Growing up we called it the “Mennonite game.” Within a short span of meeting someone new, we somehow managed to find a connecting relative within a massive tangle of roots.
When one of our daughters was in college, she spent some months in Africa where a simple greeting turned into a rather long and involved questioning. The usual back and forth asked about the well-being of family members, community, and even ancestors. Like the Mennonite game with an African twist.
Relationships are well worth the time spent establishing them.
In the teeming spread of city life, we aren’t expected somehow to be rooted together through great aunts and uncles. Yet, even here, it comes out in other ways. The school we attended, a commonality in career, a similar status or enjoyment. The great who-is-related-to-who-by-whom of my growing up has finally, after my own long years, begun to make more sense.Relationships are well worth the time spent establishing them. Share on X
I can appreciate how those intertwined family trees wove a familial tapestry. They were threads that brought connection. Ties that brought relationship.
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.” Matthew 1:1 (NKJV)
This is the way Matthew, inspired by God, broke a thundering silence of 400 years which separated the Old Testament’s final events and prophecies from the New Testament. Former tax-collector, disciple and follower of Jesus, Matthew took his pen to parchment and introduced something so powerfully earth changing … with genealogy?
An author labors over the first sentence of the book he or she births. It needs to draw the reader into the story. It must evoke promise. And it has to lay a foundation. It keeps the writer awake at night with its need for punch and precision.
The Family Tree Before the Manger
I’ve never found the lists of great aunts and uncles, fifth cousins, or long gone great-great-great relations, whether my own or another’s, to be particularly stimulating. Yet, God deemed them essential to the Christmas story.
An amazing story filled with such explosive elements as supernatural beings, conspiratorial plots, murder of children, the virgin birth, all began with lists of people. Most of them long dead when Matthew penned their names. All of them less than perfect.
Matthew’s Greek word for “genealogy,” was the same as the word “Genesis.” The first man and woman in Genesis marred God’s perfect creation. Matthew, with his account unfolds a new beginning. New hope.
God designed one life after another, all connected to a baby in a manger. Layered generations position Jesus exactly where God foreordained Him to be as Savior and King.
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham,” wrote Matthew. (Matthew 1:1 NKJV)
The name, Jesus, means “Yahweh (God) saves.” It was His everyday name, like yours.
“Christ,” comes from the Old Testament Hebrew, (Mashiakh), a title meaning “anointed.” The Messiah had long been prophesied as the Righteous Ruler, the Anointed One, who would one day victoriously take David’s throne.
“The Son of David” places Him in rightful lineage as David’s royalty.
“The Son of Abraham,” points back to God’s covenant with Abraham (Genesis 12:1-3; 22:18). This unconditional covenant established Israel as a chosen people. It also promised that through the line of Abraham a Messiah would come, and with Him, a New Covenant through which all the world would be blessed.
This is how Matthew began his book. With a list of names, some recognizable, others obscure, he unwraps the Christmas story. Men and women, Jews and Gentiles, adulterers, prostitutes, those heroic, and others not so much, rich and poor, these comprised the genealogy of the first chapter of Matthew.
Jesus is the Savior of all who come to Him.
Each piece of the puzzle, divinely purposed invites us into our own genesis, a new beginning with Jesus Christ as Savior.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. 2 Corinthians 5:17 (NKJV)
A New King is born. Christmas has come.
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