What we have just heard is the reading of a list of foreign-sounding names. Friends, brothers and sisters, do we find it interesting or helpful as you listen to the reading? Probably not. Were we then lost and started to feel bored half way through the reading? The answer is likely to be a ‘yes’, simply because some of the names in the list are complete strangers to us, especially when we come to the final portion of the genealogy. Listening to foreign names without faces and background, how interesting can such an exercise be?
The introduction of a book, any book, is none other than to arouse interests in the readers and to encourage them to read on. Question, why then did Matthew begin his work with such a dry, boring and uninteresting introduction?
Dry, boring, uninteresting. Pardon me for using such negative descriptions, but this is exactly how I felt when I read genealogies found in the bible. And I suppose what I have felt are feelings that’s common to many who pick up the bible. But, are we being correct and responsible to feel in such a manner?
Let me read at this juncture some other lists of names, and see if they will alter somewhat our take on biblical genealogies.
Mr Lee Kwan Yew, succeeded by Mr Goh Chok Tong, and who in turn was succeeded by Mr Lee Hsien Loong. 3 names, listed quickly and briefly, and a story that runs a span of 50 years comes to mind. Some of us, in hearing these names, will recall with fondness the once upon a time kampongs. Others may instead be thinking about the changes that took place in our economy, infrastructure and lifestyles during the time when the three leaders served (or is serving) as prime ministers. Say a name and what is brought to mind is a particular page of history.
Let’s try another list, Rev John Cook, Rev Zheng Pinting, Rev Chen Lingdian, Rev Shi Qisheng, Rev Xu Songguang and Rev Tan Tiong Ann. A few more names this round, and what comes to mind this time is the story of a big family that has witnessed 130 years of time. Not many of us can point to a stretch and call it my grandfather’s road, but many amongst us in hearing these names might go on to say, “this 130 odd years old Jubilee is my grandfather’s church.” Say a name that we call our own, and we find ourselves actually belonging to it.
I hope the 2 name lists just read have helped us see one thing, that what Matthew is doing here is in no way something that’s dry, boring or uninteresting. Genealogies, in fact, communicate and connect. Matthew’s genealogy come across to us as being dry only because the names cited weren’t part of our own ancestry. But they not as unrelated to us as it seems. The bible is about God and the people of faith that has come and gone before us. The names found in the genealogy are Hebrew names, foreign-sounding, but they belong to the forebears in our spiritual family. And so, I hope, that the few minutes spent talking about biblical genealogy has encouraged us to take greater interest in them.
Anyway, everything said thus far are for people like us, gentiles believers. As for the original Jewish recipients of the gospel, reading or hearing the list of familiar names strikes immediately a chord in their hearts, causing them to recall the past and identify with their nation’s history. I imagine them making comments as the names were read, “Oh, what good old times that was”, “such admirable faithfulness”, “what treachery!”
So we see that Matthew by using only names, plus a few helpful comments, is binging to mind a long long story that spanned about 1750 years.
And what sort of a story is he telling?
It is probably fair to say, a story that is true and yet messy. We say the story is true because it involves real people in a nation’s history. As to messy, we have the clearest portrayal in the section where Matthew served up names of kings.
Let us do a quick run through of Israel’s history before zooming into the kings. The Hebrew people, we know, begun as one single nomadic family. The family, however, experienced exponential growth and became a strong and glorious nation by the time David and Solomon took the big stage. But such glory faded in no time, one generation after Solomon, when Rehoboam was king, Israel split into the northern and southern kingdom. All the names of kings in the list after Rehoboam are from the southern kingdom. And by the time when Jeconiah was king, the once strong and glorious kingdom had become an easy catch for Babylon. The king became a puppet of the enemy, and the people its slaves.
What was Matthew trying to demonstrate by reminding his readers of the past through the kings? In a word, that their nation’s story was a messy one. How so? The names of the kings tell it all. The royal blood line began with 2 generations of good kings, David and Solomon. The next 2 generations thereafter, Rehoboam and Abijah; they were wicked in the eyes of the Lord. After Abijah the wicked king came Asaph, who was a good king. And after him, Jehoshaphat, also a good king. But his son Joram was again known to be wicked. Such a random repeats itself all the way till the days of Jeconiah and beyond.
One clarification is needed here. When the bible deems a king to be good or wicked, it is not about GDP or how the country performed in Happy Planet Index. Good and wicked is about whether the king and the nation act faithfully toward God and righteously toward one another. In the days of these Jewish kings, when a good king comes on board, the nation’s faithfulness and righteousness index would go up; when a wicked one reigned, it went down. Friends, God has never been looking to his people playing ‘the faithfulness and righteousness index see-saw’. So, when things got way too messy, when faithlessness and unrighteousness persisted as the climate of the day, the bible says God raised up Babylon and Judah was punished for her sins.
How the country faired under the kings was not a story that would have done the Israelites proud. But just in case such sheer honesty is still not enough to make them conclude that their nation’s story was messy; Matthew, before listing the kings, threw in names of 4 questionable female figures to help drive home the point. It is not a common gesture to include women in genealogies in the first place. And if some females must be named, then readers would naturally have expected to see names such as Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel – women who characterize faith and faithfulness. Instead, Matthew opened a can of worms by including Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah, names associated with scandals or foreignness, and then went on to point out the nation’s failure.
But herein is the beauty of it all, when we arrive at the end of the list and see the name Jesus, we would have to say that what Matthew had introduced was not a can of worms, but a reservoir of grace. As to messiness, unfaithfulness and unrighteousness of man; Israel’s history shows that such were never in short supply. But to have God therefore ditch the covenantal promise; no way. The promise made to David , saying that for one of his offspring, God “…will establish the throne of his kingdoms forever” (2 Sam 7:12) is a promise God had made and was determined to keep at all cost. The bible scholar, D. A Carson says it well, “Good or evil, they were part of Messiah’s line, for though grace does not run in the blood, God’s providence cannot be deceived or outmaneuvered”[1] (Carson, 67)
And so we see that Matthew as a story teller invites us into a story about the messiness of man, but he was in fact telling us the story on the faithfulness of God.
And the most beautiful point in this story has to be in verse 16 . Here, Matthew no longer uses the business of man to point to God, but talks about God in a direct fashion. The way that Matthew does this, is by pointing out, that it is by the Spirit of God that Jesus was conceived. If we read the Greek original, we shall see that every clause that is about father and son goes something like “the father produced the son”, such as Solomon produced Rehoboam. But this pattern that repeated about 40 times does not appear when Matthew describe Jesus’ birth. We of course know why it must be so. But what is important for us as Christian, is to be reminded that this ‘break in pattern signals a break in the course of history’[2]. Someone therefore says that Jesus by coming has brought about a new genesis[3].
Friend, God created the world, says the book of Genesis, which also says that mankind soon began withdrawing from the God who created them and also the world for them to live in. But in this new Genesis, God has come – Jesus, God Immanuel – and instead of we withdrawing from him, he is now here drawing us to him, and to do amongst and in us the work of redemption and renewal.
Matthew stresses the new Genesis by mentioning that Jesus came at the end of of 3 cycles of fourteen generations. We read this in verse 17 . But soon we spot a problem. When we count the names, we will find the total to be less than 42 and not every section of the genealogy actually contain 14 entries. Scholars have generated solutions upon solutions to settle or to get around the problem. We won’t be visiting their solutions this morning, and we also need not wonder if Matthew knows Primary school math. The more important question is, what is Matthew trying to say here? 14, 14, 14; is Matthew’s way of saying one season, a second season, and another season. The season of exponential growth, the day of the kings, and the period of decline, in which God was silent. And when the seasons are completed and at the right time, God sent the Messiah.
Let us take a moment to read this verse together with the verse 1 , which declares that Jesus is the Son of David, Son of Abraham. Long ago, God promised David and Abraham that through them shall flow the blessings of God. The Israelites really ‘wait long long’ for the fulfillment. Then, at the right time, God sent his Son.
The putting together of the 2 verses demonstrates to us once more, that God’s word will not fail, for he is faithful.
Friends, we often say that life is short. Yet at the same time, we tend to have stories about ourselves that take more than a minute to tell. Many a times, we would begin our stories with a sigh, and say, “it’s a long story.” This is what we do because life has its fair shares of good and bad times; and stretches that are extra rough and trying are in fact experienced by many an average Joe. Sometimes, our rough and trying stretches feels just like the 400 years after the kingdom era, where things around looks really discouraging, where God simply remain silent and endurance is a like a forever thing. But this morning’s text reminds us, that through it all, God is never absent, our faithful God has been at work; and when the season of pruning is through, we shall enter into his joy.
When I take a minute to feel Matthew’s introduction to his gospel, the genealogy comes across to me like a room in which i walk into. May I now invite us to join me in feeling the text and picture this room. The room is before me. Having stepped in, I begin seeing the juxtaposition of things impressive and offensive; the clean and shiny sitting beside things filthy and ugly, and there’s about no end to such a random arrangement. Then, as I walk in deeper into the room, I start to fathom the true beauty, subtle but consistent, wrapping around everything that I have passed judgment, impressive, offensive, clean, shiny, filthy, ugly. Walking on still, I find no exit, but the room has instead become the world that my friends and I are in, and surprisingly, one who is at the same time a leader and helper is amongst us, and the true beauty that has wrapped everything I saw, has had me wrapped in it too. Looking ahead, I again see randomness, and always around it the true beauty, which simply runs on and on. Far ahead, can’t tell how far, there’s the end, where I see a light, bright, warm and assuring.
As we continue in this Advent season, I hope such as a picture can be helpful as we relive the first coming of Christ and prepare for his return.
Amidst the randomness and mundaneness of life, we will, Matthew says, find time and again the diehard love of God at work. A love that transcends goals and expectation set by ourselves and others, transcends weaknesses and wickedness, transcends unwillingness and mishaps, and worse. A love that shall carries us forward unto the time of total renewal and restoration. Our call, is to recognize this love and to let it does in and through us its work tirelessly.
