December 29, 2024 Sermon
Sermon title: “The Genealogy of Jesus”
Scripture: Matthew 1:1-17
(Other lectionary suggestions include I Samuel 2:18-20, and 26, Psalm 148, Colossians 3:12-17, and Luke 2:41-52.)
Matthew 1:1-17
The Genealogy of Jesus the Messiah
1An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, 4and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6and Jesse the father of King David. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon. 12And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah. 17So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.
Usually, I try to follow the lectionary, but today I thought I’d do something different: the Genealogy of Jesus. I got the idea from a seminary professor whom I heard last Fall at a Disciples Gathering in Fullerton. I forget now why he said to preach on that topic, but here I am doing it! Perhaps one reason is that Matthew’s genealogy traces Jesus through Joseph, who was Jesus’s EARTHLY father - and that’s interesting in that if you believe in the Virgin Birth, Joseph had nothing to do with it. But still, in the eyes of the writer of Matthew, it was very important to trace Jesus’s lineage through his father, which would have been the normal way of doing things. And notice that Matthew comes right at the beginning of the New Testament. It’s so important that the early church seemed to want to establish the “Jewishness” of Jesus right from the beginning.
Also, I want to say something about “Biblical honesty.” The author of Matthew does not duck the fact that Jesus’s great-great grandfather David was an adulterer! He fathered Solomon through Bathsheba, whom he stole from her husband Uriah the Hittite! And there are a couple of other embarrassing facts about Jesus’s ancestors. If you want to be horrified sometime, read the 38th chapter of Genesis. One of the women there seduces her father-in-law and has children by him! But this is thought of as a good thing, not a bad thing! Don’t let your 21st century sense of morality get in the way of God’s plan to continue the family of Abraham! But that’s God for you: always surprising us and sometimes shocking us. And the author of Matthew doesn’t dodge the fact. That’s “Biblical honesty.”
And there’s more! Did you notice the numbers of seven and fourteen? The number seven was an important number for the Hebrews, and Jesus - as Matthew tells the story - is the culmination of all these sevens. “This birth, Matthew is saying, is what Israel has been waiting for for two thousand years.” “Now is the moment, Matthew is saying, for all this to happen. The child who comes at the end of this line is God’s anointed, the long-awaited Messiah, {the one} to fulfill all the layers and levels of the prophecies of old.”
But Matthew was no dummy. He also knew the story of Mary getting pregnant by the Holy Spirit. A little after today’s Scripture reading, he’ll tell us about that. In the words of N. T. Wright, the gospel writer (Matthew) “adds to his list reminders of the strange ways God worked in the royal family itself: Judah treating his daughter-in-law Tamar as a prostitute {{that’s in Genesis 38, which I mentioned earlier}}, Boaz being the son of the Jericho prostitute Rahab, and David committing adultery with the wife of Uriah the Hittite{{which I also mentioned earlier}}. (And the point?) If God can work through these bizarre ways, he seems to be saying, watch what he’s going to do now.”
As I wrote the previous pages, and then took a break, it occurred to me how arrogant or uninformed I have been on this whole subject of the genealogy of Jesus. As a young man and seminary student, I actually wondered if the writer of Matthew was STUPID for tracing Jesus’s heritage through his father, and then following that up with the story of the Virgin Birth. My thinking was, “Did Matthew even realize what he was doing?” And now, I am embarrassed to say, “Of COURSE he knew what he was doing!” Not Matthew but I am the slow-witted person here! Maybe that’s the way it is with young people: they think THEY were the first to discover something. But No. The writer of Matthew knew exactly what he was doing, even if I may not know what it is! And I am reminded of that old saying, “A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.” So, I apologize now for assuming that I knew more than Matthew. How arrogant and how stupid of me to think that I discovered something not known for 2,000 years. My fault, or, as the Latin phrase puts it, MEA CULPA.
Again, N. T. Wright: “Matthew’s gospel has stood at the front of the New Testament since very early times. Millions of Christians have read this genealogy as the beginning of their own exploration of who Jesus was and is. Once we understand what it all means, we are ready to proceed with the story. This, Matthew is saying, is BOTH the fulfillment of two millennia of God’s promises and purposes AND something quite new and different. God still works like that today: keeping his promises, acting in character, and yet always ready with surprises for those who learn to trust him.” I am reminded of that hymn or anthem, “O trust in the Lord. Wait patiently for him.” Amen. May the Lord be with you.
Pastor Skip
