Of the four gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, both Matthew and Luke offer genealogies of Jesus lineage. The two genealogies have differing emphases, one tracing itself back to key figures like David and Abraham, the other going all the way back to Adam. While there are varying theories, explanations, and purposes of the two accounts, their primary goal is to demonstrate the fulfillment of Old Testament prophecy regarding the coming Messiah in the person of Jesus. However, as I’ve been reading over Matthew’s nativity record this Christmas, I’ve been reminded of the bothersome inclusions made by Matthew that let a few skeletons out of Jesus’ closet.
There are several uncommon elements which Matthew incorporates into his genealogy. However, the most glaring is the inclusion of the 5 questionable women: Tamar (Mt 1:3), Rahab and Ruth (Mt 1:5), [Bathsheba] the wife of Uriah (Mt 1:6) and Mary (Mt 1:16). While including women in ancient genealogies was not completely unknown it was uncommon. Think about it! At least 3 of the 4 were foreigners (not Mary), one had to dress like a prostitute and seduce her father-in-law in order to produce her contribution to Jesus’ line (Tamar). Another actually made her living as a prostitute (Rahab). Yet another was the cause of the most famous royal scandal of the OT (Bathsheba).
Wouldn’t you think that if you were trying to secure the legitimacy of your rule as king that you’d “accentuate the positive and eliminate the negative� (to quote a line from an old song)? Why was it that Adolf Hitler never thought to mention that his ancestry included Jewish blood? Why was it that Herod the Great had his genealogical records destroyed? Both acted out of vanity. Without records of descent no one could compare one man’s background with another. But Jesus didn’t go this rout. His closest followers seemed to actually call attention to the humility of Jesus. In his book, The Jesus I Never Knew, Philip Yancy points out that prior to the coming of Jesus, we simply don’t have accounts of gods being called “humble.� Today we might think of the quality of “humility� as a virtue—but not in the ancient world. One of the highest qualities in the ancient Greek world (e.g., according to Aristotle) was “magnanimity�. It was thought that the greatest quality which a ruler could have was magnanimity. A magnanimous person had it all together, lacking nothing, and the person demonstrated it. A more common word today that is generally synonymous with magnanimity is “magnificence.�
By the end of reading even just one of the Gospels we see that this Jesus is truly magnificent. We discover that he’s the King of kings, the Lord of lords, the alpha and omega, our God and our Maker. Calling him magnificent is either a blundering understatement, or he is the very definition and standard of what it means to be magnificent. And yet, such magnificence comes shrouded in a cloak of humility—not an appropriate word for such a being.Â
Then why allow the scars and embarrassments of humanity to be so front and center in the person of Jesus? Why would Matthew allow these “skeletonsâ€? in Jesus closet (the 5 questionable women) to be put forth so boldly in the kingly declaration of Jesus’ life? Yancy notes, “These shady ancestors show that Jesus entered human history in the raw, [he was] a willing descendant of [humanity’s] shame.â€? Jesus identified with us in every way possible, except for our sin (Hebrews 4:15). Unlike men who scrambled to hold on to power and hide any sign of weakness, Jesus embraced the reality of human frailty. It seems to me that what we find in Jesus is the true character of a king. Who doesn’t feel the need to boast about his royalty but one who is irrevocably a king by his very nature?
QUESTION FOR REFLECTION:
Why else do you think Matthew selected “the 5 questionable women” to be included in Jesus’ genealogy?
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3 Comments on “The skeletons in Jesus’ closet”
Perhaps Matthew did this to show the imperfection of the world, and to show a need for Jesus’ birth, crucifixion, resurrection and resulting SALVATION.
As humans, most of us have baggage and skeletons in our closets, many through no fault of our own, and showing that Jesus did also, perhaps gives us hope for our own future. That we don’t have to be slaves to them, but in Jesus have freedom from our skeletons and the sin that we have brought upon ourselves.
I also believe he did this to show that his salvation covers everyone…not just a select few, not just the righteous religious leaders and those without blemish, but all of us. (can someone say HALLELUIA!)
OK…you motivated me to do a little reading on this subject and this is the most interesting reason I came across…
There are two common elements in the four OT women, elements that they share with Mary: (a) there is something extraordinary or irregular in their union with their partners — a union which, though it may have been scandalous to outsiders, continued the blessed lineage of the Messiah; (b) the women showed initiative or played an important role in God’s plan and so came to be considered the instrument of God’s providence or of His Holy Spirit. Tamar took the initiative in bringing about her somewhat scandalous union with Judah. We know nothing from the OT of Rahab’s union with Salmon, but it had to be somewhat irregular since she had been a prostitute; and it was her initiative that made it possible for Israel to come into the Promised Land. The union of the Moabite Ruth with Boaz had a certain irregularity if not scandal and was brought about by Ruth’s initiative; without that initiative the Davidic line might not have come into being. Uriah’s wife (Bathsheba) had an adulterous union with David; yet it was through her intervention that Solomon, their son, succeeded David. In post-biblical Jewish piety these extraordinary unions and initiatives were seen as the work of the Holy Spirit. These women were held up as examples of how God uses the unexpected to triumph over human obstacles and intervenes on behalf of His planned Messiah. it is the combination of the scandalous or irregular union and of divine intervention through the woman that explains best Matthew’s choice in the genealogy. There was divine intervention in several other births he lists (e.g., in overcoming sterility of Sarah, Rebekah, and Rachel), but Matthew does not mention the women involved because there was nothing scandalous about their union. The latter element is important because Matthew has chosen women who foreshadow the role of Mary, the wife of Joseph. In the eyes of men her pregnancy was a scandal since she had not lived with her husband (1:18); yet the child was actually begotten through God’s Holy Spirit, so that God had intervened to bring to fulfillment the messianic heritage. And this intervention through a woman was even more dramatic than the OT instances; there God had overcome the moral or biological irregularity of the human parents, while here He overcomes the total absence of the father’s begetting.
** I can’t miss this chance to plug Francine River’s Lineage of Grace series. You can’t put down these five little novellas – Unveiled (Tamar), Unashamed (Rahab), Unshaken (Ruth), Unspoken (Bathsheba), Unafraid (Mary).
http://www.christianbook.com/Christian/Books/product?item_no=235X&netp_id=261944&event=ESRCN&item_code=WW