1 Not Telling the Truth
Hungerford consists of two houses and a humpy in New South Wales, and five houses in Queensland. Characteristically enough, both the pubs are in Queensland. We got a glass of sour yeast at one and paid sixpence for it – we had asked for English ale.
The post-office is in New South Wales, and the police-barracks in Bananaland. The police cannot do anything if there is a row going on across the street in New South Wales, except to send to Brisbane and have an extradition warrant applied for; and they don’t do much if there’s a row in Queensland. Most of the rows are across the border where the pubs are.
At least, I believe that’s how it is, though the man who told me might have been a liar. Another man said he was a liar, but then he might have been a liar himself – a third person said he was one. I heard that there was a fight over it, but the man who told me about the fight might not have been telling the truth.
(Henry Lawson, “Hungerford,” first published in While the Billy Boils in 1896; quoted here from The Penguin Book of Henry Lawson Short Stories, p. 46)
Do you ever feel a bit like Henry Lawson did when he visited Hungerford back in 1892 — everyone is or could be out to deceive you? If it’s not advertisements trying to get you to spend money you can’t afford on products you don’t need and don’t work nearly as well as they are made out to do, then its politicians luring your vote with policies that will probably never be put into practice and promises of job security that are not worth the paper they are written on. When we can’t seem to have confidence in people even in the highest places, we can easily become cynical.
If I was to ask you what part of the Bible might help us here, I doubt if anyone would suggest the list of generations in Matthew chapter 1. How can a family tree help? How can 42 foreign names of people who died thousands of years ago be of any assistance at all? Let’s have a look at the chapter and see.
2 Who Do You Think You Are?
Verse 1 of chapter 1 calls these lists the “genealogy (or “the family tree) of Jesus.” For the writer Matthew and his audience these “generations” were very important. For them they were like an episode of the documentary TV show Who Do You Think You Are? all about Jesus!
Matthew makes this point again and again in chapter 1 as we can see if we look at slightly different translation which shows the connected words Matthew used:
- 1 The book of the genesis [NRSV translation = “birth”] of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham
- 2 Abraham generated [NRSV = “was the father of”] Isaac, and Isaac generated Jacob, etc.
- 16 Jacob generated Joseph, Mary’s husband, the Mary who generated Jesus
- 17 There were fourteen generations from Abraham to David, etc.
- 18 Now the genesis of Jesus the Messiah took place in this way.
So “the genealogy of Jesus” is important. Why? Who does Matthew think Jesus is?
In Tasmania many people are proud of the fact that they have what is often called “convict ancestry.” That means they are related to someone who was transported to Tasmania as a convict. The point here is not that we have ancestors— everybody has them. It is who our ancestors are that matters, and what that means for who we think we are! So, who were Jesus’ ancestors? Matthew’s Gospel says in chapter 1, verse 17:
Matthew 1: 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.
Jesus family tree puts him in “the big picture” of the Bible. We are told that one of Jesus’ ancestors was David and another was Abraham — both very important figures in the history of the people of God recorded in the Old Testament. Why? Because they both received promises from God!
God made promises to Abraham, the father of God’s people, record in Genesis, chapter 12. And God made promises to David, the king of God’s people, recorded in the second book of Samuel, chapter 7. Matthew’s linking of Jesus with descent from David is especially important because it leaves no doubt about what he is claiming for Jesus: he is the Messiah or Christ, the descendant of David chosen to save God’s people and to establish God’s kingdom!
3 A Motley Crew
You are probably still thinking that the first line tells me that Jesus was related to Abraham and David so why include all these other names? Who are all these people, and who cares anyway? To tell the truth they are quite a motley crew:
- They include men and women.
- Most of them are Israelites, but some are foreigners, like us.
- Some of the MEN were kings. Some of those kings are remembered in the Bible as good rulers, commended by God; others were judged evil and guilty of unspeakable actions. Others were less distinguished in the eyes of the world: nomads (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob); and a construction worker (Joseph “the husband of Mary”).
- The WOMEN included a faithful Israelite (Mary “of whom Jesus was born”); others were faithful foreigners (Ruth, and the prostitute Rahab); another was an Israelite adulteress (“the wife of Uriah”).
So that’s an idea of who they are, but who cares? Well for a start they are a “motley crew” like us — although we are probably not quite as motley as they are! But there are more important reasons than that for beginning Matthew’s Gospel with this list of “generations.”
4 Tell Me About the Good Old Days
Over the summer holidays of my first year at university I worked repairing boundary fences on a cattle property a few miles from home. The radio was always going, but unfortunately in those days there was only one commercial radio station and at that time they were going through an infatuation with country music. They also had a nasty habit of repeating certain songs very regularly. Very regularly!
I’m positive that at least twice a day for a month or more they played a song by the American mother and daughter duo The Judds called “Grandpa, Tell Me about the Good Old Days.” I didn’t mind the song even though its lyrics were written through a pair of rose-coloured glasses. In the song The Judds looked back on “the Good Old Days” when, in their words:
A promise was really something people kept
Not just something they would say and then forget
I personally doubt whether people were really as honest in the so-called “good old days” as they like to think in that song — the Bible doesn’t seem to think they were — but I’m sure there are often times when all of us wished that a promise really was like that.
That’s where I think Matthew’s list of generations comes in. The list of generations is not there because Matthew wanted to prove to us that he could count to 14 three times! Let me share with you a few of the reasons I believe it is in the Gospel at the very beginning of the New Testament,
(1) The list of generations reminds us that for God a promise is not something God just says and then forgets! These generations show us that while God sometimes works in strange and often unexpected ways to fulfill God’s promises, God is always faithful in keeping those promises. God’s promises — even when they seem to us to be delayed for a long time — have not been forgotten.
Around 800 years passed between Abraham and David; another 400 from David Jehoiachin; and around 600 from Jehoiachin to Jesus! This might be a reminder to us that we should not expect the fulfillment of God’s promises to fit our time schedule.
(2) The people in the list of generations put flesh and blood on the fulfillment of God’s promises, showing how God worked patiently through many, many generations — some better and some worse —preserving the descendants of Abraham and David until the birth of Jesus.
(3) The list of generations reminds us that Jesus’ ministry was the fulfillment of the promises made long ago to David, and even longer ago to Abraham. Even though they were centuries old they were still very much in God’s mind — despite human efforts to derail them (which we see throughout the Old Testament).
(4) In the list of generations, Jesus’ ministry is put into the “big picture” of God’s history of salvation. These names connect the events of the first book of the New Testament to the events of the Old Testament and show us that it is the same God at work in the New Testament as in the Old Testament.
- The Old Testament teaches that God is both willing and able to save people and it also contains God’s promises to send his Messiah.
- The New Testament Gospels record the birth, death and resurrection of Jesus the Messiah.
- The New Testament letters teach us what Jesus the Messiah means for the life of the Christian community, also now called the “church.”
(5) Finally, and most importantly for Christians, the list of generations is our family tree, it is our genealogy, it is our ancestry, it is our heritage! I’m not sure how many generations it is from Abraham and David and Jesus the Messiah to St Luke’s, Taroona, but, although we are not physically descended from Jesus, as the apostle Paul says in his letter to the Galatians, chapter 3:
Galatians 3: 6–7
Just as Abraham “believed God, and it was reckoned to him as righteousness,” so, you see, those who believe are the descendants of Abraham.
And, again in his letter to the Romans, chapter 9:
Romans 9: 8
it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants.
5 A Promise Is Not Something God Forgets!
There are many things that make life uncertain today, not just false advertising and broken political promises. Alot happens in a generation in our modern world. Alot more in the 3 generations or 4 we now live on average (as those of us in this congregation who have lived for 3 or 4 generations can surely tell us!). A generation ago, there was no social media, no Zoom meetings, no online GP consultations, no Artificial Intelligence!
We could probably go on all morning coming up with things that didn’t exist a generation ago. This rapidly changing world brings with it many uncertainties for those who call themselves Christians, not just for those who don’t. But we do get some help from Matthew’s three lists of 14 ancestors of Jesus.
We will not be sheltered from change in the church. What is certain is who Jesus is! Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promises — all of them, especially those made to Abraham and David. Time and technology do not change God’s mind or what God has done or what God will do.
I believe the first Christians would have found this list with its long repetition of names very reassuring. And I find it very “reassuring repetition,” if I can use that expression (I can’t remember who I heard it from). The list says to me that if God could work faithfully to fulfill his promises through so many generations, then how much more can I trust God to be faithful to God’s promise to me and my generation.
The birth of “Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham” (verse 1), is the proof that for God a promise is not just something that God makes and then forgets!