Devotions

A List of Names

Genealogy of Jesus

There are parts of the Bible that are just quotable, perhaps because they are beautiful or inspire confidence. “God so loved the world that he gave his only son”. “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want”. And there are parts of the Bible that we will read and think to ourselves, “mm, yes… that is God’s inspired Word. I know that in theory, but when I read it, I don’t necessarily feel very inspired.” I think one such passage would be the genealogy of Jesus Christ. 

This is the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah the son of David, the son of Abraham:

• Abraham was the father of Isaac,
• Isaac the father of Jacob,
• Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers,
• Judah the father of Perez and Zerah, whose mother was Tamar…

(Matthew 1.1-17)

It goes on exactly like that for a while. A genealogy is a list of your ancestors. The Christmas story as told in the Gospel of Matthew starts off with one for Jesus, it records 28 generations in total of Jesus’ great great greats, all the way back to Father Abraham himself. As a preacher, I’ve always wondered, if I were ever unlucky enough to be assigned this passage to give a sermon on, what would I do with it?

Here’s the thing. We don’t appreciate the genealogy because we see no significance; to us it seems like bland record keeping. But what might help us appreciate it is if we consider that each name is imbued with a story, each name represents a chapter in a grand saga of which Jesus’ arrival is the culmination. Think of it this way:

Say you met someone who’s never seen any Marvel movie before, and they ask you what’s so special about the Avengers Endgame. You tell them that it was the climax to a tale more than a decade in the making. Then you said to them:

• In order to appreciate Avengers Endgame, you need to watch Avengers Infinity War
• In order to appreciate Avengers Infinity War, you need to watch Thor Ragnarok
• In order to appreciate Thor Ragnarok, you need to watch Black Panther
• In order to appreciate Black Panther, you need to watch…

And you go on and on all the way through the sixteen installments of the Marvel cinematic universe until you get to the one that started it all. To your friend who’s never seen any of the movies, you might as well be listing a meaningless bunch of nonsense words. But to someone who is steeped in the story and invested in how the tale ends, each entry is bursting with significance. 

The birth of Jesus is the culmination of an epic saga, one of good versus evil, kingdoms and powers, light overcoming darkness, spiritual forces, long-suffering, intrigue, and cosmic warfare waged on ordinary Middle Eastern soil. It is a tale that engulfs us all. And to the extent that you can appreciate the grand storyline, those names in the genealogy take on richness and meaning. Know the story. Know the tale. Await his arrival.