God Sees the Forgotten

This Advent Season, we are telling a different kind of Christmas story. We are looking at Jesus’ family tree as we tell the Messy Christmas Story. Last week, we began our journey through Jesus’ messy family tree with Abraham and Sarah—a couple marked by waiting, doubt, and mistakes. We enter into spaces where internal doubt and impatience move us to act brashly. Yet even through failed plans and broken choices, even in the messiness of Abraham and Sarah, even in our own messiness, God remained faithful. That same grace meets us this week in the story of Tamar, reminding us that even when people are mistreated or overlooked, God still makes space for them in the promise.

Our scripture narrative this morning comes on the heels of Joseph’s story of rising prominence, divine favor, and reconciliation. Into the arc of that narrative, which seems to be moving toward justice, the story of Tamar suddenly intrudes on the scene. The biblical drama unfolding in the Genesis narrative pauses the sweeping movement of Joseph’s journey. It redirects our attention to a woman who stands in the shadows of the family tree. We move from Joseph to Tamar, and with that shift, our demeanor changes. Our disposition unsettles. Our discomfort becomes palpable.

Tamar’s story arrives without warning. It's filled with questionable motives - an extramarital affair, deception, disguises, prostitution, and even death sentences. We hear it and find ourselves asking, “Why?” Why does God’s story interrupt a happy tale of dreams, success, and an excellent hallmark ending of reconciliation with this tale marked by loss, injustice, and raw desperation?   

Tamar waits in a different kind of Advent—an Advent not marked by hopeful expectation but by uncertainty, vulnerability, and silence. While Joseph moves forward, Tamar is left behind. Yet Scripture insists that her story matters. Scripture insists that she will not be forgotten. Scripture insists that grace can take root even in the soil of injustice.

From our places of comfort and privilege, we want to judge or critique Tamar. We do this often; we observe someone’s choices from a distance and assume that we would have acted differently. Our questions reveal our motives, biases, and judgments: Why would the hungry steal rather than ask for help? Why would a parent work multiple jobs and still struggle to pay the bills? Why would someone stay in an abusive relationship? Why would someone turn to substances to cope with pain? 

It’s easier to judge the choices of others when we have never walked in their shoes. It is easier to shift blame onto people when, unlike them, we have never had to fight for our own safety, identity, or belonging. It’s easier to do these things than to face the harder truth: the messiness of the human condition is not only personal; it is also systemic.  Tamar’s story forces us to confront the reality that injustice is woven into structures, patterns, and assumptions, and these structures benefit some and harm others. 

One commentary notes, “Tamar, twice widowed, found herself with no husband or children, a precarious situation for any woman living within a patriarchal society. Her only hope of maintaining a ‘good’ name for herself and obtaining financial security is to be married to the next brother. But Judah, fearful that his youngest might meet the same fate as his older brothers, tells Tamar to return to her father until Shelah comes of age. Prohibited from marrying any other man but her dead husband’s brother, she becomes marginalized, with no way of securing a future.”

Judah shifts the blame onto Tamar right from the beginning of our narrative. Two sons had married Tamar, both passed, and instead of recognizing that his sons were responsible for their own death, he withheld the rights afforded to her by the Mosaic laws. While the customs of the faith and the law were on her side, she, as well as other women, were powerless and banished to the margins. She lacked the means to hold those in power accountable. When she hatches her plan to “trap Judah,” she does so out of desperation. She doesn’t do so from a place of immorality, but as a disadvantaged person in a system that was set up against her. Judah acknowledges this in Genesis 38:26, when Judah says, “She is more in the right than I, since I did not give her to my son Shelah.”

This acknowledgement from Judah is more than just an acknowledgement. In fact, it is a glimpse of how God sees this situation. God consistently works through the forgotten and the wronged. In fact, God’s promise doesn’t just survive in our human messiness—God confronts it. Tamar's courage disrupts a cycle of injustice. God doesn’t jump to judgment; instead, God works through the messiness of the situation. No matter what we think of Tamar’s plan, we clearly see how God punished Judah’s children. Yet God does not punish Tamar. God saves her and provides for her ultimate well-being. It goes further than that, though. Tamar is one of the few women mentioned in Jesus’ genealogy. What may seem like a mistake is God’s grace at work. Judah tries to erase Tamar, and God writes her in to Jesus’ genealogy. 

The world tells us that redemption comes after you clean yourself up—after you prove your worth or earn your place. But in Scripture, God flips the order. God calls us worthy while we’re still stuck in the mess. God writes Tamar into the story not after she’s polished and perfect, but when she’s still misunderstood and mistreated. That’s the kind of redemption Christmas announces—not sanitized, but scandalous. Not deserved, but delivered. And it tells us something vital: you don’t need to be cleaned up to be claimed by God. You don’t have to earn your way in. God makes room for you while the mess is still unfolding.

Tamar’s story isn’t just a historical moment—it’s a mirror. It reflects something back to each of us. It invites us to ask hard questions not only about how we see others, but how we participate in the systems that harm them:  Have I ever assumed someone’s struggle was their fault before hearing their story? Have I ever turned a blind eye to injustice because it didn’t affect me directly? Have I failed to speak up for someone who had no voice in the room? Tamar’s story is not just about someone else’s brokenness—it’s about our own. It reveals that the mess isn’t only “out there.” It’s inside our assumptions, inside our silence, inside our fear of rocking the boat. And yet—God still shows up. God still calls us to see, to repent, and to act. 

That call begins with honesty. What broken stories are we avoiding because they make us uncomfortable? What pain—our own or someone else's—have we tried to ignore? Advent isn’t just about waiting in candlelit peace. Sometimes, it’s about waking up to what we’d rather not see. Maybe this season, part of preparing our hearts for Christ means looking more closely at who we’ve failed to notice—and asking how we might do better.

So many in our world feel like Tamar. They feel ignored, dismissed, and are surviving on their own. They feel like the system is set up against them, and frankly, it is! They wonder how God could ever see them. The messy Christmas story tells them and us that God does see them. God loves them. In God’s kingdom, the least, the last, and the lost are included. When the least, the last, and the lost are included, the story begins to change. No longer is it us and them. Instead, it becomes we. 

In fact, in Tamar’s story, God shows us that God’s work isn’t always nice and neat. Tamar isn’t just a victim in her own story. She makes a courageous decision to trick Judah. She knows what could happen if she gets pregnant. Yet she believes this is what will help her situation. It will force Judah to confront his injustice and take action. It is confrontational and uncomfortable. Yet it is her only option to secure a future. God’s redemptive work isn’t always polite—it can be confrontational, disruptive, and led by those on the margins. Jesus’ ministry wasn’t polite. He turned over tables in the temple. He declared that he came to divide families. He called individuals to acknowledge those on the margins and include them. Even his disciples were made up of outcasts and folks on the margins. It wasn’t the holiest group you could assemble. Throughout his ministry, Jesus was “in your face” enough to get him executed. Jesus' story is messy. 

The beauty of the story isn’t just about Tamar. In Judah’s acknowledgment, we not only get a glimpse of how God sees the situation, but we also get a glimpse of Judah’s repentance. When the truth comes out, Judah acknowledges his shortcomings. It is not neat and clean, but growth in grace isn't always clean. Judah could have easily worked to cover up his shortcomings. He could have let Tamar be killed. Instead, he owns up to his mistake and spares her life. That’s progress. Even in Jesus’ family tree, the messy are accepted and included if they are open to transformation. 

Even in the midst of pain and injustice, God is at work. Tamar’s son Perez continues the family line that leads all the way to Jesus. And that child born to Tamar foreshadows another child—one born to Mary, in poverty, in vulnerability, in a world that had no room for him. Like Tamar, Mary would also be misunderstood. Like Tamar, she would carry new life in a world that questioned her worth. And like Tamar, she would bear a child through whom God would upend every human expectation of who belongs and who matters.

 God chooses to work through those on the margins—because grace doesn’t trickle down from the powerful. It rises up from the overlooked. Jesus will also be misunderstood, dismissed, and nearly erased—yet through him, God's promise will be fulfilled for all people. This is the beauty of the gospel: God brings new life from old wounds. God brings the promise through people others would rather forget.

So wherever you find yourself in Tamar’s story—whether you feel powerless and cast aside, or guilty and unsure of how to make things right—hear this truth:  You are not forgotten. You are not disqualified. You are not too late. And maybe this is the Advent you needed to hear that. Maybe this is the week you needed to know your story isn’t over. That God hasn’t turned away, hasn’t written you off, hasn’t stopped weaving grace into your life—even if you can’t see it yet. If you are Tamar, know that God sees you. If you are Judah, know that grace still invites you. If you’re somewhere in between—know that Christ is coming for you, right in the middle of the mess.

This is what Advent means. Not that we fix the story before Jesus arrives—but that Jesus steps into the story exactly as it is. Broken, unfair, complicated. And the question before us now is not, “Can we make it neat enough?” The question is: Will we make room for grace? Tamar didn’t wait for the world to make room for her—she made space for grace to move. She stepped into the brokenness and claimed her place in the promise. This Advent, you can too.