









But before his decision is final, God intervenes:
















Mary and Joseph’s tough assignment – Luke 1, Matthew 1















Mary’s Song









There is an eternally timeless truth in that statement

Who’s your daddy? (Matthew 1; Luke 3)


Money may not grow on trees, but there’s big business to be had in studying people’s genealogies—that is, their family lineage.  Search terms for “ancestry” and “genealogy” have risen to the second most searched-for category on the internet—second only (sadly) to pornography.  In 2012, a European private equity offered the popular Ancestry.com 1.6 billion dollars for control of the company (the offer was declined, by the way).

Why the popularity?  Our ancestry offers us a means of answering the age-old question: “Who am I?”  Our identity might be found in our ancestry.  In an article on Salon.com, actor Don Cheadle is reported as saying: “You start feeling more grounded when you can reach back and go … ‘This is who I am all the way back.’”

This is who I am all the way back.  Imagine knowing your roots this intimately.  Matthew and Luke set out to write biographies of Jesus, they included Jesus’ family tree, revealing just who Jesus was “all the way back.”


Matthew and Luke both include genealogies of Jesus.  Perhaps it would be helpful to see them side by side.  What do you notice that’s similar?  What do you notice that’s different?


Matthew 1:1-17 Luke 3:23-38












You might notice that Luke goes back waaaay further than Matthew.  Matthew goes back only to Abraham.  Luke goes back all the way to Adam.  Why?  Well, Matthew is trying to connect Jesus to both David—showing that Jesus is Israel’s true king—and Abraham—showing that Jesus is of true Jewish descent.  Luke is trying to connect Jesus not just to the Jews, but to the entire human race—something that would have been important, as Luke wrote both Luke and Acts during a time when people worried about the inclusion of Gentiles (non-Jews) in the Church.

But, you might be thinking, why don’t Matthew and Luke match up?  The genealogies given here look quite different.  Various suggestions have been made.  In the sixteenth century, Martin Luther suggested that Matthew gave Joseph’s genealogy, while Luke records Mary’s.  Unfortunately, evidence for this is sparse—limited only to arguments of Greek grammar (!).  In his commentary on Matthew, Craig Keener borrows from an ancient writer and suggests that Matthew was primarily focused on Jesus’ royal lineage, while Luke focused on Jesus’ biological history.  Since Jews did not keep accurate records of their genealogies (which helps explain why many didn’t know Jesus was of royal lineage), it’s probable that both Matthew and Luke are recording history only selectively.  Oh, you say, so the Bible contains errors?  No; it simply means that ancient biographies weren’t constructed with the level of chronological detail that we might expect from modern writers.  Additionally, the “gospel” was an unprecedented genre of literature.  They were meant to be historical, sure—but they were ultimately intended to invoke faith on the part of the reader.  Therefore all gospel writers recorded only the factual details necessary to win audiences with the gospel.


Of course, if you have a background in church, you may notice a few colorful characters in Jesus’ family tree.  David and “the wife of Uriah” (adultery and murder?), Tamar (who seduced her father-in-law while dressed as a prostitute), Rahab the prostitute…these aren’t the characters you might expect to find in the story about Jesus.  It’s all the more shocking when you realize that ancient peoples believed in what we might call “collective guilt.”  If a person is guilty, so is their entire community.  Yes; one bad apple really does spoil the whole bunch.

Today, while we emphasize individual responsibility, we still tend to think of guilt as contagious.  For instance, in a study conducted by Loyola University (if you listened to last Sunday’s sermon, I misspoke of the study’s origins), participants reported feeling significantly more guilty knowing that the seats they occupied were once occupied by those guilty of misconduct.  According to the report in men’s health, “whether it’s a chair, handshake, or lucky shirt, you’d be wise to seek out people and objects you want to emulate—and steer clear of stuff stained by failure, the study implies.”

But through Jesus, the righteousness of the One is enough to redeem the sinfulness of the many.  Are there some skeletons in your closet?  Do you have a past full of darkness, full of shame?  Jesus can redeem whole generations of brokenness with his lifetime of obedience, and the exchange he offers—my sin for his righteousness.   It is then that you and I might stand faultless before the throne, clothed in righteousness alone.  Over the next few weeks, we’ll be looking at a few characters from Jesus’ family tree, and seeing the various ways that the gospel can transform lives of brokenness into agents for His Kingdom.