What s in a Name? How many of you have ever done some work on your family tree? Whether you dabble in it or

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "What s in a Name? How many of you have ever done some work on your family tree? Whether you dabble in it or"

Patrick Melton
5 years ago
Views:

1 1 Matthew 1:1-17 November 27, 2016 Hope Mennonite Church Advent 1, Year A What s in a Name? How many of you have ever done some work on your family tree? Whether you dabble in it or get into heavy research, investigating your genealogy can be fascinating! You can find out all kinds of things. Today, there are lots of on-line resources, like ancestry.com. There are even things like 23andMe. Have you heard about that? Swab your mouth, send in a DNA sample, and based on the particular genetic arrangement on your 23 pairs of chromosomes, you can find out your ethnicity and all the people you re related to. In fact, now you can buy this service as a Christmas present for someone give the gift of finding our who you really are! That can include some surprises. From a commercial I saw, at least one person has had to trade in their kilt for lederhosen. Surprise! How about you? Anybody discover some things about your ancestors that were a surprise? Any surprises you re proud of? Any you re not especially proud of? It s OK. That s normal. Every one of our family trees has mixed foliage. In my own family tree, I discovered there s an inventor my great grandfather. He invented a machine that punched eyelets in shoes. I also have in my family tree a Civil War deserter and a saloon owner. My Great Aunt Pearl was especially thrifty. She would switch price tags in the stores. She would also take soup cans and dent them against the shelves so she could get a reduced price. My great uncle Robert married a woman named Anna. They had a son named Robert. That Anna died. Then Uncle Robert married another woman named Anna and had another son named Robert. He divorced that Anna, married another woman named Anna and had another son named

2 2 Robert. Is that dysfunction or a severe lack of creativity? Anyway, Uncle Robert was a Philadelphia policeman. Carole s great-grandfather was a free spirit. When he was a 17 they put him in a monastery. They were going to make a priest out of him. He escaped and stowed away on a ship, down in the cargo hold with all the animals. Six weeks later, the ship docked. He came up on deck from being down in the cargo hold. The sun hurt his eyes but the Statue of Liberty made them feel better. So, friends, if you ve discovered some surprises in your family tree, relax. Nobody has a genealogy that s Ivory Soap pure well, nobody except for Jesus. Of course, that s not really a fair comparison, is it? I mean, Jesus is the Son of God. He s divine. He s conceived by the Holy Spirit. Mary and Joseph seem more like surrogates than real parents. Mary and Joseph help make things look normal. The Gospel of Luke alludes to that. It says, Jesus was the son (as was supposed) of Joseph (Luke 3:23). See? For Jesus, family is like a cover. Jesus isn t like us. Of course not! The whole Christian faith rests on him not being like us. You do have to wonder, though. The Gospel of Matthew begins, indeed the whole New Testament begins, with a very long human genealogy of Jesus Jesus relatives extending back 42 generations name after name after name. Matthew spent a lot of time on ancestry.com. Why would he do that? I mean if Jesus is the Son of God, and human family for Jesus is secondary, why would Matthew even bother with Jesus family tree? What s the point? But there it is. It makes you wonder. Very strange. Well, at least we know there s no mixed foliage on the family tree of the Son of God. No questionable leaves there. How could there be? Especially not in the ancient world: Writers back then included genealogies to make their heroes look good. I mean even if, by some weird chance if Jesus had any, you know, Aunt Pearls or Uncle Roberts, well, Matthew would have

3 3 just run those names through the shredder delete all the s erase the hard drive. Matthew wanted Jesus to appear in the best light. There s no way he would have risked bad press. And if we still have any doubts, consider this: The way Matthew arranged Jesus genealogy: 42 generations in 3 blocks of 14 generations or 6 X 7. That makes Jesus the first name in the seven times seven set of generations and in Jewish symbolism seven is the number that signifies perfection. 7 X 7: You can t get any more perfect than that! There s just no chance of mixed foliage on Jesus family tree. And yet I seem to remember some stories, stories about people on Jesus family tree. Remember? Like Abraham. OK he did a lot of good things. But he also kicked his own son Ishmael out of the house. Then he lied and told everybody his wife Sarah was his sister. And then there s King David. He wrote all those beautiful psalms, yes. But he was also a shrewd politician an opportunist a vigilante a manipulator and an adulterer. He had an affair with a married woman. Then he had her husband killed to cover it up! That makes him a murderer too! And what about Solomon? Yeah, he was wise all right, but what an ego! What a narcissist! Solomon thought he was another Pharaoh. So, he made slaves out of his own people to finance his extravagant life style and massive building projects. There are stories behind these names in Jesus genealogy and some of those stories are disturbing. Oh, there s more. How about Ruth? She s a Moabite a foreigner in Jesus family tree! Of course, she married in. I guess that s OK. What about Rahab? Another foreigner and a prostitute a sex worker in Jesus family tree?! And didn t Ruthie just read the name Tamar? Tamar had a child by incest. And the wife of Uriah? That s Bathsheba. She s the one who had the affair with King David. What is going on here? Is this the Bible or All My Children? This is the family tree of the Son of God?!

4 4 It s surprising. It s disturbing In a way it s also kind of comforting. I mean when we put it all together, what Matthew is really telling us is that Jesus is the Son of God and a real person! Jesus doesn t have a perfect family. Jesus has a normal family just like us. Jesus family tree has mixed foliage Jesus family tree has parts to be proud of and parts to be less-than proud of. I don t know about you but I m feeling a little better about Aunt Pearl and Uncle Robert. Look at what God is doing! God is not covering things up. God is putting it all out there on the table right at the very beginning of Jesus story. We re not used to that; that kind of full disclosure, that kind of vulnerability. We live in an age of spin, Teflon, denial, cover-up, an age of misspeak instead of lying. We re not used to this kind of honesty. It s refreshing. It s liberating. Matthew s genealogy of Jesus says it crystal clear: Nobody s family is perfect. Nobody has a family that s Ivory Soap pure not even the Son of God! Look at what God is doing! Yes what exactly is God doing? Is Jesus family tree just about honesty or is it something more? That question isn t answered by the list of names. It is answered by Jesus own name. Names can have important meaning. How about you? Why did your parents choose your name? Jesus name has a particular meaning. The name Jesus means God saves (Yǝhôšua<; Joshua 1:1; compare Yǝša<yāhû; Isaiah 1:1). The angel announces that name to Joseph in a dream. And this is the connection the angel makes with Jesus name: You shall call him Jesus because he will save his people from their sins (Matthew 1:21). Jesus name is his job description. Jesus name describes his mission. Jesus own people, indeed, Jesus own family is afflicted by sin. But Jesus comes to save. That s what God is doing and its very Good News. And yet even the name Jesus, God saves, wonderful as that is, doesn t quite tell the whole story. There is more. So, Matthew adds to Jesus another name. It s a very old name from the

5 5 prophet Isaiah Emmanuel God is with us! Put the two names together and Jesus is the salvation of God who doesn t save from a distance but who is right here, with us with us in our real human situations, with us in our real life stories, with us in our real families. Brothers and sisters, through the wonderful grace of Jesus, all of us have been adopted into God s family tree. The long-expected Jesus has come to set his people free every leaf, every branch, all the mixed foliage and to do it personally. That s the best news of all!

White Noise Do You Hear What I Hear Christmas Series New Life Assembly December 4, 2011 AM Matthew 1 and Luke 1

White Noise Do You Hear What I Hear Christmas Series New Life Assembly December 4, 2011 AM Matthew 1 and Luke 1 Main Sermon Idea: Jesus came into this world supernaturally, but through a long history of