jesus came to redeem the nobodies, the messed up, and black sheep just the same as anyone else. The most famous Bible verse states, “For God so loved the WORLD that WHOSOEVER believes in Him will not perish but have every lasting life.” John 3:16. Aren’t you glad it doesn’t say, God’s love is only for those who have life all together. The truth is, all our greatest works, abilities, and successes are nothing compared to the glory of God. The truth is that Billy Graham needs God’s love just as much as you and I.
So this Christmas season, allow the love of God to pour over you.
