“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son Abraham” Matthew 1:1
There are passages in the Bible that we know by heart. It can be a verse like John 3:16, a chapter like Romans 8, or an entire psalm, like Psalm 23. There are other books or places in Scripture that we enjoy spending time in, whether that is a Gospel, an epistle of Paul, or a story from Genesis. I would be willing to bet that the genealogies of Scripture are places that we do not spend much time in, if, at all! I would also be willing to wager that no one has the genealogies memorized or have a verse from them committed to heart.
The genealogies in the Bible can be confusing and full of people that we have never heard of, have little knowledge of, or know nothing about (some people are only mentioned there!). In turn, we often do not spend much time in them, and understandably, so. This Advent season, we are going to wade out into uncharted waters and unfamiliar territory. For the month of December, we are going to look at the genealogy of Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew as we close out our time in Matthew’s Gospel.
In Matthew 1:1-17, Matthew lists 42 descendants of Jesus. Some of them are well-known and famous (like David, Abraham, and Mary), others we are familiar with (perhaps people like Judah, Boaz and Ruth, and Solomon), and others we might not know much about at all (Josiah and Zerubbabel). Each week, we will look at a different person in the genealogy of Jesus. We will see how that person points forward to Christ and how their lives anticipate Christ. We will see how they might have an aspect or action that finds a greater fulfillment in Jesus. We will see the importance of these genealogies, and see how Matthew shows us a preview of his Gospel through it. One of my hopes is that this series helps to bring a greater knowledge of Jesus by looking at the people He came from, while helping to illuminate parts of Scripture we can often be tempted to skip over. Below are the people we will look at, along with a preview of what to expect.
- November 29: David (Jesus is the long promised Davidic King).
- December 2: Abraham (Jesus is the Promised Seed of Abraham and son of sacrifice. Isaac’s potential sacrifice points ahead to Jesus’ actual sacrifice).
- December 6: Judah (The ringleader in the plot to kill and sell Joseph eventually becomes the one who will take Benjamin’s place and punishment. Judah’s actions foreshadows how Jesus will do the same for us).
- December 9: Boaz and Ruth (Boaz does what is necessary to redeem Ruth as the kinsman redeemer. Boaz’s act of redeeming Ruth points to Christ’s act of redemption for us).
- December 13: Solomon (Solomon is the wisest person of his day while Jesus is wisdom personified (see Proverbs 8)).
- December 16: Josiah (One of the best kings in the history of Israel and Judah, Josiah makes sweeping reforms throughout the land, cleansing the temple and rooting idolatry. Jesus does a similar act in His ministry, and still roots out idolatry today).
- December 20: Zerubbabel (One of the descendants of Christ in the post-exilic period, he is tasked with rebuilding the temple. He is given wonderful promises for the task that are in recorded in passages like Haggai 2. Jesus is the fulfillment of one of the promises given to Him).
- December 24: Mary (Jesus is the son of Mary, showing His identity as true man).
- December 25: God (Jesus is the son of God, showing His identity as true God).
I hope that this series prepares you this upcoming Advent season for the Christ-child that comes in the manager, comes in His Word and Sacraments, and will come again.
Pastor Kooi
(Originally published in Emmaus Footprints, Vol. XXII, Number 4, November 2020)