Family Tree

In our Sunday morning Bible study on Matthew we covered the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew 1. There are many interesting names in this genealogy – some known and some unknown to us. The four women Matthew mentions are all notable. Tamar played the harlot and her sordid story is recorded in Genesis 38. Rahab was a prostitute. Her story is in Joshua 2. Ruth was a Moabitess, not an Israelite, so not one of God’s chosen people. Her story is in Ruth. Bathsheba was the wife of Uriah the Hittite when David desired her and took her for himself, even making arrangements for Uriah to be killed in battle. You can read about her in 2 Samuel 11-12.

Many of us have family members that we aren’t all that proud of. Maybe even ashamed of. We would probably try to erase murderers, prostitutes, liars, thieves, adulterers and other unsavory characters from our family tree. Not so with Jesus.

Jesus’ genealogy does just the opposite. Matthew lists some ancestors of Jesus that no one could be proud of. He reminds us that Jesus, the sinless Messiah, descended from sinners and came for sinners. Jesus said: “For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13)

Martin Luther observed, “Christ is the kind of person who is not ashamed of sinners – in fact, he even puts them in his family tree … If the Lord does that here, so ought we to despise no one … but put ourselves right in the middle of the fight for sinners and help them.”

This list of sinners in Matthew 1 may make us a bit uncomfortable. However, it should actually bring us comfort. It reassures us that Jesus, who was not ashamed to reveal the sins of his human ancestors, who came to seek and to save the lost, who shed his blood for the sins of the whole world, includes you and me among those for whom He died. “Come now, let us reason together,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” (Isaiah 1:18)

We may be ashamed of our brothers and sisters, mom and dad, uncles and aunts. Not Jesus. How comforting that the Bible records for us: “So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers.” (Hebrews 2:11)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Justified in Jesus

Image
Matthew 27:27–31 27 Then the governor’s soldiers took Jesus into the Praetorium and gathered the whole cohort of soldiers around him. 28 They stripped him and put a scarlet robe on him. 29 They twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They put a staff in his right hand, knelt in front of him, and mocked him by saying, “Hail, King of the Jews!” 30 They spit on him, took the staff, and hit him repeatedly on his head. 31 After they had mocked him, they took off the robe and put his own clothes on him. Then they led him away to crucify him. 1) Jesus on cross picture. We are still in the five hundredth anniversary of the Lutheran Reformation. With the Reformation, the Lord of the Church allowed His truth to be retold through the writings of Martin Luther. But, God also used artists to visually portray this gospel to the minds of His people. If we wanted to “picture” the Reformation in our mind’s eye, there is no better “picture” than The Weimar Altarpiece . In thi
Read more

Water into blood and water into wine

Image
Here are some thoughts that didn’t make it into Sunday’s sermon. The Old Testament lesson for the 2nd Sunday after Epiphany is the account of Moses turning the water of the Nile River into blood. The first of the ten plagues God used to get the Israelites out of Egypt. Exodus 7:14-24 Then the LORD said to Moses, "Pharaoh's heart is unyielding; he refuses to let the people go. 15 Go to Pharaoh in the morning as he goes out to the water. Wait on the bank of the Nile to meet him, and take in your hand the staff that was changed into a snake. 16 Then say to him, 'The LORD, the God of the Hebrews, has sent me to say to you: Let my people go, so that they may worship me in the desert. But until now you have not listened. 17 This is what the LORD says: By this you will know that I am the LORD: With the staff that is in my hand I will strike the water of the Nile, and it will be changed into blood. 18 The fish in the Nile will die, and the river will stink; the Egyptians will not
Read more

Jesus has prepared a place for you - A funeral sermon for Jim Hermann

Image
John 14:1-4 “Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God; believe also in me.  2  My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? 3  And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.  4  You know the way to the place where I am going.” “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” Did you catch the difference between what I read just now and what I read in the Gospel lesson? The Gospel lesson was from the NIV. The second verse I read was from the King James Version. If you’re older than 50, that’s the version of the Bible that you heard in church and learned in catechism class. But, even if you’re older younger than 50, you know about the mansions. “The mansions of heaven” is a term Christians use pretty often. Preachers say it, poets write it, people
Read more