Is life a comedy or a tragedy? Are we the hero or the victim? Or maybe the villain? Is the world descending into chaos and dystopia or are we on a path of ever-increasing prosperity and progress? The stories we tell orient us to our place in the world and our role in the story.
The Bible tells the story of a loving God and a messy people. There is a beginning and an end. Major themes of creation, redemption, and sanctification trace the arc of this grand narrative. And Jesus Christ is the center of it all – the great hero of the story who comes incognito to rescue and redeem his broken creation.
Invocation
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Invitation
O God, you are the beginning, the middle, and the end. You are all in all. Lead me. Help me. Forgive me. Keep me from wandering and weariness. Keep my love ready and willing to serve You by serving others. Praise and honor be to You, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, One God now and forever. Amen.
Confession
O God, how can I believe without your help. I am filled with doubt. “What about . . . ?” “Is it really true?” “How do I really know you’re there? That you’re listening? That you care about me?” I confess with honesty all my fear and disbelief. Spirit of the Living God, fall afresh on me. Melt me. Mold me. Fill me. Use me. I believe; help my unbelief.
Word: Matthew 1:1-7
“The book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the son of David, the son of Abraham.
Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Ram, and Ram the father of Amminadab, and Amminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of David the king.
And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah…”
Meditation: Love for Extraordinary Women by Megan Roegner
There are four women identified in Matthew’s genealogy of Jesus. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba, “the wife of Uriah.” I love this list of women because they are all, in their own ways, outliers of what women in their time and place were expected to be.
Tamar tried doing everything right, but the men in her life kept letting her down. When her husband, Er, the firstborn son of Judah is “put to death” (Genesis 38:7) by the Lord for his own wickedness, Judah and his other sons do not fulfill their obligation to provide her with a son through levirate marriage. This is an injustice in a patriarchal society in which women depended upon their relationships with men to provide them with security and respect. So Tamar disguises herself as a prostitute, tricking Judah himself into providing her with a son. When Judah discovers his widowed daughter in law is pregnant, he wants to burn her for what he believes is her sexual immorality, but when she reveals the deception, he admits, “She is more righteous than I” (38:26).
Rahab, a prostitute in the city of Jericho, hides Israelite spies from her king because she believes “ the Lord your God, he is God in the heavens above and on the earth beneath” (Joshua 2:11). When her actions help Jericho fall to the Israelites, she and her family are welcomed into the Israelite community. She marries an Israelite named Salmon and is the mother of Boaz. Perhaps it is in part his mother’s story that compels Boaz to treat Ruth, another outsider who commits herself to the Lord, with such compassion and respect.
I find it interesting that Bathsheba is identified as “Uriah’s wife.” By the time she has given birth to Solomon, she has already been married to David for quite some time as Solomon’s conception occurs after the punishing death of the son conceived when Bathsheba was still married to Uriah. It’s impossible to know whether Bathsheba even wanted to have a relationship with David. All we know from 2 Samuel 11 is that David saw her, coveted her, and sent messengers to bring her to him. He was the most powerful man in Israel, and Bathsheba’s husband was not there to protect her. Did she have any choice? After David arranges for Uriah’s death because of Bathsheba’s pregnancy, the text says, “she lamented over her husband…But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord” (2 Samuel 11:26-27).
And of course, there’s Ruth. Unlike the other women, there is no theme of sexual scandal in Ruth’s story, but she is a cultural outlier, a woman from Moab, one of Israel’s chief enemies and rivals.
The story of Jesus’s lineage is filled with generations of silent and unseen women, but these are the women, women in the margins, who receive our attention. Women from other nations. Women in need of justice. Women who are hurt and vulnerable yet still strong. These women show us that God acts in unexpected places, in unexpected people doing unexpected things. These women are testaments of our need for a Redeemer to save us from those who would harm us and to save us from ourselves. These women are testaments that our Redeemer comes for all.
Redeemer, thank you for working in unexpected places. Thank you for working in me. Give me strength to do what’s right even when it’s hard. Give me comfort when I am hurt. Give me courage to be a voice for justice. Amen.
Benediction
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Amen. (Rom. 15:13)
Benediction
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope. Amen. (Rom. 15:13)