Christmas: God's Grace Shining in the Darkness of Sinful Humanity!

V. THE GENEALOGY OF CHRIST IS A PUBLIC DISPLAY OF THE GRACE OF GOD

You know when you first look at this genealogy of Christ in Matthew chapter 1, one of the things that strikes you is the wonder of the unexpected. In this genealogy, you would have expected Jesus to come from a special line of personalities: maybe from some special category of super-human beings that would ultimately qualify him to be somebody special and unique. But then, to your surprise, when you begin to look at Christ’s genealogy in Matthew 1, you realize that almost every name and almost every line has something wrong about it, and you are left wondering: "You mean this is where Jesus is coming from? Is this really what we expect the Savior of the world to be?"

The man Abraham who is mentioned in this genealogy whom we revere today, and whom we call the father of the righteous was anything but a righteous man apart from the grace of God. In fact, we find that he was a liar. And of all the lies that one could ever tell is to lie about his own wife! He lies in Genesis 12:14-20 and again in Genesis 20:1-11 that his wife is his sister. Well, in the sense, his wife was his half-sister, but again, being his legal wife, really, that's not what you would have expected Abraham to say! At least he would have said, "She used to be my half-sister, now she is my wife." But no, he doesn't say that! Abraham was a man of God, a righteous man, but when it is time for temptation, he is down!

And whom does Abraham give birth to? To Isaac. What does Isaac do? He walks in his father's shoes. He faces the same challenge in Genesis 26:7-11. When he is asked in Genesis 26:7 about the identity of his wife, and what does he say? "She is my sister really. Not my wife. She is my sister."

And then we have Isaac's son Jacob. Who is this Jacob? Jacob takes it even a little higher in terms of the heinousness of sin. He is not just a liar, but he is a cheater (Genesis 27, 30:35-43). He does not only cheat but of all people, he cheats from his blood brother and twin brother! We might understand if you steal from strangers, but when you steal from your own twin brother, it has gone to another level, alright? But this man, guess what? He is one of the ancestors of Jesus!

You come and look at Judah, the son of Jacob, and probably you are saying, we hope Judah will be much better. No! He takes it much further in sin. What does Judah do in Genesis 38? Judah fornicates and of all people, with his daughter-in-law Tamah. And Judah would later confess in Genesis 38:26 and say, "In fact in this sin, she is even more righteous than I! How could I have slept with my own daughter-in-law, of all people!" But guess what? Jesus will come from the tribe of Judah! You would have thought and said, "Well God, couldn't you choose a much better tribe that was, you know... at least whose sins were not visible to save Jesus of the embarrassment?"

But no! Jesus' ancestors are liars, they are cheaters, they are adulterers and then when you come to king David, one of the greatest men and kings that ever lived, in fact, one called “a man after God's own heart” in 1 Samuel 13:14. What does he do? Scripture tells us that he was also an adulterer, a liar, a murderer (2 Samuel 11:1-27); a man who shed so much blood during his lifetime (1 Chronicles 28:3). And when you consider all these facts, you are likely to ask and say, "Did you say that Jesus was a descendant of these guys?" Matthew will say "Yes" without an apology.

You look at David's son Solomon. It doesn't get worse than that, right? Solomon, in 1 Kings 11:1-10 not only marries 1,000 wives as a polygamist; but he also actually walks away from the Lord and resorts to worshipping idols! We are told in 1 Kings 11 that when he had married these wives from the heathen nations, he established alters and shrines to their gods and they led his heart away from the worship of God. And yet, this Solomon is one of the ancestors of Jesus! Really?

And of course, this is not all. Then you come to the one that you probably would never even imagine: the women that we find in the genealogy. Having these women in, in the Jewish tradition and culture, is offensive enough for Matthew to be stoned. But wait a minute, they are not just women, but they are the worst kind of women you have ever come across. You look at their CV's and you are like, "Oh, my goodness!"

You have Tamah, who sleeps with her father-in-law in Genesis 38:13-18. You have Rahab, who is not only commonly known as "Rahab the harlot" in Joshua 6:17, 25, but she is a Canaanite, a gentile! One who normally would never mingle with God's chosen people. In fact, at this stage, there is great enmity between the Jews and the heathen nations around them. And to think that of all people who end up in the family tree of Jesus, there is Tamah, who is gentile, by the way, who sleeps with his father-in-law; that there is Rahab the Canaanite, not just a harlot, but who also lies when they ask her about the spies and where they have gone -- so the lie continues in the family line.

There is Ruth the Moabite! Now Ruth looks like a very wonderful woman in the book of Ruth. In fact, when you look at her, you almost don't see any dot in her, and you may be tempted to say, "Aha, Matthew finally you got it right! At least we can see some balance. Ruth was a good woman, she committed herself to join Israel. Wow. But wait a minute! Do you realize that Ruth is a gentile, she is a Moabite? Do you know where the Moabites are coming from? Moabites are people that are coming from the lineage of Lot. In Genesis 19, when Lot escapes Sodom and Gomorrah, as you remember, his wife stays behind and turns into a pillar of salt. And lot escapes with his two daughters, and what do the daughters do in Genesis 19:30-38? They say well, we have no husbands, so we need children, so what are we going to do? we get our father drunk and we get pregnant by our father. They successfully do that. They give birth to two boys and it is from one of these two boys that the Moabites come from. So, Ruth comes from a lineage of incest. Ruth comes from the lineage of a gentile. but she finds herself where? In the family tree of Jesus, that Matthew calls the Messiah!

And then we have our dear Bathsheba here. Not only is Bathsheba again one who was involved in adultery with David in 2 Samuel 11, but it is very possible that she could have been a gentile as well, because her husband Uriah, is identified in 2 Samuel 11:6 as “Uriah the Hittite.” So, for all we know directly is that Uriah was not a Jew. Now we are not told much about Bathsheba, but it is very possible that she was a Hittite as well, a gentile.

But then what is interesting in this genealogy is that you will notice that Bathsheba's name is not mentioned. While the other women's names are mentioned, when we reach Bathsheba, the bible says in Matthew 1:6 that, "…Solomon was the son that David had by Uriah's wife." Is it because Matthew has forgotten the name of Solomon’s mother? or is he up to something?

In fact, when you look at these women very carefully, you will notice that we probably have judged them harshly more than we should. I want to believe that Matthew's intention, is not even to tell us about these women more than he wants to tell us about the men who used and abused them.

Matthew seems to be reminding us more about what David did and not really what Bathsheba did. That Solomon is going to be a son of David, not Bathsheba, but a son of David whom David got by who? By someone else's wife. So, whose sin is in view here really? Is it Bathsheba or is it what David did with someone's wife?

And when you look at Tamah in Genesis 38, we see the same story. That at the end of it, Judah is confessing and saying, "She is more righteous than I! Me a father-in-law, who sleeps with my daughter-in-law, after denying him my son to marry him, who really has the bigger case? Who is more guilty than the other here? And Judah confesses and says, "It's me!"

So, before condemning the women for their existence in this genealogy, we should realize that these women are actually there to heighten the guilt and the ugliness of the men who formed the family tree. You can only understand the depth of the darkness in these men by looking at the women that they are involved with. It doesn't get darker than that. But if this is really the story! So, what is Matthew trying to say? Is he saying that Jesus is a sinner? Is he saying that Jesus did wrong to be born through such a dirty lineage? No!

Matthew is telling us that there is no better place to see the wonder of God's grace than right at the beginning of it all! Before you even look at the birth of Jesus and celebrate with the angels and the Magi, can you see where Jesus is coming from? That Jesus is coming from a lineage of ugliness, of darkness, of sinfulness, and it is these people, abhorrible as they are, that Jesus will identify with.

That from the beginning we know the mission of Jesus: he was born among sinners to rescue sinners; that his role and mission of redemption is seen right at the beginning by seeing the kind of people among whom he is born. That God's grace in saving sinners does not only save the qualified, the pure, and the righteous but in fact, the uglier the picture is, the more marvellous and bright the grace is! That God will save his people in spite of who they are or what they have done.

If God were at work through Abraham because of his truthfulness, we wouldn't be here today. If God were at work through David because of his faithfulness, we wouldn't be here today. But when we think about Christmas, we think about marvellous grace. We think about the grace that is greater than all our sins. We think about amazing grace that picks a wretch of a man and makes him a saint that he is undeserving, yet received by this holy and righteous God. That this genealogy, if there is anything else it says, it says, "See what grace looks like! See how the light of God's grace shines into the darkness of sinful humanity and rescues them and brings them into sainthood!”

If you read Mathew chapter 1 and you do not see grace, you need to go back and read it again, because clearly, you have misread it. If you go beyond Matthew chapter one without seeing grace, don't bother reading chapter two because the Christmas story will only be a mere story.

But if you understand Matthew chapter one, it ceases to be a story, it becomes an open heaven with rays of God's marvellous grace shining in the darkness of humanity's sinfulness and you can hear a voice through that open heaven saying, "yes, Salvation has come, not just salvation, but to the undeserving!"

We are told in Romans 5:8 that "God demonstrates his love in this way that while we were still sinners, Christ Jesus died for us." This genealogy is here to remind us that Jesus identifies with us in each and every way and therefore understands us enough to qualify as the perfect High Priest for us before God. That Jesus's mission from the very beginning was not only to be born among sinners but to bear their sin upon Calvary's cross. No wonder, during his public ministry, he was called Mark 11:19 and Luke 7:34 " a friend of sinners." He says in Matthew 9:13 that, "I did not come for the righteous, for the sinners to repent." He says in Luke 19:10 that “the Son of Man came to seek and to save that which was lost.” No wonder, Matthew will introduce Christ’s birth, but he will give us his name, the name Jesus, which means he will save his people from their sins" (Matthew 1:21).

Right even before Jesus is born, we can already see and know who he is, we can tell what makes him special and unique and worth having in our lives. We can see already his mission very clearly even before it begins, that the one who will be born in a manger in Bethlehem will be the world's Savior, will be the world's Messiah, will be the friend of sinners, he will be the one through whom God's grace will be marvellously, publicly demonstrated before the watching world. And climactically, on Calvary's cross, we will see the consummation of God's plan from way back into Old Testament History into not just the coming of Jesus, but the perfect sacrifice that he will make on Calvary’s cross for your redemption and mine.

This Jesus, no wonder, even in his public ministry, this grace was evident. He had grace for the thief on the cross who asked for a place in paradise in Luke 23:39-43. He had grace in Luke 19 for people like Zacchaeus, a robber, a tax collector who came down the tree only to receive salvation. He had grace for men like Peter in Matthew 26:69-75, who, in spite of knowing who Jesus was, still denied him not one, but three times! Not only does Jesus forgive Peter, but he restores and calls him to lead and to shepherd his sheep and lambs in John 21.

Jesus still calls today. He still has grace for the sinners: the undeserving like you and me. Christ has grace for men and women who probably have committed more sins than those we find in this genealogy and yet he still identifies with us. Yet he still calls. Yet he still says, "come to me, you who are weary and are heavy-laden and I will give you rest” (Matthew 11:28). You will hear him on Calvary's cross not just calling, but saying, "Father forgive them" in Luke 23:34 and interceding for us right away! "Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. If their sin is what will separate me from you, Oh Lord, yes, as hard as it is, your will be done." You will hear him in Gethsemane crying out for God's will, that God would save these sinners in spite of the price and the cost that he would have to pay. Isn't that what Christmas really is?