The Genealogy of Jesus Christ- When God Uses Messed-up, Broken and Ordinary People
{Matthew 1:1-17}
When I first discovered the genealogy was all the way to Joseph, the first thought that came to my mind was but...what? He's not really Jesus's father...as He's not the son of man, but digging into several books and commentaries I came to understand that in Matthew, the genealogy gives Jesus legal or royal lineage through Joseph and this was important for the audience this gospel was directed to.
In his gospel, Matthew presents Jesus as the King of the Jews, the long awaited Messiah. By telling the story of Jesus' genealogy, Matthew gives us evidence that all points to the same inescapable conclusion: Christ is King. On the other hand, Luke records the genealogy of Mary (3:23-28) and BOTH Mary and Joseph were direct descendants of David.
Matthew also includes 5 women in his genealogy, so clearly he's not diminishing the role of women.
The women mentioned here are rather interesting:
-Tamar who had a sexual relationship with Judah, her father-in-law {Joshua 2;1}
-Ruth was a foreigner {Ruth 1:4}
-Bathsheba is identified here as Uriah's wife {1:6} but we must remember David's adultery with her and murder of Uriah.
-Rahab was a harlot {Joshua 2:1}
-Mary though she was a fine, godly woman, she had a problem of public reputation because of her pregnancy.
The genealogy shows how all the ancestors where both loyal and inclusive...and even from different backgrounds e.g. Tamar, Rahab and Ruth who were non-jews famous for their righteousness and devotion to God. This demonstrates that through the lineage of Jesus, no one is shut out from God's promise no matter their gender or background. God's people include more than one ethnic group or nation.
Also, in all these names we found broken, flawed people, "sinners", some faith-filled, some faithless, both MEN AND WOMEN, some willing and some disobedient,
I truly believe Matthew included all these messed up and ordinary people to illustrate Gods grace-to give us all hope. To show us that God always accomplishes His will and most importantly He's always faithful to His promises.
If God used all these people in order to carry out His perfect plan, His most beautiful promise, Jesus, I can rest assured that my life also fits into his perfect will. He can take my flaws, brokenness and sins and use them for His glory!
God uses ordinary people to carry out His extraordinary plan.
Wise men from the East- Childlike Kind of Faith{Matthew 2 1-12}
The first twelve verses of Matthew chapter 2 narrate the story of the wise men who were eager to go and worship baby Jesus as soon as they saw the star in the East. We don’t know exactly where they came from nor how many of them there were when they arrived in Jerusalem. We do know from scripture that most our nativity scenes depict the wrong scene. The wise men did not meet Jesus in the manger, by the time they met Jesus, Jesus was probably 1 or 2 years old. Joseph and Mary were in a house in Bethlehem (v. 11).
These wise men traveled thousands of miles just to meet the King of the Jews. When they finally found Him, they responded with worship, joy and gifts! How different and sad the approach most of us take today...We often want and wait for God to come looking for us, we want Him to explain Himself; proving who he is and yes...we want Him to give us gifts.
Today I want to be like those men...Wise! and seek and worship Jesus not for what I can get, but for who He is.
The gifts give by the Wise men are seen as symbols of Christ identity and what He would accomplish:
Gold: a gift for a King, Royalty
Incense: a gift for a deity
Myrrh: A spice for a person who was going to die.
After finding Jesus and worshiping Him, the wise men were warned by God to not return to Jerusalem as they intended, since Herod had lied. He did not want to worship Christ, he wanted the Wise men to reveal the location of the child to kill Him. This fact teaches us two lessons;
1.-Finding Jesus might mean a change of direction and plans
2.-It's very interesting how satan was afraid of a child, and how a child was the King of the Jews. Kings rule and maybe one lesson here is that if we desire to rule and reign as kings in life (For if, by the trespass of the one man, death reigned through that one man, how much more will those who receive God's abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man, Jesus Christ!-Rom. 5:17 ) we must also become like little children.
Becoming childlike requires us to be humble, trusting, lowly and forgiven. I believe when we do so we frighten the devil just as the Christ child frightened Herod. We become a threat to the enemy when we become childlike in our faith.
To Ponder:
Are you willing, like the Wise men to drop everything you know and follow Jesus? Or are you expecting Jesus to find you and explain Himself to you? Are you willing to change direction and plans? Do you trust Jesus like a child does?