John 1.10-18 (Matthew 1.1-17, Luke 3.23-38)
Waterloo United Free Church
Second Sunday of Christmas, 5 January 2014
‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him ... But to all who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God.’
You may be familiar with the popular ITV weekend show Surprise Surprise, hosted originally by ‘Our Cilla’ and recently revived with Holly Willoughby as the presenter. It’s an hour’s entertainment full of the ‘feel-good factor’, in which members of the audience who have done something special for others - being a carer, doing charity work or fundraising, are surprised by Holly and given a treat; and others for whom life has been a struggle, perhaps for health reasons, are surprised with a special appearance by their favourite singer or sports star. The show always climaxes with a real tear-jerker, when people who have not seen each other for many, many years are reunited - people whose childhood friendship ended when they were evacuated during the second world war, brothers and sisters who have spent the whole of their adult lives on different continents...
It’s done in a way which raises the emotions, and by the time that the long-lost brother from New Zealand and the family who thought they’d never see him again, make the walk towards each other on the stage, to share a long, deep embrace, there’s barely a dry eye in the house - and by that I mean, our house. It gets me every time. ‘He came to his own, and his own people received him’: it’s wonderful life-affirming stuff.
And it’s the search for moments like this, though untelevised, more private moments, which drive many people to research their family history. The desire to locate lost relatives, the drive to discover the truth about one’s forebears, is increasingly popular today - in fact some sources suggest that genealogy is one of the most popular topics on the Internet [1].
The Internet has made it so much easier to research family history and to communicate with people across the world. And through the exchange of emails like those, come experiences like the one I had in March last year when I met, for the very first time, a second cousin of mine, Brian, who as it turns out was living just 35 miles from our home in Devon, one of a number of cousins on that side of the family who have found each other and arranged get-togethers over the past couple of years. You may have had similar experiences yourself. Or you may have in your heart a desire to find someone in your life who you know is out there - somewhere - and you’d love to meet.
When I’ve been vicar of churches with churchyards I have had at least two or three calls or emails a week from different people wanting to know the location of their great-great-great Uncle William’s burial plot - occasionally it’s someone with a mobile phone standing in the churchyard and expecting an immediate response. And with those enquiries come fascinating conversations about the lives the people are researching.
Similarly, when I’ve met families of someone who has died, to talk over the funeral service and the eulogy, so very often the conversation about the person has widened out into a discussion of their parents, grandparents, the lives they all led, and I’ve come away educated and enthralled by that family’s particular and distinctive story.
Sometimes the most interesting parts of a family’s history are where a surprise is unearthed. The BBC series ‘Who Do you Think You Are?’ features various celebrities finding out about their ancestors - and the twists and turns of their family fortunes over the years, the illegitimate births, the tragic early deaths, the ups and downs of property and fortune. These are the things which define us, which in deep ways help shape the people we are. No wonder so many are so keen to uncover them, and prepared to deal with the sometimes painful realities which might be revealed.
It’s not just about trying to find lost relatives. People do genealogies for other reasons too. Some are looking for evidence of historical family wealth which might be tapped into. For others it is about a kind of moral status: desiring to discover that their personal history involves someone who has achieved great things or overcome great odds, proving themselves to be exceptional. Some pursue family history from a desire to carve out a place for their family in the larger historical picture, some from a sense of responsibility to preserve the past for future generations. [2]
Some, from whatever of these motives or some other, notice how genealogies can be carefully adjusted to suit whatever claims they would like to make for themselves - so an illegitimate line is carefully forgotten, or very hard work is done to tease out a very tenuous link to royalty or wealth.
In biblical times genealogies were important too. And they were similarly treated as stories, parables, to show someone in a certain light. They were written to substantiate claims which people made to help strengthen their status in society. And so, for instance, Caesar Augustus, emperor of Rome at the time Jesus was born, claimed a millennium-old descent from the goddess Venus, who according to legend, protected her son Julius as he escaped the doomed city of Troy and eventually reached Italy, to establish the Julian line. And in the Aenid, the foundational epic of the Roman Empire, the high god Jupiter pronounces that ‘From this noble line shall be born the Trojan Caesar [Augustus], who shall extend his empire to the ocean, his glory to the stars.’ [3]
Augustus’ genealogy showed him to be the adopted son of Julius Caesar, who was regarded as divine, and this permitted Augustus to claim the title ‘Son of God’. [4]
He came to his own - and whenever he did, his people worshipped Augustus, for they knew where he had come from, they had his genealogy in their heads and their hearts.
And so it was with other rulers in those times; they employed genealogies which gave them status as King of the Jews, as messiahs, as Sons of God.
Now when we hear that verse today, ‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him’, we tend to think of Jesus being rejected by the people of Nazareth - why? for they thought they knew his family history and as far as they knew there were no messiahs in it.
We might also think of it in terms of today, Jesus coming to his own people here in the UK, who even now still overwhelmingly describe themselves as Christian (almost 60 per cent at the 2011 census) but who for the most part don’t practice their faith by church attendence. ‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him’ - is it because their idea of Jesus fails to match who the scriptures say he really is, is it because a gap has opened up between the Jesus they think they know through two millenia of Christendom, and the Jesus who the gospel writers portray?
Hidden away in the narratives of Jesus’ birth in Matthew and Luke, usually forgotten in Nativity stories and Christmas sermons full of stars and angels, wise men and shepherds, are two passages which might just prove to be very important to us as we try to find ways to help Jesus’ own people of today to accept him with their eyes newly opened to the reality of who he is. They are genealogies.
Look at this:
Matthew 1.1-17
An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
2 Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, 3and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, 4and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, 5and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, 6and Jesse the father of King David.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah, 7and Solomon the father of Rehoboam, and Rehoboam the father of Abijah, and Abijah the father of Asaph, 8and Asaph the father of Jehoshaphat, and Jehoshaphat the father of Joram, and Joram the father of Uzziah, 9and Uzziah the father of Jotham, and Jotham the father of Ahaz, and Ahaz the father of Hezekiah, 10and Hezekiah the father of Manasseh, and Manasseh the father of Amos, and Amos the father of Josiah, 11and Josiah the father of Jechoniah and his brothers, at the time of the deportation to Babylon.
12 And after the deportation to Babylon: Jechoniah was the father of Salathiel, and Salathiel the father of Zerubbabel, 13and Zerubbabel the father of Abiud, and Abiud the father of Eliakim, and Eliakim the father of Azor, 14and Azor the father of Zadok, and Zadok the father of Achim, and Achim the father of Eliud, 15and Eliud the father of Eleazar, and Eleazar the father of Matthan, and Matthan the father of Jacob, 16and Jacob the father of Joseph the husband of Mary, of whom Jesus was born, who is called the Messiah.
17 So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations.
Right at the very start of his gospel, Matthew gives us Jesus’ family history. And he does it for a very clear reason. In a world where the King of the Jews, Herod Antipas, wielded fierce political and military power, Matthew puts across the heresy, the beautiful, dangerous, divine heresy, that Jesus is descended from Abraham, the founder of the Jewish people, and David, the great King of their tradition, the forerunner of the messiah, so Jesus is the alternative King of the Jews. Matthew’s Jesus challenges the expectations of his day about the character of the One who will bring salvation - as ours might, if we see him that way.
This tells us the story of Jesus’ birth in a way which connects with the story of Herod and the Magi, a story which Matthew, and only Matthew, tells - of a new king born to bring in a new kingdom.
And look at this from Luke:
Luke 3.23-38
23 Jesus was about thirty years old when he began his work. He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph son of Heli, 24son of Matthat, son of Levi, son of Melchi, son of Jannai, son of Joseph, 25son of Mattathias, son of Amos, son of Nahum, son of Esli, son of Naggai, 26son of Maath, son of Mattathias, son of Semein, son of Josech, son of Joda, 27son of Joanan, son of Rhesa, son of Zerubbabel, son of Shealtiel, son of Neri, 28son of Melchi, son of Addi, son of Cosam, son of Elmadam, son of Er, 29son of Joshua, son of Eliezer, son of Jorim, son of Matthat, son of Levi, 30son of Simeon, son of Judah, son of Joseph, son of Jonam, son of Eliakim, 31son of Melea, son of Menna, son of Mattatha, son of Nathan, son of David, 32son of Jesse, son of Obed, son of Boaz, son of Sala, son of Nahshon, 33son of Amminadab, son of Admin, son of Arni, son of Hezron, son of Perez, son of Judah, 34son of Jacob, son of Isaac, son of Abraham, son of Terah, son of Nahor, 35son of Serug, son of Reu, son of Peleg, son of Eber, son of Shelah, 36son of Cainan, son of Arphaxad, son of Shem, son of Noah, son of Lamech, 37son of Methuselah, son of Enoch, son of Jared, son of Mahalaleel, son of Cainan, 38son of Enos, son of Seth, son of Adam, son of God.
You’ll notice that it is a different genealogy from Matthew’s. Luke starts where Matthew finishes: with Jesus and Joseph. And while Matthew’s line begins with Abraham, Luke goes all the way back to Adam, ‘son of God’. In a world where people dare call no-one but the emperor the Son of God, Luke puts across the heresy, the beautiful divine heresy, that Jesus is alternative Son of God. Luke’s Jesus challenges the powers-that-be, the empire of his day - as ours might, if we see him that way.
This tells us the story of Jesus’ birth in a way which connects with the story of the shepherds, and of humble Zechariah and Elizabeth, faithful Simeon and Anna, of modest Mary, all stories which Luke, and only Luke, tells - of God’s new kingdom being born to those on the fringes, on the outside.
These genealogies are not factual lists of carefully researched findings - how could they be, they’re different? We should treat them more like parables - stories which point us towards greater truths, and spend time with them, contemplating what they tell us about Jesus.
Contemplating, perhaps, why Matthew’s genealogy contains four women - an unprecedented thing to do - Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, the wife of Uriah, and Mary. Women who came from outside - four of them Gentiles, one of them, Mary, a poor country girl. Women who in different ways had God intervene in childbirth, and who God used to show his love and purposes to others.
Contemplating what this might say to us today about the role and value of women in our society and others, about God’s deep involvement with the poor and the outsiders in this and every age, about the sorts of people He uses to bring his Kingdom in.
Contemplating, perhaps, what Luke’s genealogy means by this line: ‘He was the son (as was thought) of Joseph’, empathising the connection Jesus had with his father, as one who nurtured him in his early years, while also acknowledging Jesus’ divine birth. Contemplating the value of fatherhood, of parenthood, of living out our responsibilities to others, of our everyday struggle to bring human things and divine things together in our lives, through prayer and faithful service.
Whilst preparing this talk, a vision came to me which I have called Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare. It is this. That at the climax of one of her shows, when the long-lost brother from New Zealand and the family who thought they’d never see him again, make the walk towards each other on the stage, the family turn to each other and say, ‘That’s not him, is it? I don’t recognise him. He hasn’t got the family look’, and turn away and reject him.
The only tears in the TV studio in this scenario would be the deep, wrenching tears of rejection felt by the man who had travelled across the world with great hopes and anticipation in his heart, only to be so publicly and horribly spurned.
Holly Willoughby’s Nightmare is God’s nightmare too.
‘He came to his own, and his own people did not accept him ...’ Imagine how that feels.
‘... But to all who did receive him, he gave power to become children of God.’
Imagine how that feels. And this is the greatest thing to learn from the genealogies of Matthew and Luke. That Jesus is fully bound up with us in human history. That when we accept him, when we embrace him, our names are added to HIS family line. And that, just as we take the characteristics of our parents, our forbears, our ancestors, into our own ways of life, so too God’s Spirit enables us to walk in His way, every day.
This New Year, may we open our eyes afresh to the Jesus who comes to us, may we accept him again, and more keenly, more deeply; and in accepting him, may we know the power which enables us to live as children of God in the world today, and tomorrow.
Notes
[3] Marcus J. Borg and John Dominic Crossan, The First Christmas: What the Gospels Really Teach Us About Jesus's Birth, p.95-98
[4] Wikipedia: Son of God, Imperial titles
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