Put on your new nature, and be renewed as you learn to know your Creator and become like him. In this new life, it doesn’t matter if you are a Jew or a Gentile, circumcised or uncircumcised, barbaric, uncivilized, slave, or free. Christ is all that matters, and he lives in all of us. [Colossians 3:10-11 (NLT)]
Most of us probably just skim through those long genealogies found in the Old Testament. Matthew’s gospel, the beginning of the New Testament, also starts with genealogy, and for a very good reason. Since the promised Messiah had to be a descendant of Abraham and from the House of David, Matthew had to go through Jesus’ family tree to firmly establish His lineage. By doing so, he proved that Jesus’ genealogy fulfilled the Old Testament prophecies about the Messiah’s line. What Matthew didn’t have to do was mention women in his list of ancestors. In fact, women were rarely mentioned in genealogy, yet Matthew mentions five of them by name. Moreover, the women mentioned were hardly the type about which a good Jew would boast!
We start with Tamar. The widowed Tamar was done wrong by her father-in-law Judah, so she took matters into her hands and duped him into having sex with her, resulting in the births of Perez and Zerah. That’s a blemish on the family tree, to say the least, but nothing when compared to the next woman mentioned: Rahab. She may have been the heroine who saved Joshua’s spies in Jericho, but she was also a Canaanite prostitute. Now there’s a blot on the pedigree of the Prince of Peace. Ruth is the next woman mentioned. We know her as the widowed woman who accompanied her mother-in-law back to Judah. She was, however, a Moabite. Because they’d opposed the Israelites, her people had been cursed and they were never to be helped. She’s not really the ancestor you’d expect of the man who came to save the Jews. We then come to Bathsheba, the beautiful adulteress, whose husband was murdered by King David. We’ve got the plot line of a soap opera now. We finish with Mary, the mother of Jesus: a poor young girl who became pregnant before marriage!
Matthew mentions only these five women: a woman who used sex to trick a man, a prostitute from Canaan, a cursed Moabite, an adulteress, and an unwed mother! Why them and no one else? There must have been a few upstanding women along the line whose reputations were without blemish. Perhaps Matthew chose to mention them to make clear to us that Jesus came for all people: men and women, rich and poor, strong and weak, honored and disgraced, respectable and notorious, Jews and Gentiles. Sinners all, He came to save each and every one of us and to make us members of the same family! Thank you, God, for the Christmas gift of salvation for all who believe.
In Christ there is no East or West, In Him no South or North;
But one great fellowship of love Throughout the whole wide earth.
In Him shall true hearts everywhere Their high communion find;
His service is the golden cord, Close binding humankind.
Join hands, then, members of the faith, Whatever your race may be!
Who serves my Father as His child Is surely kin to me.
In Christ now meet both East and West, In Him meet North and South;
All Christly souls are one in Him Throughout the whole wide earth.
[“In Christ There is no East or West” by William Dunkerley, 1908]
For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. [Galatians 3:26-29 (NLT)]
Wishing you and yours a joy filled holiday. May the blessings of our Lord shower down upon you.
Devotions of the Heart 