A Cheering Lesson From Genealogy - 2

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham Matthew 1:1

Yesterday, I mentioned that there is a cheering lesson in the genealogy of Jesus with which Matthew begins his gospel (Click here for yesterday’s post, “A Cheering Lesson from Genealogy”). As I read the genealogy, I see God as the Lord of history and the God of planning. There is yet another striking thing I notice in the genealogy. God is not only the God of planning, but His plan is all inclusive. In other words, God’s plan was not and is not restricted to perfect people.

Look at the genealogy once again, will you? The Bible makes no attempt to hide what one would think are embarrassing facts. The list has names of the godly, like David who had failed God, of the carnal like Judah, drawn into the dragnet of an adulterous act with his own daughter-in-law, of the irreputable like Rahab, the harlot, of the outsider like Ruth of Moab, and as if that was not enough, it has a sprinkling of the decidedly wicked like the cruel and murderous king Manasseh. If this list tells me anything, it is this – that God’s plan is inclusive, and it is cannot be hindered even by those who actively oppose it.

God is immutable. He is the same today, yesterday and forever. And looking at the genealogy of Christ, I am assured that God’s plan can include me, and that nothing can stop His plan from being fulfilled. You say, “You do not know, I have committed so many sins that God cannot look upon me.” But the Lord says, “Come let us reason together, even though your sins be scarlet they shall be as white as snow.” You say, “I am not in the right family, the right class, or the right caste. I am just not born to pursue spiritual things.” Let me tell you – God’s plan includes you. If it included a harlot, if it included a Moabitess, it includes you.

On that holy night in the obscure stable in Bethlehem, hardly anyone recognized that the cry of that baby was the cry of God incarnate demonstrating that nothing could hinder the plan of God. Three decades later, as the Cross approached near, the same God incarnate would cry out, “And I, if I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all peoples to Myself” and declare that “Whosoever believes in Me shall not perish.” The plan of God was for “all peoples”, and “whosoever”. C.H. Spurgeon once said that he would have had doubts had the scripture read his particular name instead of “whosoever”. He would have wondered if there was another Charles Spurgeon. The word “whosoever” however leaves no wiggle room. It is all-inclusive, and therefore it included you and me, and the only thing asked of us is to believe!

Danesh Manik

A Cheering Lesson From Genealogy

The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham Matthew 1:1

Writers are taught to put a lot of thought in the first few words of their writing to captivate the reader. The Gospel of Matthew would, at least in this generation, fail on that account. In Mark’s Gospel, by verse 24 in the very first chapter, we are reading of Jesus’ first miracle, but Matthew in contrast, begins the Gospel with a long list of tongue-twisting names in a genealogy that occupies seventy percent of the first chapter; a genealogy that could be quite meaningless, especially if you did not know the people, or pronounce their names. But I have come to realize that in the Word of God nothing is superfluous. Someone has very rightly said, “Bible may be man’s theology, but it is God’s anthropology.” If the Word of God is inspired, which it is, then, all of Scripture reveals the nature of God. Apart from the purpose of presenting to the Jewish nation the fulfillment of Messianic prophecy recorded thousands of years ago, the genealogy gives us some cheering insights into the nature of God.

The genealogy of Jesus tells me that the Bible reveals God as the Lord of history, and a God of planning. What we know as history in the past tense, God was looking as a plan in the future tense. It tells me that God meticulously and flawlessly planned the first Christmas. It tells me that when God told Abraham to get up and leave Mesopotamia, and that He was going to bring forth a nation from Him, that He had not forgotten the promise of the redeemer that was given to Adam when the serpent was cursed. It tells me that when Abraham wondered how this would happen since he was 90 years old, God still had the power to accomplish His plan. It tells me that when Jacob was running away from Esau, God was seeing Jacob become Israel. It tells me that amidst the horror of Joseph being sold to the Egyptians, wrongly accused and sent to the prison, God was simply writing the beginning of another chapter in His plan.

But most of all it tells me that He, who could plan and wonderfully execute His will in forty two generations, has not lost His ability or His will to do so in my short generation. Over the twists and turns, amidst the seemingly meaningless circumstances, in the chaotic times, and the wonderfully purposeful times, stands the towering figure of God, the meticulous plan of His hands, and the flawless execution of His will. And, on that Person I can confidently stake my life. When we trace genealogy, we hope to find our roots. When God inspires Matthew to record it, it simply shows the brilliance of God’s plan. Is it not wonderful to know that we serve a God who plans, and nothing escapes His attention? Many times Christmas is referred to as “Christians celebrating the founder of their religion – Jesus Christ.” That is a flawed statement. Christmas is simply the eternal plan of God fulfilled in His perfect timing in what we know as history. Jesus was not the founder of Christianity in the sense that He was born, and then through serendipity, His ingenuity, or simply a collusion of random events, became its leader. No, it was planned by God. Jesus came into the world at the time God had intended it all along from the beginning. Christianity is not as old as Christ – it as old as Adam. The first Christmas was just a plan unfolding and becoming a reality – God progressively making known to man His love. The physical birth of Christ we call Christmas was set forth in motion at time of Adam, brought into focus with the covenant of Abraham, fortified in David, and fulfilled in Christ of whom Isaiah prophesied – “A virgin shall be with Child and He shall be called wonderful, counselor, mighty God”

Many would have you believe that your humanity was simply a chance event, and history, a collection of random events. They would lead you to think that your very life is a cosmic accident, and that your destiny is to disintegrate into material good only as a fertilizer. The Bible says otherwise! God is the author of humanity, and He has a right to it by creation. So when the God of the Bible says, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. They are plans for good and not for evil, to give you a future and a hope,” it is not mere pep talk, it is the promise of the author and planner of history, and the genealogy of Christ is a simple resume’ of His previous accomplishments.

I pray that this Christmas when we read the genealogy in Matthew, we will not skip over it, but cheer our hearts in the knowledge that Christmas is simply the reminder that we worship the Lord of history, and the God of planning, and our life and its joys and sorrows, hopes and dreams, do not escape God’s attention!

Danesh Manik