Jesus’ family tree CCH Sermon 6th December 2020 :1-17 v17

• If you are a Christian, you have come to believe that the baby born in the stable all those years ago is Saviour of the World. (Or to use the Jewish word, “the Messiah”). o Well if so, you are increasingly in the minority in our society. o While others pat you on the back and get on with their online Christmas shopping, ▪ saying “that’s lovely for you dear, I wish I had your faith”, or ▪ “Christmas is more of a family time than a religious time to me” • how do you know that you are not barking up the wrong tree? • As you pin your hopes on Jesus, what makes you so confident you are so right, o and your atheist or muslim neighbour is so wrong? • Well the 4 gospel writers have worked hard to convince us of Jesus’ credentials… ▪ When we studied Mark, we saw just Jesus power over death, disease, the devil and even death. ▪ Next term we will look briefly at John’s gospel who has seven signs combined with some amazing teaching to prove that he is the life-giving Messiah. o But Matthew, who was probably writing to a mainly Jewish audience in the C1 goes further back, by taking us to the events surrounding his birth, and especially highlights Jesus’ fulfilment of the Old Testament. • [We will be looking at Matthew 1&2 for the next few weeks including over Christmas]. ▪ Matthew effectively says, “Look, let me show you why you are not being an idiot to put all your confidence in this Messiah who you never met and cannot see. Let me show you his credentials right from the start… • It all starts with his family tree”. ▪ Matthew’s not just doing a bit of Ancestry.com ▪ A genealogy or family tree was an important kind of background check in Judaism to understand who someone was. • They are important all the way through the Old Testament. •  There’s an episode of the Simpsons where Homer eats a poisonous blowfish and he thinks he’s about to die. In his last hours, he puts on a tape recording of the , and he slumps apparently falling prey to the poison as he hears that “ became the father of Mahalalel and Mahalalel became the father of ” etc. o I think the screenwriter is trying to suggest that some parts of the Bible are boring and frankly rather ridiculous. o But rather than this being a list of random names for poor Linda and Colin to pronounce, we have here a really important start to the New Testament, telling us that Jesus is everything that we have been waiting for. o We’re going to see that in 3 areas- the 3 areas that Matthew subdivides for us. o v17 again. • First thing I’m going to do is to put the words of this genealogy up on the screen, and although you won’t be able to read them all, esp if you are watching on a phone! I hope it helps us to see the threefold structure, which will give us our 3 points today. o v1. o v17. o 3 sections. • Carefully woven together. • Matthew has stylised his material to get it to balance. o He’s actually skipped a few generations here and there compared to the OT (and Luke). o That’s not being unhistorical or economical with the truth, as the word for father can mean ancestor. But he’s shaping his material around 3 key chapters in Jewish history. • Let’s look at the three sections, and we’ll find that buried amongst all these names is a message that takes us right to the heart of the wonder of who Jesus is, and why it’s so sensible to follow him. 1) SECTION. The first section doesn’t go back as far as , like Luke does, because Abraham marked the start of the Jewish nation.

• He was a chap minding his own business in the middle east, probably worshipping the sun and stars like his neighbours, when the real God of the universe appeared to him and promised him that his descendants would become a promised people living in a promised land through whom God’s promised blessing would come to the whole world. • Wow that’s pretty amazing for a normal guy who’s just enjoying his retirement. • And the list of descendants on this list is proof that God keeps his promises, starting with whose name means laughter (because he was born to parents over 90! Watch out those of you who think you are past it). Nothing is impossible with God. • Here’s a verse from Genesis 22. • Stars. • Do you know the God of the universe is a wonderfully good God who loves to bless. o And he wants to bless the whole world. o He is so rich in kindness and goodness. o He wants to mend the broken relationship we have with God. o His heart is towards the people he has made, and although we made a mess up of the world, he is full of grace and mercy, • IN JESUS WE MEET THE LONG AWAITED BLESSING! And actually you get a taste of that undeserved and universal blessing in this first section of the family tree. • Genealogies normally only mentioned the males in the line. • But did you spot Matthew has included some bonuses! 3 women. o Why has he put them in? o And Why didn’t Matthew mention some of the more famous women of the OT. ▪ Sarah, Rebecca, Deborah? • He mentions three women who were all a bit shocking. o All were probably non-Jewish, and two were prostitutes. o Like Mary who we’ll meet next week, there’s a question mark over some of their pregnancies. • Matthew didn’t need to include them, but I think he’s saying, o Look what Jesus brings is what was promised through Abraham. o Undeserved blessing to the whole world, even non-Jews- outsiders. o This gospel will end with the great Commission going out to all the world. ▪ Outsiders can be included. ▪ And sinners can be saved. • This is an awesome start to the book, if you feel you’ve made a right pig’s ear of your life, and you certainly shouldn’t qualify to be a follower of Jesus, think again. o Jesus is not shocked by our sin. Yes he’s grieved by it, and he came to save us from it. But his very family tree is full of sinners, some of whom were conceived in sin. • Come to Jesus! The Messiah. In • Covid has robbed us of many sources of blessing this last year. o Time with family? o Travel o Friends. o But if it’s stripped things away to remind us where the true source of blessing is, perhaps that it itself a small silver lining.

Do you see there’s more than meets the eye in these strange lists. In Jesus we meet the long awaited blessing.

It’s the main thing I think that keeps me a Christian… promises of God hundreds of years before Jesus that fit perfectly with his life and death like a hand in a glove.

2) Let’s move onto section 2. .

Now there’s a clue in the end of v6 about a key theme here.

• the father of King David. • If you remember back to when we studied the Samuel story last year, we saw the people’s desire to have a king to make them just like the other nations. o Not that there was anything wrong with a King, but he had to be one that led the people under God and not away from God to foreign Gods. o After the failure of Saul, David looked like a great King, doing what was “just and right for all his people”- some of us saw that just before the story of Mephibosheth recently. • But in v6 there’s another red mark. o Matthew doesn’t just say Bathsheba, he reminds us that ’s mum was originally married to another man, until King David committed murder to bump Uriah off, so he could go to bed with his wife. • And so we look to David’s descendants for the King who will bring an eternal Kingdom, as promised by Nathan. A royal dynasty that will never end. o Solomon looks very promising, but his many foreign wives led him astray after foreign gods. • Do you ever get disappointed by leaders, politicians, local councillors, • This list has some highs like Hezekiah and Josiah, but even they didn’t bring the Kingdom of God to earth. • And as for Ahaz, Manassah, Amon. You don’t want to know what they did.

• There’s a phrase, power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

• What a rarity when you find a person uses their power to serve.

• Meet Jesus! o Absolutely Supreme power, used to serve.

• While I was preparing for this sermon, there was an advert on BibleGateway for a laptop. The Asus Zenbook Here’s the tagline. o Irresistible beauty, supreme power.

• I’ll tell you what is irresistible beauty and supreme power. • It’s when the only one who deserves the title, King, or Son of David, as he’s addressed 7 times in this gospel, o perfectly obeys God’s good ways, o and uses his supreme power to lay down his life for others.

• And as Jesus says in chapter 20 of this book, all who follow in the footsteps of this King must use their power to serve and not to Lord it over others but to follow in his servant footsteps.

• Well the people got carried off into Babylon, as we are going to see, and though the royal line continued down to Joseph, the Kingship went underground, until Magi from the East asked the question Where is the one who has been born King of the Jews.

IN JESUS WE MEET THE LONG AWAITED KING. (long awaited blessing)

Is he your king? Are you actually doing what he says? Section 3. Did you spot the theme? v17 THE EXILE.

• I chatted to one of my neighbours the other day, she said, “Nothing big has ever happened in my lifetime. But now it’s Covid. This will go down in the history books”. o It’s true that we are living through history. And one day we will look back with relief when it’s all over. o The Jews also had a massive event which went down in their history books which lasted 70 years. It was called the exile. They were longing for when it was all over. o The people were carried off by local superpower the Babylonians into captivity. • And like we are longing for the end, the prophets were longing for the end of that.

• But when they got back into the land in the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, it was a bit of a disappointment. o They came home, but they didn’t experience the blessing that had been promised to Abraham. The temple was a disappointment. o And the promise of a King who would rule forever seemed to have failed. o And above all human hearts weren’t changed. • Had they blown it so badly that God’s promises had been annulled? o Well although the line of Kings stopped, the family line didn’t o And wonderfully (and very symmetrically the list builds up to a baby born in a stable who is v1 Messiah, Son of Abrham , Son of David.= o The one in whom the return from exile finds its fulfilment. o The one in whom there is a true homecoming. o Not back to the Promised Land, but back to God. • (in case you are wondering why this genealogy looks slightly different from Luke’s at this point it could be that Matthew is recording Mary’s, or that

• Can you relate to that? • Longing for home? o Students will be returning to their families in the next week. o Others perhaps with family overseas, won’t be able to return. o We have been looking forward to going back to our normal church home at St Peter’s School. What a great day that will be.

• When that little baby was born in Bethlehem, it was the start of a homecoming. o A homecoming far bigger than anything ever known before. • IN JESUS WE MEET THE LONG AWAITED HOMECOMING. It’s available, come to Jesus.

• There’s a song which was a hit before I was born (that is old) called Tie a Ribbon round the Old Oak Tree. o It’s about a guy who has just been released from prison. o He doesn’t know whether he will be welcomed home by his missus. o So he writes to her saying that his bus will pass by the old oak tree in front of the house, and if she can find it within herself to forgive him, and that’ he’s welcome home, she can tie a yellow ribbon around the tree as a signal. o If when he passes by there’s no ribbon, he’ll understand, and he’ll stay on the bus. o The time comes as the bus approaches the tree. He can’t bear to look, so he asks the bus driver to tell him if there’s a ribbon. o Soon the whole bus is cheering. He opens his eyes. The song says… o “A hundred yellow ribbons round the ole oak tree, I’m coming home”.

• Recap-x3 • ➔ The wonder of the Bible- this is what keeps me a Christian. • ➔ The wonder of Jesus! You are not wrong to pin your hopes on him. Let’s pray.