This sermon was preached at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, Traralgon, 7pm.
Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Text: (Matthew 1:1-17)
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Prayer: Let the words of my mouth, and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
Of all the brilliant schemes of pastors trying to get people to come to church, the first port of call wouldn’t normally be to preach a sermon on the genealogy of Jesus!
The genealogy of Jesus is not featured normally in any of the standard lectionaries – so I thought tonight might be a good idea to study this a little more closely.
Over the four Wednesday nights during Advent, similar to last year, I will preach four sermons in more of a bible-study format. Last year, we studied the hymn “O come, O come, Emmanuel” – and if you want to re-read those they’re available on the Internet website. But this year over the next four weeks, we are going to focus on the parts of the bible which are historically before the birth of Jesus. So tonight, we will look at the genealogy of Jesus from the Gospel of Matthew. Next week, we will look at the conception of John the Baptist and the angel Gabriel coming to Zechariah in the temple, week 3, the conception of Jesus and the angel Gabriel coming to the Virgin Mary, and week 4, the passages about Mary visiting Elizabeth.
So tonight we begin with the genealogy of Jesus. [If you would like to follow along, you can open your bibles in the pews.]
There are a couple of things that are very significant about the genealogy of Jesus. For many of us, it’s that part of the New Testament that we might skim over if we were reading it at home and not delve into it too closely. But remember: this is the first thing that we read in the gospel of Matthew. When Matthew was inspired by the Holy Spirit to write his gospel, the first thing he wrote down was a list of Jesus’ family tree. But also, because Matthew is the first book of the New Testament, it is also the first thing that we read if we open up the New Testament.
This is highly significant: imagine a person who is new to the faith, who has never read the bible before, and a Christian friend encourages them to read the New Testament. This genealogy is the first thing that they would read! (What a first impression!)
The first sentence of the Gospel of Matthew is this:
The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
In Greek, the first words are: βίβλος γενέσεως, the book of the genealogy, or even, the book of the genesis.
The word “genesis” means here the “generation” the “descent” the “lineage”. And isn’t it strange that at the beginning of the Old Testament, we begin with the book of genesis, and at the beginning of the New Testament, Matthew begins with the words “the book of the genealogy”, or the “book of Genesis”. We see here at the beginning of the New Testament, a new creation, a new beginning – in Genesis chapter 1, we see the creation of the world, in Matthew chapter 1, we see the beginning of the new creation, as the Son of God comes into the world and takes on human flesh from the Virgin Mary in the person of Jesus Christ.
But in Hebrew the book of Genesis in the Old Testament is not called γενεσίς (genesis). That’s the Greek title. In Hebrew, Genesis is called בראשת (bereshith), which means “in the beginning”. That’s the first words of the book. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” But in Genesis 5:1, it says “This is the book of the generations of Adam.” Then it lists Adam’s family tree, and his descendants. In the Greek translation of the Old Testament, it says: “This is the book of the genesis of Adam.” So that’s where the word “genesis” comes from.
Also, one more thing: Matthew begins: “the book of genesis”. Now obviously, in earlier times when these things were written, books weren’t invented. And chapter 5 in Genesis where Adam’s descendants are listed are not a separate book. So when it says, “the book of genesis”, it means “the list of the genealogy of Jesus Christ.”
Now Jesus’ genealogy has three parts to it. The first part is from Abraham to David, then David to the exile to Babylon, and then the third part is from the exile up to Jesus himself. And Matthew is quite explicit about breaking up the genealogy into three parts. At the end of the genealogy in verse 17, he writes: “So all the generations from Abraham to David were fourteen generations, and from David to the deportation to Babylon fourteen generations, and from the deportation to Babylon to the Christ fourteen generations.”
Now actually, sometimes Matthew left out a couple of generations here and there, but he wants to have these 3 groups of 14 people, the number 14 being a special number. The number 7 is always special: In Revelation, we have the seven golden lampstands, the letters to the seven churches, the seven stars in Jesus’ hands. And of course, there’s the seven days of the week. Remember Jesus says that we should forgive our neighbour 70 times 7 times! And two times seven, fourteen, then is very special. It has a sense of completeness about it.
And so there’s three groups of 14. And each of these groups is characterised by a particular person or event. The first group is marked by Abraham, the second group by David, and the third group is marked by the exile into Babylon up to Christ.
Now, in verse 1, it says: “The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.”
We can see that there’s the three groups again: Jesus, David, Abraham.
So why are these two people so important? What’s so significant about Abraham and David?
Abraham and David are people who both received an oath from God about their descendants. Last year, when I went to America, I had to apply for a passport, but I had lost my birth certificate. So I had to go to a Justice of the Peace and make a statutary declaration. And it’s quite interesting, if you’ve ever looked into all this, that there’s all different levels: there’s a statuary declaration, there’s an affidavit, there’s an affirmation, and then there’s an oath.
So when a person takes an oath they call upon God as their highest authority as they make a promise. Normally, you have to take an oath when you are sworn in as the prime-minister in this country, though if you’re an atheist, like our current Prime-Minister, you might choose instead to leave out the reference to God and then this is called an “affirmation.”
I went to a citizenship ceremony recently, and there were two groups: those who became citizens by oath, and those who became citizens by affirmation. The oath people were the ones who mentioned God and the affirmation people didn’t mention God. That’s just the way it works!
So when God swears an oath, who does he swear by? He swears by himself.
So let’s have a look at these passages: Firstly, when Abraham has taken Isaac up the mountain to sacrifice him, the angel calls out to stop him. And then we read: “And the angel of God called to Abraham a second time from heaven and said, “By myself I have sworn, declares the LORD, because you have done this and have not withheld your son, your only son, I will surely bless you, and I will surely multiply your offspring as stars of heaven and as the sand on the seashore. And your offspring shall possess the gate of his enemies, and in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice.”
So you can see, if Jesus is going to be called the Messiah, the chosen King of God, he has to be descended from Abraham. And we read that Jesus does possess the “gate of his enemies”. Jesus says that the “gates of hell with not prevail against” the church, which is his kingdom. So this is the first oath.
The second oath we read in Psalm 132, where it says: “The Lord swore to David a sure oath from which he will not turn back: One of the sons of your body I will set on your throne. If your sons keep my covenant and my testimonies that I shall teach them, their sons also forever shall sit on your throne.”
So you see, that God promises, he swears, that the sons of David shall sit forever on his throne.
So if Jesus is going to be our true heavenly king, and sit at the right hand of God forever, he has to be descended from David. You remember in last week’s gospel reading where the crowd shouted out to Jesus as he rode into Jerusalem: “Hosanna to the Son of David!” So here’s the second oath.
So we see here the first two groups: Abraham 14 generations, David 14 generations. So all of the people in the second group after David are all kings: “Solomon, Rehoboam, Abijah, Asaph, Jehoshaphat, Joram, Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, Hezekiah, Manasseh, Amos, Josiah and Jeconiah.” But then what happens? The people are carried off into exile, and then there’s no more kings. That’s because all the people were all carried off to Babylon, which is in modern day Iraq, and the kingdom was ended. So Joseph, Jesus’ father, is not a king – he’s a private citizen.
And if we continue to read the gospel of Matthew with the story of Christmas, we read that there is a king ruling, but he’s not from David’s family. His name is King Herod, whom we all remember from the Christmas story. But Herod was an Edomite – and so you can imagine that the Jewish people weren’t very happy with this setup. And then after Jesus is born, we read about the wise men from the east, who come and ask “Where is he who has been born King of the Jews?” And naturally, King Herod gets a bit worried about it. God swore an oath to David and his family, but Herod is not from King David’s lineage. Jesus has a right to claim his place as the King of Judah, because Herod is not the proper king. And so naturally, King Herod panics – he tries to kill Jesus, and even kills every single baby boy in Bethlehem, to make sure that the job was done properly. You can see that this genealogy of Jesus is so important in that it tells you who Jesus is and what is promised about him. He is descended from Abraham, to whom God promised that all the families of the nations will be blessed and that his offspring will possess the gate of his enemies. He is also descended from David, whose throne (his royal lineage) will continue forever.
So we see that all the families of the nations are blessed, when at the end of Matthew, Jesus says to his apostles: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” All nations: this is a fulfilment of the promise to Abraham. Also, Jesus possesses the gate of his enemies: he has defeated the devil, death and sin.
But also, I want you to notice a couple of other things. In the genealogy, there are four women mentioned: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and the wife of Uriah. What do we know about these four women?
Well, first of all, Tamar had children with her father-in-law, Judah. Rahab was a prostitute from Jericho. Ruth was a Moabite. The wife of Uriah, Bathsheba, was the woman whom David committed adultery with and sent her husband off to the front line of battle to be killed.
There’s nothing flattering about Jesus’ family here. Ruth’s not too bad, we could say!, but she was from the “wrong tribe”, but she became part of Jesus’ family by marriage.
But if then you look back at all this history, then it makes sense when later in chapter 1, the angel says to Joseph in a dream, “She will bear a son and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” And if you look back at Jesus’ family history, we don’t a whole heap of perfect people. We see incest with Tamar, prostitution with Rahab, adultery with Bathsheba, David could even have been a rapist, and plenty of the kings were not faithful to God at all, but worshipped idols. Jesus is not born into a perfect, squeaky-clean family, but one with plenty of skeletons in the closest. And so it’s kind of appropriate when we celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ, that often at family lunches and dinners people bring their family baggage to the table and there’s always a few skeletons in the closet! But Jesus is given his particular name, because “he has come to save his people from their sins.” That includes us, and our families!
One question that also gets asked about Jesus’ family tree is why Jesus lineage is traced through Joseph and not through Mary? After all, Mary is the true mother Jesus, and Joseph is not. But also, we have to bear in mind that it was God’s law that people did not marry outside of their own tribe. So if Joseph was descended from Abraham and David, Mary would also be descended from Abraham and David.
But also, the genealogy is not simply to show Jesus blood-line, but also his family history. Even though Jesus is not Joseph’s biological son, but rather was conceived by the Holy Spirit, he was his legal and adoptive son, and Jesus was part of that specific family, with that specific family history. It is the family unit, and the family of Abraham and David, where the faith was passed down from generation to generation. They were guardians of the faith, and especially of the Scriptures.
But one last thing. In the book of Genesis, where we read about the descendants of Adam, we see that the first person in the line is Adam, and there’s no one before him. In the genealogy of Jesus, it’s the other way around. The genealogy stops with Jesus. In the Old Testament, the genealogy starts with Adam and goes forward. In the New Testament, the genealogy ends with Jesus and leads up to him.
So what now? What happens to Jesus’ family? Nowhere in the bible does it mention that Jesus was married, and it has always been held that he didn’t get married, no matter what the Da Vinci Code says. Also, he didn’t have any children.
But in the Christian Church, if you want to be part of Jesus’ family, you are not married into it. You’re not born into it. You are baptised into it. You become a child of God, and part of God’s priesthood and part of his royal family together with Jesus, through Holy Baptism. Remember in the gospel of John, some Pharisees come to Jesus and say “We are children of Abraham” and Jesus replies “God is able to raise up from these stones children of Abraham”.
So we are children of Abraham and children of King David not through the flesh, through birth, through marriage, but through Baptism, through being made one flesh with Christ our heavenly bridegroom. And so, Jesus family does continue. It continues when at the end of the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says: “Go into all nations, and make disciples, baptising them and teaching them.”
The Christian church of the New Testament is a new family of God, where we conceive children not through the flesh, but through the hearing of the word. That’s what happened to Mary – she became pregnant through the word of God and the baby Jesus was conceived. So also for us, we hear the word, and we are impregnated with Jesus and he grows in us. We become part of his family and he become part of ours.
And so the genealogy of Jesus comes to and end when it says: Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called Christ. But the family doesn’t end there. The family of Jesus has continued for 2011 years and we are part of it through Word and Sacrament.
Amen.
Lord Jesus Christ, we thank you that you have come into the world and made us part of your family, causing us to be born again into a living hope, through the water and the Spirit. You are not only the son of David and Abraham but also Abraham’s God, and David’s Lord. Fill us with your Holy Spirit, and bless us with every gift of grace from your throne. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment