Rev. Danny Mackey Advent Midweek 1 December 2, 2015 Matthew 1:1-6a Grace Evangelical Lutheran Church in Muncie, Ind. The Genealogy of Jesus: Abraham to David I. Genealogies are fascinating. An entire industry exists where you can trace your lineage, your ancestry. There’s Ancestry.com where people look up archival records to find things out about their family trees. Also, there’s 23andMe.com where you can submit your DNA and it’ll tell your ancestral geographic origins. When I go to an Irish festival, I always look at the heraldry booth, trying to find the name “Mackey” on the map. When I went to the Seminary, I was excited to find out that the name Goede—my mother’s maiden name—has its origins in Saxony. Saxony: the birthplace of Lutheranism and the fatherland of the Missouri Synod. Also, not too long ago, my Grandma gave me a folder full of information about my Dad’s family. It was fascinating to go over all that genealogical data. I figured out that a former teller at the Chase in Yorktown is most likely a distant relative. It’s pretty cool. Yet, the genealogies recorded for us in Scripture aren’t considered all that cool. Our eyes glaze over; our brains shut down. People begin reading the Bible, with every intention of reading this number one selling book of all time, and then they get stalled at Genesis 5. 10 generations recorded. 10 generations of names we don’t know, right? That’s where most stop reading—or they just skip right over it. Why such aversion to biblical genealogies? Were some of you instantly bored the moment I began reading this evening’s Gospel lesson? God records genealogies for a very important reason. Any guesses? Each genealogy in the Scriptures serves a theological purpose, makes a theological point. The genealogy in Genesis 5 illustrates the universality of humanity. Believe it: every name from Adam to Noah is one of your ancestors! Noah is the father of all nations and tribes and peoples. If you live in America or China, Europe or Africa, Australia or South America, you are a descendent of Noah. It’s your family tree recorded for you. 1 Matthew’s genealogy of Christ doesn’t go as far back as Adam and Noah though. (Luke’s does, by the way.) Matthew’s starts with Abraham. Each week we’re going to examine one third of this genealogy, 14 generations at a time. Matthew breaks up his genealogy into these three parts, 14 generations each. 14 generations from Abraham to David; 14 generations from David to the Deportation; 14 generations from the Deportation to the Christ. As we examine this genealogy, we’re going to ask the questions “Why is this recorded for us?” and “What’s the theological significance?” And, I assure you, there is a point. God has this recorded not just for good record keeping but also for your spiritual growth, for the strengthening of your faith. II. So let’s look at it one more time. You can follow along with the bulletin: 1The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham. 2Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, 4and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6and Jesse the father of David the king. We heard God’s promise to Abraham: I will make your name great and your descendents shall be a great nation and through your offspring shall all families on earth be blessed. It begins with a promise. What’s another word for promise? Gospel. Matthew’s genealogy is a genealogy of promise, of the Gospel. It’s not a genealogy of humanity. It’s not a genealogy of kings. It’s a genealogy of promise, of the Gospel. It was a promise first made in Genesis 12 and then repeated in Genesis 17, our Old Testament lesson. God promised that He would give Abraham a son through Sarah, his 90-year-old wife. He kept that promise and Isaac was born. 2 Abraham believed God’s promise to him and his faith was credited to him as righteousness. We find that promise fulfilled in these first 14 generations. A single man, a 100-year-old and childless man at that, is made into a great nation, a nation of 12 tribes. This is what God had promised. When Abraham’s faith in God’s promise was tested, Abraham willingly raised his knife to sacrifice Isaac because, as the author of Hebrews tells us, Abraham trusted that God would raise Isaac from the dead in order to keep His great promise. And Isaac’s life was spared and returned to Abraham—a resurrection of sorts—so that Isaac might marry and have his own sons. By Rebekah, Isaac had two boys: Esau and Jacob. Esau despised his birthright, selling it to Jacob for a bowl of lentil stew. Jacob, that grasping and conniving Jacob, tricked Isaac of the covenantal promise and fled as a result of his brother’s fierce anger. However God loved and blessed Jacob, having mercy and compassion on him for the sake of the promise to Father Abraham, renewing the promise once again. Jacob, by Leah and Rachel and by Bilhah and Zilpah, had 12 sons—Judah and his brothers. God greatly multiplied the descendants of Abraham. Jacob received the name Israel. Thus, the 12 tribes of Israel were established. The mantel of God’s promise was placed upon Judah, the fourth son of Jacob. God made another promise, as we have recorded for us in Genesis 49. God renews His promise and adds to it that Judah’s descendant shall rule with power and might, and that the ruler’s scepter shall not depart until tribute, until the obedience of all the peoples, comes to Him. God here promises none other than Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Holy One, the Lord’s anointed. Resulting from injustice and trickery, justice demanded and righteousness forced, Tamar would give birth to Perez, her father-in-law Judah’s son. And from trickery and injustice, justice supplied and righteousness bestowed, the 12 tribes of Israel would enter into Egypt. There they remained for 400 years—Hezron, Ram and Amminadab are those who spent their whole lives in Egypt, in the house of bondage. Nahshon participated in the Exodus, 3 God’s freeing of Israel from Egypt and the wanderings in the wilderness. Nahshon, along with his brothers-in-law Aaron and Moses, died in the wilderness. His son Salmon entered the Promised Land. Salmon married the Canaanite prostitute Rahab. Rahab was the woman in Jericho that confessed her faith in the one, true God and who helped Joshua’s men to spy out the land. Her family was spared—and it was also blessed and enlarged. Salmon made an honest woman out of Rahab and brought her and her family into the family of God. Boaz, Salmon’s son by Rahab, was an instrument of God’s justice and mercy to Ruth and her mother-in-law Naomi. Boaz took in Ruth the Moabite as his wife. He became her kinsman-redeemer, guaranteeing that God’s promise was preserved. They had a son named Obed, who was the father of Jesse, who had eight sons. God’s promise to Judah had its fulfilling continued in David, the son of Jesse, the shepherd boy who became king. III. So, now that these names no longer look totally unfamiliar to us, what’s the point? This is a genealogy of promise. God made a promise to Abraham, renewed it with Jacob, blessed it with Judah and confirmed it in David. These verses evoke the early history of Israel and God’s covenantal promise. It is a promise ultimately fulfilled in the Christ, Jesus of Nazareth. What does that have to do with us? After all, we’re not descendants of Abraham. It has everything to do with Jesus. He is the Christ, the Son of David and the Son of God. He was the One promised to Abraham and to Judah. And, as St. Paul tells us, since we are in the singular “Offspring” of Abraham, Christ Jesus, through the power of Holy Baptism, we too have Abraham as our spiritual father and are also recipients of this eternal promise with all Abraham’s offspring. 4 To Abraham God declared that He would make his name great and his descendants to be a great nation and through him would all the nations be blessed. This Advent season let us reflect on God’s genealogy of promise. Jesus is the Promised One, through whom salvation comes to all peoples, whether Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. Therefore, His promise is for you. This is part and parcel of the command Jesus made to His apostles: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always to the end of the age.” God has blessed us through Abraham and his offspring.