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Unwrapped: Shady Family Tree

The Story of the birth, life, death, and resurrection of Jesus is the most important account of any person.

You are here today because of his story and how his story impacted and changed history for every person who has ever lived or will live in this world.

With someone so important and critically influential as Jesus and you know about him, how would you tell his story?

What would you include to share with the world if you were one of the eyewitness of life of Jesus?

And especially for this season of the year how would you begin to tell the story of Jesus?

One of Jesus’ best friends starts his account of Jesus’ story using Jesus’ family tree.

How would you like your story to be told beginning with your entry from Ancestry.com?

There was a story this week in the New Yorker.

The headline read: How Your Family Tree Could Catch a Killer.

Is that what your family tree could be used for?

The article traces the story of genetic testing in forensics.

There is coming a day when you will be able to upload your DNA to a database and not just know names, but stories, backstories, and identities of people who are tied to you.

The article chronicles the exploits of geneticists who are solving cold cases at a record pace.

But it also highlights the search for John and Jane Does who died without being identified, and birth parents for adoptees who have no idea who their real parents are.

The research isn’t just uncovering murders, but illicit affairs that produced children… children who were never aware that their conception wasn’t on the up and up.

Not only are there those who aren’t happy with what has been discovered, they’re not happy that others know of the discovery.

“I’d rather not know” no longer hides the sordid details.

Questions about Jesus

Matthew is the best friend of Jesus who begins his story with the family tree.

And boy, is it sordid.

We have murderers, we have ruthless dictators, we have affairs, we have prostitutes, we have incest.

Jesus’ line has it all.

And Matthew puts it all out there for the rest of us.

His original audience is a church much like this one, and they want to know if Jesus is the real deal.

They want to know if Jesus really is the one who had been Promised in the Old Testament, the One who would come to save Israel.

And Matthew writes his account, his letter, to answer that question.

So Matthew begins by tapping into Ancestry.com:

Christian Standard Bible (Chapter 1)

An account of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham.

(Matthew 1:1)

Everything that follows in Matthews account of the life of Jesus is a defense of Jesus as THE descendent of the royal line of David and THE descendent of Abraham.

All the promises given to David regarding his throne and his posterity and Abraham and his descendents are fulfilled in this One who is known as Jesus.

And if you’re Matthew, and you’re going to be making those unbelievable claims about Jesus and David and Jesus and Abraham, well, you start off with a genealogy.

Matthew wants to show that Jesus is related to David, just as the Old Testament writers had claimed the Messiah would be.

Let’s start with genealogy

A genealogy!

Isn’t that an exciting way to start the story?

If you one day just started reading your Bible and you started with Matthew which is the first letter in what we call the New Testament because you wanted to know something about Jesus, and you then you read the first paragraphs in his letter you might be thinking, umm.. where’s the action?

Where’s the drama?

Where’s the intrigue?

Where’s the car chase?

You see all these names, many of them unrecognizable, some stories lost to history.

Do you have anyone in your family tree that you can just name drop?

Like my great-great-uncle’s cousin’s twice removed by marriage used to be king of France? (I have no idea, btw) I do share a surname with a world-famous photographer from France, but I have no clue if he’s in my tree.

Jewish genealogies trace the names through male descendants.

And Matthew, here, starts off with some big names, although, if you have Jewish descendants you have these names.

Abraham fathered Isaac,

Isaac fathered Jacob,

Jacob fathered Judah and his brothers

So far, so good.

Those are big names.

Doesn’t get much bigger in Jewish family history.

Abraham.

Isaac.

Jacob.

Judah.

The patriarchs.

All of Jewish history starts with these guys.

And all of the great promises of the Old Testament regarding God’s blessing on his people were given to these four.

Judah is the one through whom God would send a King who would reign over His people and all the earth forever and ever.

Not a bad start to the family tree.

But then that’s where things get dicey.

Judah fathered Perez and Zerah by Tamar,

Oh boy.

Here we go.

Really?

Did we have to go there Mattthew?

Matthew isn’t sticking to the script.

Jewish genealogies don’t mention women.

But Matthew does.

Tamar.

What is she doing here?

Tamar doesn’t belong here, and not just because she’s a she.

Do you know the story of Tamar?

Do you know what she did and who she did it with?

Probably not, because it’s R-rated R even though it’s in the Bible.

Genesis 38 is where we find the story of Judah and Tamar.

We will be telling her story next week.

What we need to know now is that this is a story you’d rather not tell when reciting your family history.

Matthew doesn’t stop there, though.

We get to verse 5:

 Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab,

Boaz we know.

He’s a good guy.

But his mother?

Why is she here?

She’s a prostitute.

And she’s not even Jewish.

Tamar is involved in sexual scandal.

Rahab is a prostitute.

Matthew’s genealogy is not progressing in the way we’d expect, and sure enough in the very next sentence...

Salmon fathered Boaz by Rahab,

Boaz fathered Obed by Ruth,

Oh boy, here we go.

Another woman in the Jewish genealogy.

And more scandal.

Ruth.

We tend to think of Ruth as one of those nice Christmas Hallmark Movie, young widow moves home with mother-in-law and wouldn’t you know it, one of mom-in-law’s relatives is rich and single.